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LGP 82 - Micallef Green
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This week, we try out the Micallef Green!
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Transcript
Episode Introduction and Featured Cigar
00:00:00
Speaker
hey everybody welcome back to let's get pairing this is episode number 82 today we're smoking the mccallif green toro uh so grab yourself as a cigar grab yourself a drink man i messed that up already um we're gonna be smoking the mccallif green toro So, ah yeah, we'll tell you all about it when we get back. That was the part that I missed that I forgot to do last time.
00:00:25
Speaker
um We'll tell you all about it, tell you what we're pairing, get into all the details. ah But for now, grab yourself drink, grab yourself a cigar. Let's get pairing.
00:00:50
Speaker
And we're back. Welcome, everybody. This is Let's Get Pairing, episode number 82. um I'm your host, Tripp, here in LGP South Studios. With me, as always, is my wonderful co-host with the mohos from the Dungeon of Doom.
00:01:05
Speaker
Dennis. Dennis, how you doing?
00:01:11
Speaker
Did we lose, Dennis? I was muted. Oh, okay. I was like... what I don't know what happened. i I looked at that tab a minute ago when you were there, and then suddenly i didn't hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm mohosting really hard, apparently, because I forgot to turn off my mute.
00:01:27
Speaker
Hey, we took a week off, man. That rust builds up quick, huh? it's It's something, man. It's the fermented juices that kind of build up in your system, and you've got to fix Exactly. You've got flush them out.
00:01:43
Speaker
All right, so today...
McAuliffe Color Series and Growth Strategy
00:01:45
Speaker
We are smoking McAuliffe green in the Toro size. There's a couple different sizes. um So the McAuliffe color series started in, man, I should have put it in my notes, but I don't know what year it started. I think it was 2022, if I remember correctly. But anyway, 2025's edition in the fall was the green label.
00:02:07
Speaker
um Green label joined the black, blue, purple, and red labels, each of which has a different wrapper. They have since added the white label.
00:02:19
Speaker
I think that's the only one that's been added. They just announced, I actually smoked it before it was announced, the ah Multicolor, which is a It's cool. it's So it's a similar band to these, but it's got kind of like that prismatic rainbow kind of logo foil, rather.
00:02:39
Speaker
um And that is actually... I think it's a great... strategy for this one um the multicolor is the off cuts from all of the other color series so they collect all the picadura they blend a nice little mixed filler cigar um that gets you a little bit of everything from that from the mccallif color series and i smoked it the other day and it was fantastic um a lot better than i expected to be especially for five bucks Five bucks feels like a lot for a mixed filler cigar, but it was ah one of the better mixed filler cigars I've had and recent memory.
00:03:17
Speaker
like it I haven't had it, haven't had it but i'm I'm really excited to try it. And to your point, man, I think it's it's really exciting that they're doing that. And I have become a really quick fan of McAuliffe cigars.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, and... most You know, last two years. Yeah, McAuliffe has changed a lot in the last few years, too. They, um... When they launched... Most people probably don't even remember this because they were a very small brand, but we worked with them when they were when they had first launched.
00:03:44
Speaker
um and they kind of took over a factory and rebranded a bunch of the cigars from that factory with the McAuliffe logo. They were good cigars, but they had a bunch of different names. It was kind of disjointed.
00:03:58
Speaker
um i feel like with the color series is where McAuliffe has like hit the nail on the head and really built themselves ah like a core audience, which is exactly what what you need to survive is a cigar brand.
00:04:11
Speaker
um And, I mean, we've all everyone on the Coop team has been pretty impressed with the McAuliffe in the last few years. ah The Color Series, the a feel like there's another one that I'm forgetting, but i'm I have a terrible memory. um The Color Series is great because it's kind of their they're mid mid-price cigar. Not exactly a budget cigar, but it's not like a super premium or anything like that.
00:04:40
Speaker
This one that we're smoking is the Green Label. Retails for $9. I do have to say, the Green, when I was looking at it in my humidor, I was kind of like, I don't know about the Green. Just kind of, I don't know if I love it.
00:04:54
Speaker
But then seeing it like in person, it looks fantastic. like it's You can't tell on camera at all, but it's like a dark British british racing green, I would call it.
00:05:05
Speaker
But it's a matte finish. The matte finish next to that like that satin gold looks really good. um I hadn't noticed that. and Anytime I've smoked one of these before, it looks great.
00:05:17
Speaker
um So, not a whole lot of details to go over. There's not a whole story behind the McAuliffe color series that they're trying to tell you. They're just trying to give you a good cigar um and give you something interesting.
00:05:30
Speaker
The wrapper on this one is Brazilian Modafina. Binder is Mexican San Andres Negro. And wrapper is Nicaragua. Rapper? Put wrapper in my notes. Pillars are all Nicaraguan.
00:05:43
Speaker
glad I caught that instead of just rolling with it. We were smoking the 6x52
Flavor Profile and Pricing of McAuliffe Green Toro
00:05:47
Speaker
Toro. As I mentioned, these are about $9, which is a a solid price these days for a you know a long filler cigar. it's I feel like it's pretty decent. What are you thinking on the flavor profile or flavor notes right now, Dennis?
00:06:02
Speaker
I just lit mine, so I'm getting pretty much everything off the light. um um i really think I need to give it a little bit of time to develop because it's there's a lot going on, and I can't quite put my my my finger on it my tongue on it, my mind on it.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's not quite there for me in terms of flavor. I'm not sure what's going on, but I really like it. That's what I can tell you I really like it. There's a lot of spice that I really like on this. There's particular dryness on the back of the palate that, to me, when i when I get that off the light, I know that generally halfway through the cigar I'm going to really enjoy it because that develops as it warms up, as it gets a little bit more wet.
00:06:44
Speaker
it It turns into like a fuller flavor. And I think this one is is really getting there, and I'm excited because I've enjoyed so many McAuliffe cigars. I've never had the green.
00:06:56
Speaker
And so for me coming into this, I'm kind of maybe a little bit biased because I'm very jazzed about it. And i maybe I have higher hopes than most going into it just because I've enjoyed so many other McAuliffe cigars.
00:07:11
Speaker
And again, for $9, man, it's a great price point. And if this cigar hits for us tonight, I think we can say really this is going to be an incredible thing because today's world, when talk about cigars, premium cigars, you end up going in that like, you know,
00:07:29
Speaker
$12 to $14 range is what most of us smoke. Yeah. So $9, if it does well, that's a huge, huge seller. Yeah. um As... If you've ever seen a shop that carries McAuliffe, they move a lot of these. Like, this this color series is is selling bonkers for them.
00:07:52
Speaker
um Like, they're they're reasonably priced, they're solid cigars, and... and you know, they're, they hit the spot. And when you have that combination, you can't not, it's hard not to have a successful cigar.
00:08:07
Speaker
Um, so McAuliffe has kind of a cult following these days. My,
McAuliffe's Challenge Coins and Fan Engagement
00:08:10
Speaker
uh, so at the, I mentioned I smoked the multicolor. I got that from Amanda McAuliffe at the great smoke a couple weeks ago at the great smoke.
00:08:19
Speaker
Uh, I had mentioned, I brought my father-in-law along with me and uh, we were standing there talking to i think we were talking to nick perdomo after we had talked to amanda and he said what is that and he pointed to the challenge coins that they had at the mccallif booth that they were they're handing out to a couple people and i was telling him that it's a challenge coin he was he was like think he asked is that a cover and i was like what And it's he's a poker player, so it's like if you play poker, I guess like you put your you're like a challenge coin or something down on top of your your key your cards, like a card keeper kind of thing.
00:09:00
Speaker
um But anyway... uh i told them that it was a challenge coin and it's like a thing where if you're a big fan of their cigars you can get one of these coins and it's you know it's that's explain the whole challenge coin thing um but i remember when they first came out with those challenge coins like they could not make enough of them because people loved mccallif and they have really built a huge following but good for them they're making solid cigars all right so as for the flavor for me let me let me try it again
00:09:31
Speaker
just to refresh my memory because I talked for a few minutes and all my ah thoughts fell out. And while you do that, I'm going to say that there is a bit of power that comes through that is that bottom of the throat intensity, the power from a full body cigar we normally get off the first light. And for me, I'm getting a lot of that intensity. Spice as well, of course, but also I'm curious. Tell us what do you think.
00:09:58
Speaker
All right. So I'm getting... ah A lot of black pepper, as you mentioned. Very, like very, like, black pepper forward on the tongue, tip of the tongue, kind of stingy, kind of black pepper, you know?
00:10:09
Speaker
A little bit of a lighter dry earth. More sandy, kind of. ah think of Think of how sand smells compared to how, like, fresh, killed dirt smells.
00:10:26
Speaker
um This is more on the sandier side. That's wild. you That description of the sand thing, absolutely. Wholeheartedly agreed. i get it. thats I'm just trying to turn flavors into words here, man.
00:10:40
Speaker
And it's hard. To be fair, it's its's not easy, right? um Then there's also a lot of like baking spice. Specifically, i'd I'd call it cinnamon and clove. that they're like They're very present on the palate.
00:10:54
Speaker
Then there's just a little bit of... like
00:11:00
Speaker
Sweetness, sugar, I guess. so go Maybe caramelly kind of sweetness.
00:11:10
Speaker
And like that, we always talk about this note. Like the the the the peanut skin, that red skin that's on peanuts yeah has that like dryness. You always call it astringency.
00:11:24
Speaker
And it's this has that. like ah And that little bit of salt that's on there. um I'm really enjoying this so far. I'm excited to see how it pairs because this is the first time I've smoked the green as well. I've smoked a ton of the blacks and the reds and the a blues.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, blacks, reds, and blues are the ones I've smoked the most. I think I have a purple. if I'm not sure if I've smoked one. um I haven't smoked the white yet, but I've been hearing really good things about it. A lot of people love it, including Cigar Hoop Coalition member Ben Lee.
00:11:57
Speaker
Ben Bullshark Lee, rather. um um he's white yeah He's been a big fan of the white lately. i've never I've never had that. Mostly blacks for me. I've had maybe one or two of the reds. But they've been the series has been really cool. I think they've for me at least, that for my palate, they've been really nice.
00:12:15
Speaker
yeah I've liked them a lot. And again, going back to price point for value, I thought the value is fantastic. Construction on this green is really nice. the The color of the band, again, to your point, on video, it's not, it doesn't give it justice. It looks so much nicer in person.
00:12:33
Speaker
It's kind of a ah darker green in person. It looks more bright and saturated on camera. um And you said price point. Like, one of the things I noticed when we were talking to Amanda is that...
00:12:46
Speaker
And i feel like this is bonkers, man. Like at the Great Smoke, they have deals. So every table that's there, they have box deals. So they have, you know, some companies do one or two boxes and there'll be, we have these two cigars and they bring, i don't know, 50 boxes of each or whatever.
00:13:04
Speaker
And they're at a discount. A box of these was like, think it was 174
00:13:13
Speaker
which is a really good deal, i feel like. Yeah, man. For 20 or 25, I think it's 20. 20 count box of these Tauros.
00:13:24
Speaker
I feel like that's pretty solid. And i'm I'm impressed with this cigar ring. Like we were saying before, the Blacks have have you know been, ah whenever I see them, like I'll grab some because I've been a big fan of those.
00:13:37
Speaker
I'm really impressed with this because I don't usually like Brazilian Modafina all that much. Not that I usually hate it, but it's it usually doesn't excite me. And this, I feel like, is it's very good.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, the you know, the Modafina is really interesting because it's not... as a prominent flavor, if it's the main flavor, it's a little bit rough to get into. But if it's in in addition to something else, I think it works really well. So Montefino is one of those things that you have to blend it the right way.
00:14:07
Speaker
You can't just throw it in. Yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's got to have just the right, the right,
00:14:17
Speaker
balance to it i guess and i think for this one adding all of like there's a lot of very spicy tobaccos in the filler i feel like that's really helping out with this brazilian modifina i was trying to remember if it was a 20 or 25 count box they are 25 count boxes so like 174 that that was a pretty good deal that they were given it at the uh the great smoke anyway What's up to Sam? He's out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean right now. My wife will be out there with you in a couple days.
00:14:47
Speaker
um She's leaving on a cruise tomorrow with her mom. Oh, he's cruising. Yeah, baby. He said he had to go to the comedy show. So he's he's heading out to the comedy show right now on the on the ship, which is awesome.
00:15:01
Speaker
He's myself with a little pairing there, um which we will get into right about now. um let's Let's do some some pairing here.
Introduction to Featured Breweries and Craft Beers
00:15:11
Speaker
That's what the show's all about, baby.
00:15:13
Speaker
um All right, my first beverage comes to me from Three Daughters Brewing Company. ah This was, I'll show you the the can here. This is Beach Blonde Ale from Three Daughters Brewing.
00:15:25
Speaker
ah They were founded in 2013 in St. Petersburg, Florida. For anybody who doesn't know, St. Petersburg is distinctly its own city. They get real mad if you call them Tampa, but it's basically a suburb of Tampa. Like, it's a city, but it's it's um it's considered, it's part of the Tampa metropolitan area.
00:15:47
Speaker
um So it was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida by Mike Harding and his wife, Lee. um Basically, they invested in a Tampa Bay restaurant. and As they were running the restaurant, they were really enjoying it. They they kind of were becoming experts and stuff like that.
00:16:06
Speaker
ah Mike was working with his head chef, Ty Weaver, on an updated recipe for their fish and chips. So they were making beer-battered fish, and he kind of had the thought like, I wonder if the quality of beer makes a difference, because you know we' they were probably using Budweiser, Bud Light, something like that, whatever's cheapest.
00:16:27
Speaker
Probably even something cheaper than that. I don't know. i don't know I don't know beer prices, but it's probably something cheap, PBR or something like that. And he thought, I wonder if the quality of beer matters.
00:16:38
Speaker
So we did some experimenting, realized that he could taste the difference between nice beer and cheap beer in the the fish batter. So he said, let's let's turn turn the volume up a little bit. you know turn the Turn the heat up, I guess, is the better way to put it.
00:16:56
Speaker
um We're going to make our own beer just for our beer batter. And so him and his head chef started learning about homebrewing and but pretty quickly realized, like, wow, this is a lot like cooking.
00:17:13
Speaker
um Composing a dish is very similar to ah composing the flavors that go into a beer. We could probably do that. um So they they started producing beer.
00:17:24
Speaker
They were very happy with what they ended up with for the beer batter. um So they released their lager and just put it on tap the in the restaurant and figured if people want to buy whatever beer we don't use in our beer batter, then sure.
00:17:41
Speaker
It ended up outselling every other beer they had in the restaurant within a couple of months. So they kind of realized, hey, we might be on to something here. As the beer grew in popularity, they kind of started thinking, maybe we should actually start brewing this stuff, like, at scale. Because, again, they were brewing, like, i don't know, probably 10 or 15 gallons every couple weeks.
00:18:05
Speaker
It wasn't like they were brewing a ton of it, but they were brewing just enough that they could have it on tap most of the time. um So they started looking for a more advanced brewing system that would fit in the restaurant.
00:18:15
Speaker
um Unfortunately or fortunately for them, they ended up finding a 30-barrel brewing system, which would take up as much space as their entire dining room.
00:18:27
Speaker
um So they were like, well... <unk> I'm assuming it was a good price that they got, but they decided to open a small tap room nearby instead of ah blowing out their entire dining room so that they could brew beer.
00:18:43
Speaker
And that was ah that was kind of the creation of Three Daughters Brewing. The name Three Daughters Brewing comes from um apparently when they were working on things like ah financing the new location and ah building out that 30-barrel brew house.
00:19:04
Speaker
His wife, Lee, who is, again, the co-founder of the company, said, Like, she was stressing out about the money, right? And she started thinking, I wonder how many beers, like, specifically, how what's the number of beers that we need to sell to put all three of our daughters through college?
00:19:23
Speaker
And Mike said, that's the name. We're calling a Three Daughters. So they did. They've been around about 12 years now. 13, guess. Uh... ah They are one of the biggest independent breweries in Florida now. They've expanded into canned cocktails and cider and seltzer and energy drinks and even whiskey.
00:19:44
Speaker
Their whiskey barrels, I thought this was just really cool because, again, i I kind of do a deep dive and just poke around, learn what I can about whatever company I'm going to be talking about. Their whiskey barrels...
00:19:58
Speaker
are stored on the, as part of the stage backdrop. They have a live stage at their main location in St. Pete. And so every band that plays you know, their their drummer or guitarist or their amps or whatever are in front of a stack of whiskey barrels.
00:20:16
Speaker
That's kind of part of the backdrop. And then they empty those whiskey barrels out into bottles and you could buy it. So every every bottle of whiskey has has been on stage with with whoever's played there. I looked it up and it's not like they're having, ah you know, Slayer and Metallica playing there, but they have some local stuff that, you know, local music is good music too.
00:20:36
Speaker
which I think is a ah very neat ah kind of touch and reminds me blackened whiskey um to a much less scientific degree because we know how much thought they put into blackened whiskey. This is more just stick the barrels there.
00:20:51
Speaker
They'll vibrate for a while, and then we'll dump them into into bottles. All right. As I mentioned before, I'm drinking their flagship Beach Blonde Ale. You can see it's that's got some sunglasses, the hair blowing.
00:21:06
Speaker
um This is just a classic American Blond Ale. 5% ABV, 24 IBUs. Doesn't look like anything special here. But i've I've been a big fan of this. It is, I should mention, as you can see, unfiltered.
00:21:20
Speaker
You'll love to see it. Yeah, it's I mean, it's not quite chunky, but it's it's also not quite clear. You can't quite actually see through it. You got some bits in there.
00:21:31
Speaker
There's definitely some bits. There is some stuff floating in this one. ah But, you know, that's not a bad thing. That's where all the flavor lives.
00:21:39
Speaker
So I'm to take a couple sips of this. I'll let you tell us what you've got up first. Take it away, Dennis. Man, my so my first pairing tonight is a brewery that I think you've actually had. i believe you've had this particular beer from them.
00:21:56
Speaker
This comes from Duclaw Brewing Company. And, ah you know, founded in 1996 in Bel Air, Maryland by Dave Benfield.
00:22:08
Speaker
And it's called the Unicorn Farts After Dark. Let me show you the can. And I can tell you a little bit more about it. i actually crushed the can, unfortunately. Here we go. The Pastryarchy.
00:22:19
Speaker
I love the Pastryarchy series, man. Unicorn Farts After Dark. It's a great series. And now, so Unicorn Farts After Dark, this is a glittered stout. It has edible glitter in it. it's It's really interesting. And when you talk about this particular brewery, they came into a really unique place when it comes to the East Coast brewing scene.
00:22:40
Speaker
kind of what you would call like the second wave of American craft beer brewing, where you had in the early days, kind of when you and I were coming up in the beer scene and starting to drink things, we had craft beer.
00:22:52
Speaker
And then that evolved into the second wave, which was we're going to get down into the weeds. We're going to really unique things. We're going to kind of push the limits of what this this style means, the you know what we can do with beer.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, when when we got into it, it was the – different It was the hops arms race, right? Like there were stouts and barrel aged stouts. There were, there was a sour here and there, but almost everything was just IPAs, right? Like, and it was just, it was just, we're releasing a double IPA this week. and the guy down the street is releasing a triple and the guy down that street from there releasing a quadruple. Everybody's just getting as crazy as they can with the hops and putting the IBU numbers on trying to see how high they could get that number.
00:23:37
Speaker
Which was fun. I love those those kind of beers still to this day. um That was the era that Stone excelled in. Stone Brewing Company excelled in that era. couple other breweries excelled in that area.
00:23:50
Speaker
And really it was kind of a period that was defined by this sort of reaction against mass-produced lagers and flavorless beers. Exactly. And these root pubs were coming up and and they were doing experimental stuff.
00:24:05
Speaker
And they were getting the community involved. And they were talking to people, and they were saying, hey, what do you think is cool? What do you like? What do you want to see? And so this wave reflected this broader focus in the industry on kind of reclaiming, I guess, this old heritage of brewing, but also with the new age industry.
00:24:24
Speaker
In the times, if you will. We do fun brewing stuff, but we want to bring it to the times. We want to be able to talk about it in a way that the people today get it.
00:24:34
Speaker
So the 2000s and then 2010s kind of adapted into that eventually shifted into this new era of really unique beers.
00:24:45
Speaker
Different beers maybe. Yeah. To me, it kind of went from how bold and intense can we make this beer to how interesting can we make this beer?
00:24:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So that was the second wave. Second wave was like, hey, we're going different stuff. The third wave is what we experienced with this hop revolution that you talk about the hop hop arms race. And eventually, the now in today's world, almost like the fourth wave, I guess some people call it, which is the really interesting adjunct stuff, the kind of different, unique maximalist, dare I say, maximalist. novel That's a good word for it.
00:25:28
Speaker
They went, you know, full speed on all this stuff. And so this one kind of full speed because it has this glitter. But also the base beer is really good. and It's built in that old school style, but it's built for a new demographic.
00:25:42
Speaker
um You know, so technically it's kind of an interesting thing to talk about. Now, Duclaw was acquired by River Horse Brewing Company in 2023, which is, i think, I think is a good thing because I've been a big fan of River Horse for a long time and I think it made sense.
00:26:02
Speaker
It gave them a chance to expand their reach and get distribution out to other states and get you know their beer out to other states and have people talking about it. i mean i've never saw time I've never seen a beer from River Horse, but I see Duclaw stuff down here pretty often.
00:26:17
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I don't know if River Horse is down Florida. But I guess what happened with River Horse is that Duclaw stuff got off of the East Coast and was able to go into other parts of the U.S. and and move closer west, which is, you know, it's quite cool. I think it's fun. And again, for a brewery in today's world, most breweries, they start, people are really excited, you know, they're they're enthusiastic.
00:26:45
Speaker
And unfortunately, they just don't hit it, whether that's a distribution thing, whether that's a a flavor thing. um It's a mix of different things that requires a brewery to be successful. And so it's really, really hard when you can partner with somebody and have that access. And look at like Friem. Friem is a great example because they have their club and you live in Florida. Friem's out west.
00:27:09
Speaker
You can get Frame stuff, and you can join the club and get rare stuff from Frame.
00:27:16
Speaker
That's kind of like, that's where we're going, man. it's that can be Again, it's community-driven. This exclusive community of people that really want to try this stuff, that are willing to sign up and willing to wait and willing to hear about what's going on and are pushing. Now it's different. It's not like retailers back then.
00:27:33
Speaker
You went to your retailer, whatever they had is what you drank. Now when you go to a retailer, you say, hey, are you getting this? No? Okay. We'll write this down. And they realize if enough people ask about it, they're going to figure out, well, how do I get this to my people?
00:27:48
Speaker
They'll want it. And so it's strengthening the connection between retailers and consumers in a way that we're kind of seeing, in a sense, I think, to a little bit in the cigar industry.
00:28:00
Speaker
Where consumers can walk into a cigar shop and they can say, hey, do you guys have this? No. Okay, well, are you considering getting it? How do I get this cigar? This is what I'm excited about. And if if enough people ask about it, a retailer, if they're a good retailer, are going to say, let me look into this.
00:28:17
Speaker
People are asking about it. What is this all about? How do I get my hands on this so I can share it with people? So... It's different than the the old tradition classic of what we have is what we have, man.
00:28:30
Speaker
Those are the facings. go and Go in the humidor, pick up whatever we got. We got 10 facings, fine. That's it. Now it's different. Now it's an exchange between consumer and retailer, whereas in the past, I think it was between just the retailer and the manufacturer.
00:28:48
Speaker
It was kind of a cool thing. And I've noticed this between specifically beer. Spirits are little bit different because they have a longer history. They have kind of a little bit more established community. But with beer and cigars, especially when you release a new cigar or you release like McAuliffe has the color series, this is kind of a new thing.
00:29:06
Speaker
They're trying to get it out into the people's hands and you want your retailers to support you. Yeah. And the best way to support you is by word of mouth, right? Consumers are going to hey, man, you have this color series thing.
00:29:18
Speaker
No? Okay, well, let me know when you're gonna get it. I'm going to come in I'll buy a bunch of shit.
00:29:23
Speaker
So, you know, it's kind of leveling the playing field, which is really cool. I'm excited about this brewery, and unfortunately, I'd love to show you the the glitter, but it has glitter, I promise you.
00:29:39
Speaker
It's very sparkly. Even in person, it's very hard to to, like, get a good look at that glitter. Yeah. But it's a cool beer, and the Pastryarchy Series has been a a staple for Duclaw Brewing for a long time because they're they're just kind of pushing that edge.
00:29:58
Speaker
And they're pushing the edge to the people that are really interested in exploring that. Like you and i they go, hey, what's what's what's cool and weird and exciting? And it may not be a great beer, but the fact that they're pushing it out, I think, is it' just really cool and exciting.
00:30:16
Speaker
It's different than, hey I'm going to make a beer and sell a bunch of shit. We're going pay our bills. That's it. I mean, it's one of those that's like a silly, fun beer, but it's also just solid.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's silly fun, but there are enough people that are interested in this thing that they want to see what what they can produce, what they can do with it. And, you know, I think they really hit it on the head with this particular stout.
00:30:43
Speaker
with Again, with a lot of beers. I love a lot of beers from them. And the glitter thing, you know, I only buy the glitter beers because I think it's interesting. It's not because I desire the flavor of glitter.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. It's not like that. I mean, there is no flavor of glitter. Exactly. Yes. There's not much there. no All right. So this Beach Blonde. um And this this is a great beer.
00:31:13
Speaker
I hadn't really had this particular beer from them. I'd have had a couple of their IPAs. um And I don't know, some lager or something. i They had some lager on tap somewhere. I think it was their key lime lager that I've had before.
00:31:31
Speaker
um But this one's like really solid. It's very easy drinking. as any Blondale is. Like, you know, Blondale's a very approachable style. This one, to me, has a just a a hint more sweetness than most Blondales, a little bit more of a lemony kind of citrus note, and then...
00:31:54
Speaker
a definite step up in the hops. So this is like approaching American Pale Ale, almost. um If it wasn't for kind of that sweetness and the fact that it's unfiltered, um it would be a little closer.
00:32:08
Speaker
in an American Pale Ale light. um But... I think because it's so well-rounded, it qualifies more as a blonde. um But it's it's working really well with the flavors of this cigar. It is a little um overpowered, I think, by the spice level of this cigar. This is a pretty spicy cigar, as we talked about earlier. Yeah, it's very spicy. um But overall, I think this this pairing is definitely working.
00:32:36
Speaker
It's very complementary towards the cigar, in favor of the cigar, not necessarily in favor of the beer.
00:32:45
Speaker
how's it How's it working with unicorn farts? So, you know, the unicorn farts, this one is a chocolate cinnamon breakfast stout, which sounds like a lot, and and in a way it is. It's 8.5 ABV.
00:33:01
Speaker
So it's got that kick to it from from the from the alcohol. But I think it's working really well with the cigar. I would say, and my thing with stouts, we always talk about the the the texture of the beer and the thinness or not, or the thickness of the beer. Gotta have that mouthfeel. At 8.5%, I almost want something a little thicker.
00:33:23
Speaker
It's at that realm where you're going from your your classic Guinnesses, you're going from your classic like... craft brewery stouts where they're kind of thin like a porter you want more and so i think in in this case this one is a little bit thin i wish it was a little bit thicker and in flavor but again i also don't want it to be i don't want it to be that like 14 percent barrel age stout that has that like syrupy it hits your stomach like a ton of bricks
00:33:55
Speaker
I don't dig the syrup thing. I like a great beer, and I think if you take that one of those high ABV beers and bring it down, I think they're great. And they're great for for sharing. They're great for, like, if you do a bottle share or a can share.
00:34:11
Speaker
But to drink a full glass at that level, not great. So I think, in this case, a can of this with thinness, it makes sense. You have a can, you move on to the next beer, and it's fine.
00:34:23
Speaker
And, you know, the glitter thing. It's kind of cool. It's kind of fun. It loses a lot of its effectiveness when the beer's that dark, though. Like, if you get in there with a bright-ass LED flashlight, you can see it.
00:34:39
Speaker
But, like, when you pour that beer, every time I've ever poured one, I've forgotten it was glitter. Like, it had glitter in it until 10 minutes later, and I was like, oh, wait, this is the glitter beer.
00:34:51
Speaker
when you're When you're sneezing glitter. Yeah, exactly. Or, yeah, well just when, like, you kind of, it kind of catches your eye a little bit. But it's not like, you know, ah when when edible glitter was all the rage on Instagram, um it was for I always thought it would look like that. Like, where you pour it, and you have, like, this cascade of glitter.
00:35:17
Speaker
But instead, like, it's very subtle on that beer because it's so dark, and you can't see through it.
00:35:24
Speaker
Still cool. It reminds me more ah you know what it reminds me of? Is stripper glitter motor oil. You know what i mean? Like, when you have something bad going on with your engine, you get those tiny, tiny little metal shavings in there.
00:35:41
Speaker
And and you you you change your oil in your motorcycle or your car, and you can see... You can't really see it when you pour it, but if you put your fingers in and go like this, you can see that texture and that glitter going on in the oil.
00:35:58
Speaker
That's what it reminds me of. i oh It makes me nervous because I have to change the oil on my bike. And I'm real nervous. I'm real nervous because i have a big I have a big engine on there. And I hope I don't see that.
00:36:15
Speaker
you know I hope not, too. Like factory. factor oh Yeah, I was going to say break in. It's normal for that. Break in. No problem. I'm at like five five or six thousand thousand miles on the bike right now. Probably a little bit more, actually. But.
00:36:30
Speaker
If I see it now, I'm going to feel really nervous about it. Oh, yeah But I know that feeling. I know that that exactly what you're talking about. I think the the beer that I'm having now is working really well with the intensity and the spice of the cigar.
00:36:46
Speaker
So i overall, man, it's good. The thinness, that's a personal thing. I complain about thinness with stouts all the time. And I say, this should have been a porter. too. You know, it's an old joke of like, you could have just called a supporter and we'd be happy.
00:37:02
Speaker
You call it a stout and it doesn't taste like a stout. Call it a stout you got something to live up to, right? hol lot a porter in Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. in In a lot of ways. And that's even outside of the realm of like barrel-aged stouts. A regular stout, you still have expectations because this is the craft industry. And so you kind of expect it to be a little more than a Guinness. and i And I love Guinness. I'm a huge fan of Guinness.
00:37:27
Speaker
I drink, I don't even want to say out loud how much Guinness I consume every week because it's quite a bit. Um... But I think in the craft industry, you are doing something more. yourre youre You're exploring realms that have not been explored previously, and you're refining that.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, but listen, to the point of the cigar... Getting into the the first third proper, I'd say yeah the spice is really great. The room note is really great. The retrohale is awesome. it's And it's warming up.
00:38:02
Speaker
So that dry spice is turning into a little bit more of a full body spice. Okay. There's some substance to that spice for me. um i'm ah I'm just about to hit the halfway point here, and my spice is actually on the way down.
00:38:17
Speaker
Starting to relax a little bit, but I'm wondering if that's this pairing and not the cigar. I'll find out shortly. um You mentioning Guinness reminded me that ah on St. Patrick's Day, we went, we took our whole family to, it's like a
00:38:36
Speaker
It's a place that's hard to describe. It's a touristy kind of place that is right on the harbor where we live. and it's like a bunch of little shops it's almost like a mall but they're all just like little independently run shops and restaurants and stuff like that um and they have like a tiki bar on the beach there and so we were walking around with the kids they had oh the baby was loving bagpipes dude she was obsessed with the sound of bagpipes she was like they stopped doing it she goes moa
00:39:08
Speaker
moa like She wanted all the bagpipes to be happening. So were listening to the bagpipes, and I'm like, man, I could go for a beer right now. So I walk over to this little beer cart that they have.
00:39:19
Speaker
They had $5 beers. No Guinness. They didn't even have Guinness on the menu there. I was like, what? St. Patrick's Day. i'll have a I don't remember what I had. A Michelob Light or some shit.
00:39:32
Speaker
Get a Michelob on St. Patty's Day? It was Michelob Light, Bud Light, Hors Light, Or something else light. yeah i hope That's what they had at the beer cart. that day So then, after after my dad and I finished this beer, I'm like, I'm going to go get one more.
00:39:51
Speaker
But I'm going to the bar this time. There was like a line of 30 people before, and I walk over, and there's no line. So I'm like, all right, let's go. Two Guinnesses, please. She's like, I'm out of Guinness. I ran out.
00:40:01
Speaker
no Like, what? How do you run out of Guinness today of all days? You're supposed to have your whole year's supply of Guinness. ready for St. Patrick's Day, and then whatever's left over you sell for the next 10 months.
00:40:14
Speaker
ah But no, they were out of Guinness, so I had a yingling, which was very disappointing. I was very disappointed. this is the first time in a long time that I've not had a single Guinness on St. Patty's Day, which is very disappointing and upsetting.
00:40:27
Speaker
I still had one. I need to get buy some Guinness. Anyway. Yeah, my my Guinness pairing is always a Guinness, and then... I'll have one or two and then I'll finish with a Frenette. Just neat. Oh, my man. burnnette Close out the day.
00:40:42
Speaker
um But yeah, there's some magic to those stouts, right? Man. Yes. I'm excited. I'm excited about the magic of those things.
00:40:54
Speaker
right. Let's move on our next pairing. Speaking of beer. i mean, that's just as natural as that segue is going to get. Uh, right so in 2011 four friends in caracas venezuela started brewing home brewing um and in 2018 they moved to the u.s and ended up in miami and founded tripping animals brewing in dorau florida um they've got i think three or four locations now this is my last can from our trip to new to new york to miami a couple months ago
00:41:29
Speaker
um This one is, and it has a fantastic label. I might have to peel this label off and give it to either my daughter or my wife because they're both going to love it. um This is Limonada Rosada, which of course means pink lemonade.
00:41:44
Speaker
I just had one of those. ah Yeah, you bought a couple four-packs of these, or at least one four-pack. At least a couple four-packs. And gave me one. um And I'm finally drinking it.
00:41:56
Speaker
So this is their... Lemonada is a series that they do. it's It's every possible variation of lemonade you can imagine turned into a sour beer, which is right up our alley, man.
00:42:14
Speaker
like For me and you, that is right up our alley. I really want to find... um I don't know if it's a thing they only did once or if it's a thing that they kind of have on the menu all the time, but I've never seen it.
00:42:26
Speaker
or at least never noticed it on the menu when we've been at one of their locations. They have a Limonada Ponte, which is lemonade and tea. A little Arnold Palmer beer action. I am down.
00:42:40
Speaker
so I'm going to have to keep an eye out for that one because that one sounds very exciting to me. um But this one is Limonada Rosada, which is a sour ale, fired by Pink Lemonade, of course, brewed lime, strawberry, and raspberry.
00:42:54
Speaker
um
00:42:57
Speaker
it kind of I don't know whether to be excited or disappointed that it's not like bright pink. you know like This actually looks like beer. that that's Which is kind of impressive.
00:43:09
Speaker
um Because a lot of times these these these fruited things are just way over the top. um This one is is... I mean, it looks just like a normal beer.
00:43:20
Speaker
When you smell it, though... You know you're in for something different. When you taste it, it's really not a beer. um At least doesn't taste like one. This comes in at 6% ABV.
00:43:32
Speaker
um Yeah, I'm going to take a couple sips. See if it pairs at all. I'm not sure how sour will do with this thing. But we will find out. What do you have up next, Dennis?
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, the sour you know the sour thing is kind of tough. You never know what you're going get. And again, especially with with cigars. I say this as I'm pouring my next pairing. Let me open this cork.
00:44:01
Speaker
Ooh, cork. Very fancy. ah ah Well, it's fancy, but it's also not fancy because to me, this is the the lemonade of whiskey for me, which is
Laphroaig's Medicinal Whiskey History
00:44:15
Speaker
Laphroaig. Oh, here we Oh, yeah. Laphroaig 10.
00:44:21
Speaker
I'm a huge fan. I love the bottles. i love everything about Laphroaig. And now really, when when you talk about Laphroaig 10, this is going to be a little bit long-winded, so bear with me.
00:44:32
Speaker
But if you really want to understand Laphroaig 10, you have to consider kind of the era that it came from, right? It's this is brutal, isolated, economically precarious environment. Talking about 18th and early 19th century in Islay in Scotland.
00:44:51
Speaker
And you know um before before it it was like legally founded in 1815 by Donald Johnson and Alexander Johnson, that land was probably very, very much likely used for illicit distillation as many other areas were.
00:45:10
Speaker
So it was kind of like a necessity at the time. mean – Barley was – What's that? Doesn't the label have founded or established in like 1718 or something like that?
00:45:24
Speaker
Yes, but. So so I will tell you what the label says. It is. 1735? Is that what it is? Oh, no. It's 1815 on the label. Oh, okay. I thought somewhere it said 17 something.
00:45:36
Speaker
No, but you're not wrong. You're not wrong because there there is conversation around that as well. Because there was stuff going on before then, but in terms of the official history of when it was actually out in the public, it was 1815. Kind of like technically the pandemic. Yeah, i mean I mean, listen, records were not... ah They weren't really a thing in the 1700s yet. No. It hadn't occurred to people to keep track of shit like that.
00:46:03
Speaker
um Like when things started and stuff. It was just, you know, you just do it. It was a weird time, dude. You know, it's back then barley was really difficult to to transport grains. They spoiled really quickly in in the climate because you have that like really damp air.
00:46:22
Speaker
And then taking that into into whiskey to preserve it and for profit, it was really hard. It made the whole thing was really tough. And eventually legalization of of distillation in the early 1800s didn't really kind of lend itself well to whiskey and Isla.
00:46:41
Speaker
It was kind of just, it just sort of happened. It wasn't like they decided, oh we're going to distill across the board and then, oh, here here we are now. We're doing this thing. This was more of a we're doing stuff at home.
00:46:55
Speaker
you know Our families are doing it. Your family's doing it. Everyone's kind of laying into the land and doing what they want to do. It was the wild west of whiskey in that area of Scotland, which was really cool.
00:47:10
Speaker
um So, hold on, me look at my notes. I lost my train of thought. Sorry, it's probably my fault for interrupting you constantly with little tidbits and banter.
00:47:28
Speaker
We haven't talked about phenolic compounds, but we'll get into that at some point. Hold on now. Ah, let's talk about the the whole Lafroig thing with Prohibition in the U.S. So a lot of distilleries, they struggled, they shut down.
00:47:51
Speaker
Lafroig kind of had this really strong foothold in the American market and ended up being classified as as medicinal whiskey. So it makes sense because if you smell it, you taste it, you go, man, this is like this is like medicine, right?
00:48:06
Speaker
It had this sort of antiseptic-like profile. And bill does that made it really it made it really credible with the pharmaceutical framework of the time. Um, and so eventually they started getting imported more heavily, things like shift Shefflin company. Um, and it was prescribed officially by doctors for all kinds of different ailments, which we know this really well.
00:48:31
Speaker
Like you had a headache, you got a toothache, whatever, whiskey. that Yeah. The cough, but no Lafroig. That's what you want. You had a cough Lafroig. And then that was the thing. um But eventually what happened was he had Betsy Williamson.
00:48:47
Speaker
Betsy Williamson, mid-20th century, came in and completely changed the world of what we know as Laphroaig. Came in as a secretary in the 1930s, became manager in 1944, eventually became an owner, and really kind of pushed. What a cool story that lady has, man.
00:49:06
Speaker
That lady is – it's such an incredible story and so cool that she was able to, at that time especially, in the world's market with the wars and everything going on, to kind of push for whiskey when people were thinking about you know resources for the war, resources for like food.
00:49:25
Speaker
People were focused on food and stuff, right? They're not thinking about whiskey. They were thinking about – arms and tanks and all kinds of things and uh this lady came through and was like yeah we're gonna do this we're gonna push for this we're gonna give lafroig a real recognized brand name and she kind of rebuilt the export market after world war ii for the u.s really i i'm really focusing mostly on the u.s they had other markets as well but What I'm talking about now is really kind of what Betsy did for where bessie did for the U.S. market and preserving the tradition of Scottish distilleries through her leadership using peat, which was really and kind of interesting and unique and very different than what U.S. distilleries were doing.
00:50:14
Speaker
I mean, yeah, just different from what people are used to in the U.S. I mean, it still is at this point. Like... You know, 90% of whiskey out there, 95% at least, of whiskey on the market has zero peat in it.
00:50:27
Speaker
And then you have this one little sliver coming from Isla that is peated to all hell. And it's ah very divisive, and it always has been. Dude, it's wild. And you go like to you talk about the Royal Warrant that came out through Charles III saying that basically this is like a very, very traditional spirit kind of laying the framework down for longevity for this brand to where Lafroig is now distributed around the world and people know the brand. They see the bottles. The bottles are iconic and unique.
00:51:03
Speaker
You're not going see any other Scotch whiskey but When you see this bottle, you know it's only Lafroig. There's nothing else that looks like it. Yeah. Which is really cool.
00:51:15
Speaker
And, you know I've been a a big fan of Lafroig for a really long time. I love all of their expressions. I love 10, think, probably the most in terms of a consumption.
00:51:27
Speaker
My go-to, if I have, I always have 10 on the shelf. And I find myself more often than not going for the 10, especially with cigars.
00:51:40
Speaker
For me, I think the triple cask is my favorite. dude. Triple cask. With the cigar, because you get that sherry finish, which adds a lot to it. Yeah. I was big on quarter cask for a Quarter cask is also fantastic.
00:51:56
Speaker
But then again, for the price point, the 410, no problem, baby.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yep, exactly. I do wish I saw... Man, I saw a post somewhere. must have been on Reddit or on Facebook that somebody was at like a Safeway or a Costco or something where LaFroigue was like $28 a bottle.
00:52:18
Speaker
And I was like, dude, I would go home with a truck bed filled with scotch. That's wild. Because that's like... less than half of what what I normally pay. like It's usually $50 to $70 around here just for the $10.
00:52:34
Speaker
um i do remember the days when it was $30, and I wish I had bought a lot more back then. Anyway, enough of memory lane. Yeah, man. I love the history, and I love the fact that Isla Whiskey is really unique in their use of peat moss in in the the smoking process. And you get a lot of that flavor in the grain in the final product. You get so much flavor. It's so cool.
00:53:02
Speaker
And Islay is just a really interesting place because it is uniquely Scottish, but also at the same time uniquely its own. Where it's it's it's so different than the rest of scott Scottish whiskey.
00:53:17
Speaker
The peat bogs that they have, the coastline, you have this essence of ocean air, and you have this minerality that ends up transferring into the final product that tastes like Band-Aids and tire fire and all these great things that sounds weird until you actually drink it and you go, yeah, man, I get it.
00:53:36
Speaker
Not everybody it, though. It's wildly romanticized. And ins sure, none not everybody gets it. You know, the peated whiskey scene is not for everybody.
00:53:47
Speaker
You and I, I think, are the very few that actually oh yeah kind of appreciate it. Is
00:53:58
Speaker
that the end? it's It's my happy place. it's ah LeFroig makes me happy. I love Lafroig. I need to get some more. It's been too long since I've owned a bottle. um So, how's your pairing going with with the cigar?
00:54:16
Speaker
It's interesting. Oh, interesting. I don't believe... I had had this beer before. I think this was only one of the ones that we, or at least I didn't try, that you you grabbed a pack of because it just sounded interesting. And this is my first time trying it.
00:54:33
Speaker
um It is about 10 times sweeter than I expected. This is a sweet beer. it It reminds me almost exactly of like that Country Time Pink Lemonade.
00:54:49
Speaker
ah Like, that level of sugar that that stuff has. Yeah. um And then, you know, of course, with the lemonade flavors, those raspberry and strawberry flavors, it, it it like, they nailed the flavor, man.
00:55:04
Speaker
But for me, it's just a little on the sweet side. Luckily, that is really working with this cigar. um It completely, like, cancels out the sweet note in the cigar.
00:55:19
Speaker
But it really brings out kind of the earth, the spice, um and particularly like those cinnamony kind of baking spices are are much louder on the cigar after taking a sip of this, which is nice.
00:55:34
Speaker
So it's it's not super working as a pairing, but there are elements of it that are working really well. Yeah, that makes sense. What about Lafroig? does Lafroig work with it? This research for my final pairing right now.
00:55:45
Speaker
fan Dude, fan-fucking-tastic. I think the peated quality of the scotch, it just opens up the cigar in a way that makes it exciting and interesting, and I think it's a really great pairing because you can enjoy the spirit and you can enjoy the cigar.
00:56:01
Speaker
and that's ah It's a rare thing. Oftentimes you have one or the other and you're kind of sitting there smoking and fighting your, your pairing, you're fighting the cigar, you're going back and forth. Your palate's kind of wonky.
00:56:14
Speaker
Um, in, in this case, I think it works really well.
00:56:20
Speaker
Very cool. Um, yeah, that's, that's going to tie directly into my final pairing because great minds think alike, even though I didn't have any Laphroaig, oh mommy I do have some Scotch whiskey.
00:56:33
Speaker
so
Signatory Vintage and Bunahaban Whiskey Experience
00:56:34
Speaker
this is ah these is from Signatory Vintage, as you can see up at the top there. So Signatory is an independent bottler. which We don't talk about them a lot around here.
00:56:45
Speaker
oh But Signatory is an independent bottler, which means that they are a company that buys barrels and bottles them themselves. So what that means is that
00:57:00
Speaker
the What that means, basically, is that the distillery isn't choosing the blend. If there's any blending going on, it's being done by the bottler.
00:57:11
Speaker
um And if it's cask strength, it's barrels that the bottler chose. So they do hand selection on all of the barrels. So they have somebody who goes in and tastes all the barrels that, that ah a bunch of distilleries are willing to sell them.
00:57:27
Speaker
And they choose which ones are going to be, ah you know, just, uh, a single barrel of this or which ones are going to be blended for that um and which ones are going to go into a cask strength and stuff like that um it's it's a very interesting process and it has all sorts of uh side effects like man just thinking about the day that i went to john mctavish's house up in Canada, canada um and we drank the only whiskey we drank that day.
00:58:04
Speaker
We smoked Cuban cigars only, which is kind of a rarity for me. I've smoked plenty, but I haven't smoked the caliber of Cuban cigars that John always has um because he had some fancy stuff.
00:58:17
Speaker
The only whiskey we drank that day was from Japanese distilleries that are no longer open because bottling companies like Signatory buy those barrels when the company when the distillery goes under or closes or gets bought out, and they just sit on them for a decade or two.
00:58:36
Speaker
Leave them in the barrel, let them keep aging, and then they bottle them and sell them. and And John had some wild stuff, man, that was... Man, what a day of... That was my favorite day of drinking I've ever had, um just because it was really special, and then I had to drive four hours back to my campsite.
00:58:53
Speaker
um So that was fun. One of my like bucket list um bucke list travel experiences is to actually visit John and go through his whiskey selection.
00:59:06
Speaker
oh it's It's on my list. He's got some good stuff, man. And also you get to hang out with him, which is even better. um All right. So the the one that I am drinking. So all that to say, signatory, that label means that.
00:59:22
Speaker
It's probably good whiskey. um They have, in my opinion, a very good track record of choosing good whiskey. um But it means that it could be from almost any distillery because they do barrel selections with almost everybody.
00:59:37
Speaker
um This one in particular comes from one of our favorite distilleries, Buna Haban.
00:59:44
Speaker
um And Buna Haban, as I've talked about before, um they're located on the Isle of Isla, founded in 1881. They're the furthest most remote on the northeast corner of the island um near ju Isle of Jura, which is the next island over.
01:00:03
Speaker
They are the most remote distillery to the point where their closest neighbor on a uh an island that is and i should look up the the total area of isla sometime but an island that is as small as isla is their closest neighbor is cowila four miles away cowila is kind of southwest or sorry southeast corner of the island um so they're like on the opposite side of the island almost uh
01:00:33
Speaker
Because they're so remote, they stayed remote for many, many decades. um It started as a distillery that was built up near near a spring, and eventually they founded the village called Buna Haban to be a place for the distillery workers to live rather than probably riding on horseback or maybe even walking up the hill to work every day.
01:00:56
Speaker
um For decades, many decades, from the 1880s until the 1960s, they have only been supplied by ship, which I always like to highlight because it's just nuts to me that like if they when they needed barrels, they they had to get them sent by ship from the mainland so that they could well, I guess mainland Scotland, but they had to get them shipped by ship, by boat, um directly to the factory because they would just pull right up to the distillery, drop the stuff off and go because they're right on the edge of the the water there.
01:01:36
Speaker
um They had a bunch of cool automation stuff. they They had steam-powered elevators and steam-powered augers to spread barley. Very cool.
01:01:48
Speaker
The most interesting thing about the distillery is they are on Islay, where everybody's known for peat, and Hunahaban uses almost no peat in any of their whiskey. Pretty much all of their expressions are unpeated.
01:02:03
Speaker
But they do produce peated whiskey, ah usually for blending and stuff like that. But companies like Signatory can go in and say, I want this barrel of peated whiskey, and they'll sell it to them.
01:02:15
Speaker
So this one is a heavily peated whiskey. whiskey from Buna Haban that was distilled on, see this is one of the cool things about a a independent bottler is generally speaking with an independent bottler, it's not always true, but generally speaking almost everything they sell is going to be single cask.
01:02:41
Speaker
um they generally it's generally not worth the effort for them to do any blending they just do the cask sometimes they'll give it a cool name there there are a couple of blenders that'll have things like you know whispers of ocean or something like that and that's what they'll call this one because it was particularly seawatery um This one doesn't have any silly name like that, but they do call it... I i wish I could figure out where this word came from. The Oisha.
01:03:14
Speaker
I don't know what that word means. I've tried to Google it, and all I get is this whiskey. Or whiskeys like this. Um... As far as I've found, Bunahabin calls pretty much all of their peated whiskey Stoysha, whatever that means.
01:03:29
Speaker
um This one is aged eight years. It was distilled on September 27, 2013, bottled on June 15, 2022. It number 900,280, and is bottle 249,
01:03:42
Speaker
it is ca number nine hundred thousand two hundred and eighty and it is bottle number two hundred and forty nine It was matured in a rechar, dechar rechar hogshead, which means that they carved down the inside, charred it over again um before putting the whiskey in. And again, with most single bottles or independent bottles like this, they don't do any kind of finishing they don't do any kind of re-barreling it goes into the barrel they buy it that way stick it in a bottle you are getting as straight to the from the source as you can um even more so than almost any uh like uh distillery released bottle like anything that lafroyg releases is generally
01:04:34
Speaker
They might have done a single cask a few times, but generally they're going to do either blended or barrel strength. And even barrel strength is going to be blended. um
01:04:46
Speaker
Cask strength is the other word for that. um This is not cask strength, but it is single single barrel, single cask, whatever you want to call it. It comes in at 46% ABV.
01:04:57
Speaker
As you can see, i'm getting a little low on it there, unfortunately. This one was a pick. yeah This one was a pick for ABC Liquors here in Florida. cool um Man.
01:05:11
Speaker
I don't even know what else to say about it. this If you've never tried it I highly recommend hunting out some um ah independent bottle, independently bottled scotch whiskey. It's usually going be a little more expensive. I think I paid around 80 or 90 bucks for this.
01:05:32
Speaker
Like, that's not a ton more than a lot of of decent scotches. Like, you know, that's that's on par with stuff like Oban and Lagavulin and some of the higher end Ardbeg stuff.
01:05:46
Speaker
It's not super high end, but it's also not exactly but daily affordable kind of stuff. um yeah But if you have a special occasion, I recommend hunting out some single single barrel independently bottled whiskey because it's usually going to be fantastic. And you can you can get some crazy stuff like John has through independent release programs, but most of that comes from the Single Malt Whiskey Society, which is ah a specific club that you have to be part of. Yeah, which is a cool group. They do insane whiskey. Some of the craziest whiskeys, actually all of the craziest whiskeys I've ever had come through that company.
01:06:26
Speaker
So, all that to say, I'm going to take couple sips of this peated Bunahaban and see how it pairs, see if it reminds me at all of what it would be like to pair Laphroaig with this cigar. The Stoetia thing comes also as a result of their secondary water source, it looks like, which is the Stoetia Lock.
01:06:49
Speaker
Ah! They source a lot of their water, but not all of it. So it's kind of this... kind of backup water source that use from probably certain things, certain projects.
01:07:01
Speaker
That totally makes sense. It seems that's where name from. It's nearby. It's roughly like one to two miles away from the distillery, and they can source some water from there. So probably those projects are specific to the water source, which is, you know, it's a scotch thing. That's how they roll. Yeah, I mean, that actually makes a lot of sense.
01:07:29
Speaker
Alright, what do you got up next? My last pairing is is it's special and it's interesting. and It was one of those splurgy kind of things where I saw it and I thought, alright, I'm going to buy this.
01:07:42
Speaker
It's not necessarily in that like mid-range affordable thing, but I wanted to spurge. I wanted to do a special thing, so I bought the bottle, and I've been really happy with it. I've been going back and forth through it with different cigars and things, and what I'm having tonight is this lovely McAllen expression, which night Earth, the Yerez series, I guess, well,
01:08:08
Speaker
the yearre the the yearra series i guess well
01:08:14
Speaker
What would I call it? It's it's a Knight on Earth in Yeras, and it has this really cool. Let me see if I can open this for you. Every time I've watched you open that, I'm worried that you're going to open it and the bottle's just going flop out.
01:08:29
Speaker
No, so the bottle's out, thankfully. the but The bottle's out. um So you open this thing. And then you have to reach in and it's this thing. And then you open that.
01:08:42
Speaker
And then there's a bottle in there and it's beautiful. And it's really cool. Man. A very nice, nice presentation. Good for them. I always love McAllen for their unique release expressions, limited series stuff. They pull out, this is the bottle.
01:09:00
Speaker
it's It's one of those things. Packaging is one of those things that you and I truly appreciate, i think, in a different way than a lot of people. it Obviously, yeah we know, we're fully aware, it has zero impact on the actual product inside. Yes. Yes. like You can have the best packaging in the world, but if what's inside sucks, like it's not going to make a difference.
01:09:21
Speaker
But the thought that goes into packaging is kind of what fascinates me so much. The artistry, the the engineering that people put in, the stuff like, I mean, like, ah the Cohiba Spectre boxes come to mind.
01:09:33
Speaker
Like, where they have ah engineering that has to go into a box designing the cigar box um is is really interesting to us. um we We really appreciate good packaging. Especially, especially when what's inside is good, too.
01:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, dude. i Listen, the Spectre is my favorite $30 cigar. I wish it was $30. that's what That's what I'm saying. Yeah, i know. yeah if if If that cigar was $30, I would probably smoke a lot of them.
01:10:03
Speaker
That'd be a great cigar for $30. Anyway, but we're talking about different cigars tonight, and and we're talking about different spirits tonight. And so I mentioned Macallan, this Nine on Earth Yaris series. It's part of this annual limited release thing that they do. And this one in particular explores this the New Year's traditions, um hence the themed bottle.
01:10:28
Speaker
It's kind of really talks about what McAllen does, which is uniquely different than a lot of distilleries where they focus on wood. Like their thing is it's not just about the spirit. It's really about what the spirit kind of the wood that touches the spirit.
01:10:46
Speaker
So what they say is flavors engineered through wood. That's one of their big sayings. Everyone talks about it from McAllen. um but that's really a big part of their philosophy as a distillery, where you know we talk about, like, Laphroaig is really big on terroir.
01:11:01
Speaker
Somebody like McAllen is really big on not terroir, but they're big on the aging process. They're big on the wood. the The wood that touches the spirit before it touches your lips. They focus on that to a way that is is is really cool and very exciting, and the reason why I'm a huge fan McAllen's stuff, but I'm not a...
01:11:22
Speaker
For example, if I go into a bar, I'm not going to order a Macallan, like a regular Macallan. If I see one of these limited Macallans, I know that's what i want to drink because yeah I love the experience of the wood because you can really taste it and you can sense it. And the Yaris connection is really interesting because it talks to really great Spanish wood. Tevasa is kind of the cask production of it. And Gonzales Baez is the seasoning influence that goes into the wood.
01:11:52
Speaker
And what they do is they take oak that's sourced. with It's either American or European. It's constructed in Spain. They take the oak. They construct it in Spain. They fill it with sherry. It sits for about 12 to 18 months. They take the sherry out, and they put the spirit in. So the the the casket those empty caskets shipped to Scotland. They get filled with...
01:12:14
Speaker
And eventually, with some time, a little bit aging, you get that essence of sherry in the final spirit. So you get these flavors of like, you talk about vanilla, you talk about clove, a little bit of that like toasted coconut thing that's really interesting. It's not typical of a lot of scotch or scotch whiskey, I should say. Mm-hmm.
01:12:35
Speaker
um it's kind of cool, but it's also really nice because it has more tannin than... When they use a European oak, it has more tannin than classic American oak. It has these really intense flavors of, like, dried fig, raisin.
01:12:50
Speaker
It has a very... It feels structured. I think for European oak casks, for me, they're sort of just loose and broad in the flavors there.
01:13:00
Speaker
And then when you look at the European stuff, I think there's this, like... Very defined. It has this profile. And if you taste it, you know it has this profile. And it's the tannins. It's the, you know, the thyman cask as well. Thyman wood, ultimately.
01:13:18
Speaker
And you get these, like, orange peel flavors. You get the fig flavors. really cool. And the Yeras does a great job of that and in a celebration of celebration the new year, essentially.
01:13:31
Speaker
And McAllen has been, I didn't even mention McAllen's been around for a really long time. Oh, yeah. They have been doing business for a whole long time. And actually, where's my?
01:13:46
Speaker
I was so excited I lost my notes. 1824, founded in Speyside by Alexander Reed. they were basically farm distillery, like a lot of people. They were just like, hey, we have extra grain. what are we gonna do with this? We need to make some money.
01:14:00
Speaker
Let's throw it in and distill it and produce a whiskey and you know just feed the family kind of thing. And that whole thing exploded.
01:14:11
Speaker
Now when you see McAllen, it's everywhere.
01:14:17
Speaker
Excuse me, I'm burping so heavily from this McAllen. For better or worse, but. Dude, I love the cast thing. I love the limited series stuff that they do. And the same thing like Glenmorangie.
01:14:31
Speaker
When they have their limited releases, I always buy them. Constantly. It's like it's my thing. yeah Yeah, you're a big fan of those limited Macallans. They're great. It's different. It's exciting. And it speaks to the the fact that the the distillery is willing to explore other avenues for their business. They're trying to explore other flavors. They're trying to... Take their core product and go, well what else can we do with this?
01:14:57
Speaker
And sometimes it hits. you know For my palate, sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. That's fine. But I think the fact that we can experience as consumers something that is ah someone else's fever dream.
01:15:11
Speaker
yeah in In the industry. They go, I think this is cool. Let me try to make this. And some of us really dig that. And it's really cool. And I love being able to experience this. Now, in this particular bottle is, I forget the MSRP. I think it's 165, 175.
01:15:31
Speaker
But, I don't know. I'd argue I think it's worth it. For me, at least. I don't know. But also, again, that is not where I'm. When I go shopping, that is not my baseline of where I go shopping. Hell no.
01:15:46
Speaker
Not at all. It is hard for me to make this purchase. And, you know, I had some extra cash from my from a bonus that I got at work. And so I thought, let me get this stuff. Try it.
01:15:57
Speaker
And it's great. I think it's working really well at the cigar. Probably better than all of my other pairings tonight. Arguably. Yeah, I think the, I'm trying to find the um MSRP. I think it's about $150.
01:16:10
Speaker
Somewhere around there. I'm seeing it between $130 and $160. In New Jersey, add like $50. True. Yeah, $130 is the the MSRP where I'm at.
01:16:25
Speaker
But again, that changes in every state because of how liquor tax works. um Yeah, that's a funny thing. How is your your final pairing working with the cigar? Oh, it's so good. So before I get to that, Jay Davis says he he just got back from the store and he missed this. We miss you too, Jay.
01:16:42
Speaker
um And we were talking about the Spectre and he said the first inch is $40. but more More than we're willing to pay for a single cigar.
01:16:53
Speaker
which is you I mean, that free-range organic sugar that they put on the tip. Not anymore. that was only on um on a couple of them. was un couple I don't think the new one had it.
01:17:05
Speaker
It is going to taint my perspective forever. Agreed. Agreed. um Man, this this so I did a little research while you were talking. Stoysha is, you're right, i I don't know how, the last time I looked it up, all I could find was that it's the name of a Bunahaban whiskey.
01:17:24
Speaker
Stoysha is, like you said, the name of the the nearby water source. lock. The lock. um It is what they call every release that they sell to an independent bottler.
01:17:35
Speaker
um So that's just kind of their signifier at at Bunny that that this is not ours. We made it. We put it in a barrel and we sold it to somebody. um Man, it's fantastic. It is
01:17:53
Speaker
it is it as peaty as like an art bag, but with kind of a a lightness to it.
01:18:04
Speaker
in a way that I'm having trouble just trying to find a way to describe.
01:18:11
Speaker
It's got that like typical peat smoke, very intense. It's also got like a really intense like hard candy, hard candy sweetness.
01:18:24
Speaker
Like it's that sweetness that you let it sit on your tongue for a second. outside Yeah, you let it sit on your tongue for a second. It's like that. It's like you're sucking on a hard candy. You get that like salivating sugar right in the middle of your tongue kind of flavor.
01:18:38
Speaker
um Belgian candy sugar. Belgian candy sugar. Exactly. i mean From brewing standpoint, i mean that's what reminds me of. no You're completely right, because i've I've used Belgian candy sugar, and that's exactly what it tastes like.
01:18:54
Speaker
um Man, it really makes me salivate like crazy, which is means it's good. Yeah. It's also got like a really interesting earthiness. There is a minerality to it that kind of sticks to the tongue, where now that the sweetness is fading, I'm still tasting like this kind of minerality that it's got.
01:19:13
Speaker
um Good God, I love this whiskey. i for i This is the first time I've had ah a pour out of this bottle in a while, and it is better than I remember.
01:19:27
Speaker
I remember kind of feeling like it's, you know, it's Petey, but it's not all that Bunahaban.
Whiskey and Cigar Pairing Insights
01:19:33
Speaker
But no, now I get like those sweeter notes that Bunahaban has um that just kind of intensity of character that Bunahaban has.
01:19:46
Speaker
um If you've never tried Bunahaban, try it. But particularly if you can get your hands on Stoysha. and Yeah, the flavors, for so for Wunahabben, there's a flavor that that they call, like when talk about the wood, is a fur for all.
01:20:04
Speaker
Sounds silly, but the fur for all is like that toasted almond baked bread. baseline That the base flavors, that that breadiness, the toasted almond-ness, it's a fur for all, and then the lactones from the oak.
01:20:20
Speaker
The lactones the lacttons from the yoak give you this really interesting body to it, and Bunahabin is fantastic in that they I think they leverage that really well compared to a lot of other Scottish distilleries.
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, i'm ah I'm a big fan of what they do, and especially this expression. I think it's incredible. um And it's working really well with this McAuliffe. The flavors of the whiskey, the smokiness of the whiskey goes a long way with this cigar, and
01:20:51
Speaker
I think that actually brings out more of the delicate flavors of the cigar. A little bit of hay, a little bit of a little bit more sweetness than I was getting before.
01:21:02
Speaker
Like an almost bready sweetness, like a pastry donut kind of sweetness. what about What about your final pairing? How's the McAllen work with it? I think it's probably the best pairing of the night for me.
01:21:17
Speaker
Wow. It's just, well, you know, I i think it's it's because it's so subtle, it doesn't take away from the cigar. It doesn't take away from the spice in the body. And really that, going back to like what I said, the the toasted quality to it, the the breadiness, it's very light. But also it has a ah a quality from the sherry that's unique. And I love those casks so much.
01:21:43
Speaker
I know you love those as well, the Oloroso. I love limousine casks. I love all these different flavor profiles from the wood. I love drinking a scotch that is wood forward.
01:21:54
Speaker
And especially like McAllen, that is ah like kind of a wood program forward distillery. It's exciting. And I think most people, when they drink it for the first time they go, it tastes like scotch.
01:22:10
Speaker
But the second time they drink it, they realize there's something more to it. The vanilla, the the clove spice, the the you know the baking spice, the almond there.
01:22:22
Speaker
It's really unique and interesting. And similar to the cigar, now at this point, I'm just about the final third. And it it just works so well. Very impressed.
01:22:34
Speaker
This is a very good cigar, man. Like... um
01:22:41
Speaker
I'm trying to think of another Brazilian Modafina cigar that I really like, or that I like this much. The only one that I can think of that stands up to this, which is a very different cigar because it's a Brazilian wrapper, but I think it's a different, I don't think it's Modafina, um...
01:23:01
Speaker
Might
Cigar Preferences and Brazilian Modafina
01:23:02
Speaker
be, though. But no, the i'm I'm not actually i'm not a fan of the CEO Brasilia. I know that's that sounds kind of crazy. i've never I've never been a big fan of that cigar. ah But no, the Herrera Asteli Brazilian.
01:23:15
Speaker
the The blue label Herrera Asteli. A little more subdued? Yeah, I think this is kind of on par with that in a different way because that's a Maduro. It's kind of got some of those darker, sweeter flavors. This is a little more peppery in your face, aggressive.
01:23:31
Speaker
And it's, man, it's right up my alley. I'm digging this cigar. on this The pepper is great. um You know, and I don't know if I like the black or this one more. um I'm going to have to smoke.
01:23:43
Speaker
kind of side to side or back to back if you will i'm gonna smoke them and and see what i think but i i really like this yeah me too it's there's a little bit of funk to it that i'm i'm just picking up now i don't know if it was there the whole time um
01:24:02
Speaker
and for nine bucks you almost like a mushroomy kind of quality yeah and for nine bucks like this is a great cigar for nine bucks man the the The complexity of flavor that you get, the the profile flavor that you get from this for $9, I think it it's a win for a lot of smokers.
01:24:20
Speaker
Now, you have to be in that kind of... plus range or or or you know the top end of the range of of intensity. But yeah if that's what you like, I think this is good. And you and you and i our palates are kind of similar in that we like full-of-body cigars. We like that intensity. We like the spice.
01:24:37
Speaker
We like that punch in in nicotine. So those primings that we really dig, i think that has this has that. Yeah, definitely. um And i'm I'm kind of surprised because this there is a lot more intense. There's a lot more intensity and strength to this cigar than I was expecting from McAuliffe.
01:24:59
Speaker
Because McAuliffe's to me are are usually more in the medium range. Yeah, they're more elegant. They have that elegant quality them. Yeah, but this one I kind of like how how brash and intense it is.
01:25:10
Speaker
like yeah I actually really like it. bra that's ah That's a great way to put it, dude. Agreed.
01:25:18
Speaker
all right. Well, my pairing for the night, by the way, is also my scotch, the signatory yeah digatory Stoysha from Bunahaba. We can do no wrong.
01:25:29
Speaker
The signatory stuff is gold. it It really is fantastic. um if you If you see a bottle and it's reasonably priced, grab it. it's It's one of those things, you know, it's scotch, and because they're independently bottling...
01:25:43
Speaker
They have a big old range of prices. You can get some, like, I think this bottle was 70 or 80 bucks, maybe a little bit more than that, maybe a hundred at the most. Um,
01:25:55
Speaker
They have stuff anywhere from 50 or 60 bucks to like thousand a thousand, couple thousand. um Because they have 30 and 40 year old whiskeys that, you know, they just bought the barrel and sat on it until until they were ready to to to bottle it.
01:26:10
Speaker
um But if you see something that's in your price range, I recommend checking them out. um You might even discover a new distillery that you're not familiar with because they do a lot of that where they'll have stuff from smaller distilleries that don't necessarily do their own bottling.
01:26:24
Speaker
um which can be very
Independent Bottlers and Cowila Whiskey
01:26:27
Speaker
interesting. That's how Cowila was that way for for a long time, um where Cowila was really only making whiskey for blends, but they were selling to independent bottlers. So if you wanted a Cowila single malt, the only way to get it was through through ah an independent bottler.
01:26:45
Speaker
Anyway. And they get a better bad rap for that, but I think Kalila is really cool. They're just cool to explore. I think anyone who hasn't experienced anything from them absolutely should look into that.
01:26:58
Speaker
Yeah. They make some great stuff. All right. Well, that brings us to the end of the pairing segment. um Once again, check out the McAuliffe Green, man. we're We're both kind of blown away by this cigar.
01:27:11
Speaker
um much, just a lot more going on than we were expecting, which is fantastic. ah We'll get back to you about what we're smoking next week. I think we know what we're going to do.
01:27:23
Speaker
Actually, if if well, we've got to make sure that Dennis can source the cigar first. We'll wait on that. um But this brings us to our... Yeah, it's a secret. A little secret sauce for you guys. For now, yeah, a little secret sauce. We are now at our One for the Road. I almost said end of the road.
01:27:41
Speaker
Our One for the Road segment where we tell you about some kind of media that we've consumed in the last couple weeks. Give you a little bit of recommendation of what you should go watch, listen
Show and Documentary Recommendations
01:27:49
Speaker
to, smell, um see, read. Smell, taste.
01:27:55
Speaker
Taste. Experience, yeah. Yeah, just something something that you should check out. So, Dennis, you want to go first this week? I'm going to let you go first because I've been going first for a while. All right.
01:28:06
Speaker
I want to hear what's going on. Well, I was thinking, i was going to let you go first because I could be stealing your thunder, but you brought it up a couple weeks ago before it was watchable.
01:28:16
Speaker
But I've been watching the company retreat from Jury Duty Presents, the company retreat. my man. i I absolutely hate it. it's It's very uncomfortable.
01:28:28
Speaker
um Like, it is not for everybody. Luckily, they got like they got the perfect guy for this season, man. Yeah. so It's almost like it was staged.
01:28:39
Speaker
Almost. the So this is a show that Dennis clued me in on a couple years ago called Jury Duty, where a guy went in for Jury Duty and threw a series of like backhanded kind of things.
01:28:55
Speaker
He wasn't actually on Jury Duty. He was actually on the set of a TV show being filmed about Jury Duty. that he thought was real, but everybody but him is an actor. And there's all these setups of gags and stuff like that that he has to live through and experience the strangeness and awkwardness of.
01:29:14
Speaker
um And their second season just came out. So this one is called Company Retreat. <unk>s You can watch it on Amazon. It's free if you have Amazon Prime. If you don't have Amazon Prime, I believe you can just watch it for free with ads.
01:29:28
Speaker
um which is the best the best kind of free. like Anybody can watch it, as long as you're willing to watch commercials, which you know I'm not, but some people are. We can save them a couple bucks.
01:29:40
Speaker
More power to you. So Company Retreat is this guy starts working as an assistant for a small hot sauce company, a small family-owned hot sauce company.
01:29:51
Speaker
And the deal is he's going to be a temporary assistant ah that could possibly be a permanent position depending on how it goes, and he's going to assist the CEO on their company retreat.
01:30:05
Speaker
And what happens from there is a series of very uncomfortable events. like it's They are just bombarding this guy with awkwardness and things things that like He literally had a reaction to shit in the most recent episode where he said, if this is so crazy, you couldn't even make this up for a TV show.
01:30:32
Speaker
And everybody just kind of looked at each other like, you know? um But no, he's just a super easygoing guy who's a good sport and supportive no matter how weird it gets.
01:30:44
Speaker
um And it's it's one of those things where like it It's an experiment that could absolutely fail and be... You could just have somebody who's like, I hate this, I'm going home.
01:30:57
Speaker
i don't want I don't want to be part of this company. I don't want to be... I'm not doing jury duty. You can arrest me. Whatever. They're just like, fuck this, I'm out. And they have the unique ability for these shows to choose someone who is...
01:31:12
Speaker
just willing to roll with whatever happens like this guy is so sweet and so genuine and people do the weirdest stuff around him and then he they go around the corner and he's like everything's gonna be okay like don't worry about that weirdness that just happened to you um everything's gonna be cool nobody's gonna think you're weird uh and he's just like super supportive and sweet about it and it's awesome um But at the same time, they put him in the most bizarre, hilarious situations.
01:31:45
Speaker
And it's really fun to just see how a normal guy reacts to that kind of stuff. um So check out Company Retreat. it's there Most of the season is out already. They're doing three episodes a week. So I think on Friday, the the season finale comes out and the rest of the episodes.
01:31:59
Speaker
um Check it out. Company Retreat. It's a blast. We haven't seen the rest of those. And I would say, so this kind of... Experience where you pull somebody from the street and do something with them is something that I'm really familiar with and I love in the style because Darren Brown, somebody who I've followed for many years in the Magic community, but Darren Brown is in um up a ton of series.
01:32:25
Speaker
Similar kind of similar vein about this kind of thing. It's not my one for the road, but I'm gonna drop it anyway. I'm going to say um if you want to take this to the next level, watch a Darren Brown's hero at 30,000 feet. It came out it came out.
01:32:41
Speaker
twenty and twenty ten yeah came out um It was this thing where they they picked a guy. The mark was basically a guy who was afraid of flying.
01:32:52
Speaker
And he was told that he's going to fly for a game show. And they rigged everything up. So basically he's on this flight and something happened to the pilots. And he has to fly the plane and keep all these people alive. And it's so it's a simulator, right? He's a simulator, but he has to – he experiences this in real life. To him, it's real. It's happening.
01:33:18
Speaker
He's on a plane. He's doing this thing. He's going to keep these people alive. Holy shit. But he's also afraid of flying, so what does he do? It's that kind of thing. It's like the human element. Breaking it down to like, we're just people, man. We're all nervous about something. And I love that darren experience of being normal. I'm trying to think of how to explain it. Darren Brown is I don't want to say mean-spirited. He's not quite mean-spirited about it.
01:33:47
Speaker
But he is doing it as a thought experiment as an and as an art exhibit, basically. Yes, yes, our exhibit is the best way to put it He is doing it like ah The one that really sticks out to me that I watched Was was Miracle Which was a really interesting one he did fucking fantastic um But his whole thing was is Heist was also good ah
01:34:14
Speaker
I'm trying to remember there's one I watched Oh, The Push The Push is the one that feels kind of mean-spirited Oh, Push was fucking wild So he actually got in a lot trouble for that I believe it. But so he's, he's basically taking a person and putting them through an hour of not actually understanding what is happening.
01:34:35
Speaker
We understand that they are being gaslit, but they don't understand that. And it's very, uh, it can be very upsetting for the target. Um, this is like the opposite of that, where you're like watching somebody live in the weirdness for like a week or um and But it's not mean. Nobody's being mean about it.
01:34:58
Speaker
And they're not that they're not trying to upset them. It's just kind of a a game of... pushing the pushing very lightly the button to see what happens.
01:35:10
Speaker
And i again, I think it it comes down to the same thing as Darren, which is you have to know how to choose your target. You can't choose the guy who's going to freak out and attack you um when he finds out it's fake.
01:35:23
Speaker
You have to find somebody who's just going to roll with it and be a good sport and think that maybe I've just met normal people my whole life. Well, this is what makes it so evocative for, for a lot of us is that the human element is that it feels normal to us. It's like we, they could be us. It could be any one of us. yeah When you watch it, you go, man, that could be me. I probably, how would I react to that while I'm watching somebody who is not used to that situation that is now dealing with the thing that could be a thing that I would deal with maybe one day.
01:36:00
Speaker
and then experiencing it through their lens, which is so interesting and unique and so different than what what else is on TV, which is like that reality stuff and staged stuff and but you know whatever else.
01:36:14
Speaker
But it it kind of it touches you in a way that's so different and so unique. And a lot of these a lot of these shows now especially are leaning on that same kind of angle. So for me, my one for the road,
01:36:29
Speaker
is a show that is kind of curious and and something that I was not aware of called Anatomy of Lies. Tripp, do you know about this? Have you know about this?
01:36:40
Speaker
This is a story of about Elizabeth Finch, who is a writer and co-exemptive producer on Grey's Anatomy. Oh. So this person who would like received awards, like massive awards for the writing for many episodes of Grey's Anatomy,
01:36:58
Speaker
um actually had a whole lie scheme built into her career, lying about cancer and surviving from cancer and dealing with things, and ah basically took stories from people that shes she you know, was around and spoke to, she took their personal stories and she took them and wrote them into episodes of Grey's Anatomy that ended up becoming award-winning episodes, like massively award-winning episodes. They were huge. If you love Grey's Anatomy, if you've, I don't know, Tripp, if you watch this stuff, but um there are episodes of Grey's Anatomy that were very emotional and very strong.
01:37:45
Speaker
I'm aware of that. I've never actually watched an episode start to finish, but my wife binged most of the seasons. The whole thing, I know. it And there were episodes where we're like, this feels really human. This feels really real. Very intense.
01:38:00
Speaker
People cried watching it. And these were mixed with lies of this lady and stories that she pulled from other people. And there's a documentary about...
01:38:11
Speaker
ah Kind of unmasking this situation of, well, what happened? What did she do? who What was she about? Who was she? And almost trying to understand why she did what she did.
01:38:24
Speaker
Granted, yes, the episodes were great. Writing-wise, I think she did a really great job, so let's not take that away from her. But also, she herself. was this enigma in this whole scheme of things. And, dude, what a great series. It's a three-part series. It's very interesting. You can watch it on, I think Prime TV, Apple TV, so ah some other platforms.
01:38:49
Speaker
Sky Documentaries, I think. That's a new a newer platform. But, like, yeah, it's wild. This lady, she went around, pulled stories from people, put them together, wrote them into actual episodes, and those episodes were just gripping and clutching. And I remember watching this myself organically going, this is intense, man. Yeah.
01:39:12
Speaker
Going to sleep and thinking about that episode. Thinking about the things that people dealt with. And then now finding out that those episodes were not chilled, not staged, but they were kind of pulled from people's experiences. Yeah.
01:39:27
Speaker
That's really interesting. ah Good documentary, dude. Sam doesn't say it, but check out whatever comedian he's watching. Because we know he's he's at the comedy club on the ship right now. Obviously, it's going be Chris Kattan on the water.
01:39:43
Speaker
Jay Davis says he just finished the first five seasons of Slow Horses. Imagine The Wire's Focus on Distinction meets Jack Reacher with a hint of Fawlty Towers. And of course, grant Gary Oldman is superb.
01:39:55
Speaker
Yes, that show rules, Jay. Anything with Gary Oldman? Fuck yeah, dude. No, but this is like, this is next level Gary Oldman, where he is... Oh, yeah?
Discussion on TV Shows and Movies Featuring Gary Oldman
01:40:09
Speaker
right, let me give you the setup, because, Jay, I have only watched the first two seasons, but I absolutely love the show, and I need to finish catching up on it. um Oh, my. But I'll explain it for Dennis and anybody else who hasn't seen any.
01:40:23
Speaker
So, Slow Horses is, the name itself is one of those, like, ah the neighbor of the word that rhymes kind of things.
01:40:35
Speaker
So Slow Horses is a It is a a building that is part of MI6 called the Slough House. Slough House, Slow Horse. So the people who work there are called Slow Horses because it sort of rhymes with Slough House.
01:40:50
Speaker
um But it is Gary Oldman who is a... old school... nobody likes him. He doesn't get along with literally anybody.
01:41:02
Speaker
um But they can't fire him. So they give him the slough house. And he is now running ops as part of this MI6 fringe element. um where but He basically gets the people who screwed up badly enough that they can't be fired.
01:41:21
Speaker
and sent back to the public life because they're still spies and you can't just send a spy back to, to live as a normal person once they know things. So he has all the rejects and it's basically this team of rejects with the reject Supreme reject as their leader.
01:41:36
Speaker
And man, he's just a rude asshole to everybody. And it's, it's so entertaining to watch. Um, but, even though they've all had screw-ups, they are all good spies who know what they're doing and who are are are well enough seasoned um to uncover mysteries and and and terrorist plots and stuff like that. It gets really dark at some points um from what I've seen. But it it is very good.
01:42:07
Speaker
ah Especially the the faulty towers bit. It's very, very funny. um There's a lot of There's a lot of very fast talking In the show Very fast British talking Which is not easy for us as Americans always But luckily for me I've watched a shit ton Of British television So I can at least follow along fan With most of what's going on fan um Yeah, if you like British TV And you like spies This show is right up your alley It's on Apple TV And it's it's really good
01:42:47
Speaker
Dude, you know, ah Gary Oldman for me in The Professional was like – it was it were two things. Like Gary Oldman in The Professional, ah three things actually. My three kind of like pivotal roles, Gary Oldman – was The Professional.
01:43:06
Speaker
It was Fifth Element. And it was the commission of Gordon in Batman. Ah, I was wondering if the last one was going to be ah Dracula.
01:43:19
Speaker
No, so I haven't seen Dracula, so I'm not sure. I haven't seen that But like from what I've seen, my pivotal roles for him, the first one, the most important one for me, is The Professional. Yes. Gary Oldman in that character was It was terrifying. I watch it. and I love... it As as as as a
01:43:44
Speaker
as creepy as the director of that movie is, and as creepy as some of the themes in that movie are... great Not great in a lot ways I still love that movie ah But the the absolute highlight Is Gary Oldman's performance Every time I've ever watched that movie from when I was a kid Like Gary Oldman is so So good in that movie He's such a weirdo And, like, that performance of his has carried on to other actors in other roles.
01:44:14
Speaker
There's a—I can't even remember what movie it was. There's some William Fichtner movie um that he's in, that William Fichtner is in, where he is, like, he is playing ah Gary Oldman from The Professional.
01:44:28
Speaker
um Another one that comes to mind is Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints. He's, again, very, like, he's very, he's really taking a lot of inspiration from Gary Oldman's wild performance in The Professional. That movie rules, but especially Gary Oldman's performance in that movie is, like, exceptional.
01:44:49
Speaker
And it's just, he loves to make Gary Oldman loves to make the strange choice with characters. And I think that's what makes him such a good actor, is he adds this depth to his characters where they're not just the character that's written on the page. He's he's adding his little spin to it.
01:45:11
Speaker
I'm trying to remember what what happened in the professional. I think, like, so his performance in that was based off of some bit of reality. As well, where where he was really good at it because he kind of experienced that in his own life.
01:45:28
Speaker
with Oh, interesting. And and i believe that was the the story where he kind of came from a place where he knew about that stuff and the people around him didn't. And so when he performed that role...
01:45:40
Speaker
ah It felt real because actually in a lot of ways it was real and the people around him kind of freaked out. They were not expecting that sort of intensity.
01:45:52
Speaker
Interesting. His intensity came from a real place. Whether that was, i think, directly him personally or or somebody you know that that that was close to him. That's why it felt real because it it came from a real place.
01:46:07
Speaker
and And then fifth the fifth element was another thing where a lot of people joke about that movie it was a jokey pokey kind of fun comedy that's a goofy ass movie yes like it was goofy it's awesome but it's a goofy ass movie but but zorg him playing zorg was so organic he was the i think it was one of the best choices for that film because it was him doing his own thing um and and uh you've so you've seen the film right yes okay
01:46:39
Speaker
the film the So the scene the scene where where there was an explosion behind him, he's smoking a cigarette, the explosion behind him, right? That wasn't staged. That was not in the script. That was not a thing.
01:46:52
Speaker
It's the the people in the back background, the stagehands, whatever, they they like fucked up and they blew something up by accident. And it happened while filming, and he just reacted to it.
01:47:03
Speaker
Wow. And it speaks volumes about When I found out about that it speaks volumes about His ability to act and continue and he's He's great I love Gary Oldman I think a lot of us do I haven't seen his his chewing the The whole thing where he chews the pills as it Had always fascinated me as a kid I was like why is he doing that It's so weird And then eventually I understood that it's so that he can get his high Even faster ah But man I love that guy.
01:47:35
Speaker
What an actor. what a great It's still to this day, as an adult to me, like those scenes with him are so intense and abrasive in all the right ways where it's just like he's the character. He's that quintessential bad guy and you feel it in your bones when you watch that.
01:47:53
Speaker
But in this he plays a good guy who's also a bad guy.
01:47:58
Speaker
Good. Yeah.
01:48:01
Speaker
I'm still trying to remember the movie that William Fickner was in, and I can't find it on IMDb. There was some movie where he was an insane detective that really reminded me of the insanity of of Gary Oldman in La Professional.
01:48:18
Speaker
Anyway. All right. I had to get back to to jay Davis. um He said he would totally agree on all three, except he would add Dracula.
01:48:30
Speaker
The Gary Oldman performances. Yeah. see He's great in that movie. You should watch it. um I'm going to watch it. It's on my list. I'm absolutely gonna watch it. And certainly before I see you gentlemen at PCA, I'm going watch it. We can talk about it.
01:48:44
Speaker
Hell yeah. Let's do it. We'll talk about it at the media house. He also says the professional is amazing. It got me into a lot of genre nose, French movies, which are excellent as well. Dude, John Renault is a treasure. Man. Like that guy is awesome. It's,
01:48:59
Speaker
um It's Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu For me are in terms of film I absolutely love both of them For so many different reasons And they're just so intense And so cool Yeah it's just And then you go into like Fifth Element Which is a very French based story this This majestic like Sci-fi story that turned into An Americanized like comedy In my eyes If it was made anywhere else, it would be a dark story.
01:49:33
Speaker
Let me read his comment. He says, The Fifth Element could have been one of the greatest movies of all time. it does follow a bit It does fall short, but not due to Gary Oldman. Well, you know, and and the fifth the cool thing with the Fifth Element is that scene, Palava Laguna in the the performance ah coming out and singing the opera, Bruce Willis was not keyed into, like, what was going to happen. So his reaction to the performance, he didn't know. they didn't tell him about this stuff. He said, like, you know, it's in the scene.
Casual Wrap-up and Upcoming Events
01:50:06
Speaker
There's going to be a thing on stage.
01:50:07
Speaker
Cool. So when they filmed Bruce Willis' reaction to the performance, of Plava Laguna on the ship performing the opera, his reaction was genuine.
01:50:18
Speaker
He had no idea, and he had no idea that was going to happen, the intensity of that. And that song, again, is is is so incredibly difficult from musical standpoint. A vocal perspective, yeah.
01:50:30
Speaker
Vocal perspective. It's so technical and so cool. That's what I love about it. There's that nerdy aspect of it that makes it fun for everybody. um He also says, Darkest Hour is Old Man at his best. haven't watched Darkest Hour. I know that's that's him playing Churchill.
01:50:48
Speaker
oh Oh, shit. I've seen scenes. I haven't actually watched like the the you know the full thing. All right. Well, I guess that brings us to the end of this one.
01:51:01
Speaker
Man, I really enjoyed that Luc Besson, Gary Oldman talk at the end. That was fun. That's very nice. that That's why I like to have one for the road, man, because it gives us, you know, we have a little, we get to throw a little something extra there without just ah being podcast bros and just talking about everything that's going on in our lives and standing on our Apple boxes.
01:51:22
Speaker
Yeah, dude, we're we're people. We're we're doing stuff. We're reading books. We're listening to music. We're, you know, watching shows. We're connecting in a different way. And, you know, that's also part of us as as cigar smokers, as drinkers of spirits, as drinkers of non-alcoholic things as well.
01:51:39
Speaker
That's us, right? it's It's the essence of us. It's the primordial ooze that makes us who we are. We should talk about these things. And I want to see more of this.
01:51:51
Speaker
I want to see more of this, man. Awesome. That was a good way to end the episode. Alright guys, I guess that brings us to the end. um So Dennis, give him a catchphrase. We'll be you back next week and we only have a couple weeks left. We have, next week will be our last, our second to last show before PCA.
01:52:11
Speaker
no I can't wait. PCA is the next week after. No, so next week is the 5th. The following week is the 12th, which is the week of PCA.
01:52:22
Speaker
Oh, shit. Is it? Okay. I'm off. I'm off. Yeah. We got Easter going on. We got Passover going on. Yeah, exactly. It's lot of things going on. um So, we'll see you guys on the next episode. We will see some of you at PCA. If you're listening out there and you see us at PCA, say hi.
01:52:42
Speaker
Or if we already know you really well, just come hang out with us and have a cigar. um Dennis, give him a catchphrase. We'll get on out of here. Be done with it. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.