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LGP 34 - Fabrica 5 MOFOH Spada Gorda
8 Plays8 days ago
This week we're trying out something a little different. Created by Friends of Habanos' Rob Ayala and Cuban cigar maker Hamlet Paredes, Fabrica 5 created MOFOH with the help of the Friends of Habanos community.
Tune in as we smoke these cubanesque beauties and find out how they pair!
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 34
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, everybody. You got to watch Dennis dance for a second there. ah I'm feeling it. I'm i'm in in the zone. Anyway, do your thing. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. This is episode 34.
00:00:13
Speaker
And we're just going show you the band, as I usually do, but these are unbanded. This is the Fabrica 5 MoFo. We'll get into it. We'll talk about what talk about it, talk about what we're pairing.
00:00:24
Speaker
But for now, grab yourself as a cigar, grab yourself a drink. Let's get pairing. Let's get pairing.
Origins of Fabrica 5
00:00:46
Speaker
song no all right guys appropriate yeah know uh we're back welcome back uh this is let's get pairing episode 34 friends of habanos or sorry uh fabric of five rather mofo um fo is that foh for friends of habanos we'll talk about that in a minute but for now i'm your host trip here at the casa de monte cristo studios um as with my co-host as always getting ready to audition for a circus strongman man dennis dennis how you doing howdy duty uh doing good man i'm i'm feeling good surprisingly for a sunday normally i feel less enthused if you will but your presence always brings it back i feel like this is my my happy space good happy glad to hear it um
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah. I was going to say this is my happy space, too, but yeah, I just agree. How about that? um All right. The cigar we're smoking is the Mofo Spada Gorda.
00:01:49
Speaker
So we'll talk a little bit about ah where this brand came from, called Fabrica 5, or Fabrica 5, if you're pronouncing
Community Impact: Friends of Habanos
00:01:59
Speaker
correctly. ah It was founded by Friends of Habano's founder, Rob Ayala, along with famed Cuban cigar maker, Hamlet Paredes, ah who many people know because of his involvement in Rocky Patel and the line with his name on it a couple years ago. He's a cool guy.
00:02:15
Speaker
can think, yeah. Hamlet and I have a very personal relationship. Yeah? i Not one that's... I shouldn't bring it up.
00:02:26
Speaker
But yeah, we have a we have a relationship. That's fine. We'll talk about it off the air. I gotta know the story. Hamlet, if you're watching, reach out. We'll chat. Reconciling differences. All right, so a little background on Friends of Habanos.
00:02:41
Speaker
Started in 1996 when Rob kind of started importing Cuban cigars for sale. He was, I believe he called it parallel piracy in an interview that I read.
00:02:53
Speaker
um Basically, he was buying Cuban cigars from elsewhere, selling them in Australia in kind of a, not necessarily a black market, but a gray market kind of way.
00:03:06
Speaker
um In 2004, he added a online forum to the website as just kind of a place for his clients to interact with each other, talk about you know what ah what they're smoking, what they're liking, what they recommend, what they got from Rob recently.
00:03:21
Speaker
um And it took off. um I know yeah we were both in the forum scene back in the day, and people were all over Friends of Habanos. It's always been kind of the spot for Cuban cigar talk um and a place to get Cuban cigars.
Hamlet Paredes' Career Journey
00:03:42
Speaker
um Over the years, it's become really one of the primary online resources for Cuban cigar smokers all around the world, not just for chatting, but they have ah guides on...
00:03:55
Speaker
counterfeiting. They have very, very intense articles on what to look for if you think the cigar that you have may be a counterfeit. um Going to Friends of Habanos is never a bad idea.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the Forum. I have been for many years. And honestly, for me, especially growing up kind of in the scene and exploring cigars and Cuban cigars, Their knowledge base is incredible.
00:04:20
Speaker
And the people are so nice. There's a lot of absolute experts over there. Yeah, man. and And people are really nice about getting back to you. If you have a question, they don't just, it's not, unfortunately, I have to say this. It's not what Reddit is today.
00:04:34
Speaker
You can go there and you can ask a question. People actually be genuine about trying to help you understand what what the answer might be. um they're They're just great. So if you haven't checked it out, I would highly recommend you go on there and and and chat with some people.
00:04:47
Speaker
but be aware as the name implies well uh... it's really about about us you're not gonna get very far talk about the latest rock teller arts of hamlet all right so hamlet Let's go over his story a little bit. So at 17, he apparently was getting ready to go to school for a doctor, to be a doctor, and didn't want to.
00:05:10
Speaker
So he went and got a job moving boxes around at the Partagas factory. his He talked about how his parents really taught him that if you're not number one, you don't matter, um especially in Cuba.
00:05:22
Speaker
ah And so after about a year of moving boxes around at the factory, he started rolling Lusitanias, and that became his, which which was at the time the number one cigar job in the factory, according to him.
00:05:36
Speaker
um And so he was he was pumped about that. So over the years, he became kind of known as one of the best rollers in Cuba. He became kind of the... um uh... we call the cover model roller for cuba he was if the possible poster boy he was very young at that to like for him to come into what he was doing at that age was also really big deal because up until that point the level of skill required and you ended up seeing people much older than him doing
00:06:07
Speaker
and Yeah, he talked about, um in one of the interviews, he talked about how he was 17, or actually 18 when he started rolling, um and the the people next to him were a little bit older than him, but they had been rolling cigars since they were like 12.
00:06:24
Speaker
as their as their job. um And so he came really late to the game, but stepped it up. um So he became kind of the face of Cuban cigar rolling, and he would do events for Habanos all over the world, kind of those, um I mean, we've all seen them, we've all heard of them.
00:06:43
Speaker
They're kind of hard to come by, but the events where there's somebody rolling cigars, he would do that for Habanos. um So he would be all over the world in Casa del Habano's rolling cigars um with Cuban tobacco, um just live at the shop.
Fabrica 5's Unique Offerings
00:06:58
Speaker
um Of course, he became known all over the world for this. At one of these events in Europe, he met Rocky Patel, and Rocky Patel was like, If you ever want a job, let me know. um So at some point, he took him up on that. In 2015, Hamlet joined Rocky Patel and left Cuba.
00:07:15
Speaker
um And I lost my spot in my notes. But anyway, um I'm going mostly off the dome. if you Yeah, he came out with the Tabakero series, or Hamlet series, Tabakero series.
00:07:32
Speaker
I still have like half a box of those. I almost smoked one today after doing all this research.
00:07:39
Speaker
um And yeah, he's... And I should also mention that he has not only gained fame because of his, ah you know, being the face of Habanos.
00:07:49
Speaker
um A lot of it is because he's been known, or he was really well known in the 2010 to 2015 era roles. for cuban custom roles
00:08:02
Speaker
Which, you know, if you go to Cuba, you can get some custom roles. And his were regarded as some of the best. um So I think after he left Rocky Patel, it seems like maybe kind of a no-brainer for Rob to partner up with him.
00:08:16
Speaker
They had known each other for years, of course. Hamlet knows anybody who's been to Cuba, basically, right? um It's a very small, it's a very tight knit community. The Cuban crew, very tight knit between the rollers, the the the people on the on the fields and the farms that are actually getting the tobacco together.
00:08:33
Speaker
They're blending, getting you the tobacco. It's a handful of people. You could probably name on on one hand the key people that have been pushing the industry forward to where it is today. Wow.
00:08:44
Speaker
and And absolutely, he is one of those people. He's been keeping his ear to the ground from my experience and everything that I know about him. Yeah, it's just really, it's it's a very cool thing. like Again, he's one of those guys really very much like a couple of people you and I have met, Tripp, actually, in our travels, that can pick up, they can pick up a bunch of tobacco and immediately know, just touching it, immediately know where it's going in a cigar yeah and how it fits.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, it it is it's an incredible skill to be able to just look at tobacco and be like, I know exactly what that is and what farm it came from, and I know how to use it in a cigar.
00:09:28
Speaker
Uncle Leo is a great example of that. Oh, absolutely. That guy blew my mind, man. All the times we met him. ah All right. So that brings us to now.
00:09:39
Speaker
So ah they started Fabrica 5 in 2023, I think, is when the cigars started shipping. i I think they were kind of started on it a couple of years before that.
00:09:50
Speaker
um just kind of working on blends and factories and stuff like
Beer Pairing: Oktoberfest Marzen
00:09:55
Speaker
that. ah so Rob has now partnered with Hamlet to create kind of a line of cigars designed for consumers who are used to smoking pretty much only Cubans or Cuban custom rolls.
00:10:06
Speaker
Um, in the next few years, all of those are starting to get harder to find. There's a lot of, uh, There was, I'm trying to remember what the, there was a big deal earlier this year that Habanos was ah cutting shipments.
00:10:23
Speaker
um And it was basically, you have to agree to pay the same price for like two thirds of what you expect um as far as being a cigar shop. um And the rest is going to,
00:10:38
Speaker
Southeast Asia, where it's Cuban cigars are just crazy popular right now. um So prices are going up, availability is going down. And it seems like kind of a no-brainer for somebody who's primarily invested in that Cuban community to make their own cigar ah that appeals to those kind of people.
00:10:55
Speaker
So they have two lines in the Fabrica 5. They have, I'm going to pronounce it wrong, but Desnudos Puro Desnudo.
00:11:07
Speaker
which means naked cigars. um These are kind of inspired by Cuban custom rolls. They have them in a bunch of different sizes. therere Every few months, they're releasing a couple of sizes, ah sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes three or four in a month.
00:11:25
Speaker
um Lately, I haven't seen a lot of changes, so I don't know if they're if they're still releasing ah couple every month or every couple months, rather. um But then they've also got the Mofo series.
00:11:39
Speaker
So the Puro Des Nudos series is kind of ah a line of cigars that Hamlet blended in sizes that they like and sizes they think will do well with their customers.
00:11:52
Speaker
Mofo, on the other hand, is kind of community sourced. So they are, they have been, this is a project that's been going on for a couple of years. We know a couple of people who have been involved in the project.
00:12:06
Speaker
um where they are coming up with blends, sending them out to Friends of Habanos, members that they trust, and getting feedback, going, all right, how can we change this blend to make it hit your palate better?
00:12:18
Speaker
um And they've just they just spent a bunch of time dialing that in, and this is the final product. The one we're smoking is the 2023 edition of the Spada Gorda, which is kind of a Corona Gorda 5 7 8 46, a true Gorda.
00:12:32
Speaker
a true corona gorda Not that 5.5x48 stuff. That's a really great distinction. True Corona Gorda, yes, we don't see a whole lot of this.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's kind of shifted over the years based on the demographic of cigar smoker that that gets into this kind of size. It's gotten a lot smaller, I think, over the years. And it's nice to see kind of like a classic.
00:12:57
Speaker
Like, yeah, this is the Cuban classic. It's kind of cool. And i'm I'm very happy to smoke it. Yeah, and these cigars really just come in kind of Cuban classic sizes.
00:13:08
Speaker
They have, I mean, looking at them here, the biggest one I see is a 6x52. Most them are in the 38 to 46 ring gauge range, ah which is right up our alley.
00:13:22
Speaker
If you're interested, check them out check them out at fabrica005.com.
Beer Culture and Brewing Traditions
00:13:28
Speaker
um little shout out to them what do you think of the cigar so far actually before we get into that i'll talk about the blend so the factory um is a factory in honduras um fillers are honduran and nicaraguan and binder and wrapper are both from honduras all right now what do you think so far
00:13:50
Speaker
i am not all right so i'm don't five five minutes into the cigar
00:13:57
Speaker
I'm struggling to make an assessment just yet. I don't get a whole lot off the bat, and that's fine. This kind of profile, I expect that. I expect the profile to really develop 30, 40 minutes into the cigar.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah. um Very light, very, not even bready, but light toasted. um That sort of light toffee note is definitely in this.
00:14:22
Speaker
In my mind, my first stood when I first lit this, I thought, man, this is very much like a lot of the Bolivar Coronas that I very much loved for many years.
00:14:36
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of power. Again, so we're we're talking Cuban territory. right It's not going to have a whole lot of power to it. Yeah, not a lot of spice going on, not a lot of intensity, um kind of more elegant, dialed-back flavors. I'm getting that breadiness you talked about, just a little bit of kind of a baking spice, black pepper spice, just ah like a hint of it.
00:14:56
Speaker
A little bit of citrus and a little bit of some, not much, but some kind of sweetness. that I can't put my finger on. Maybe like ah candied almonds, like a little bit nutty.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, man. There's a subtle sweetness to it. The citrus part is really interesting. You make a great point. I think there's a good bit of citrus to it, ah which is surprising because generally a lot of the cigars that you and I smoke don't have that quality to them.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. so maybe And again, maybe that's why we're picking it out. It's more obvious to us because it's different than what we're used to. Yeah, for sure. Man, the breadiness is really what sticks out to me, though, um which I had read in the description of it and kind of inspired my first pairing.
00:15:43
Speaker
So I'll get to that in a moment. I'm very excited. Oh, you should be. This is a good one. um I almost missed it.
00:15:51
Speaker
But it's Oktoberfest time. um Oktoberfest was a couple weeks ago. I realized last week, I was like, shit, I haven't even had an Oktoberfest beer yet.
00:16:02
Speaker
um And I went on Total Wine and had some delivered today, which was pretty sweet. This is Varsteiner. Varsteiner? I think it was Varsteiner.
00:16:13
Speaker
Varsteiner! Varsteiner, yeah! ah Great beer. Love it. um So Varsteiner was founded in 1753.
00:16:24
Speaker
For anyone counting, that's a really long time ago. That's 1753. It's a whole. Yeah. that's like there They're nearing their 300th anniversary as a brewery.
00:16:37
Speaker
um They're in Warstein, Germany, which makes sense. ah And they've remained under the same ownership, under the Kramer family, since they opened. For 250 years, they've been owned by the same family um and have never you know sold out or anything like that. So take that, everybody else. like no There's nobody else that can say that, I don't think.
00:17:03
Speaker
Not only that. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going say, not only that, i'm I'm very excited. I have to say this. i I have to because it's Oktoberfest. Well, sorry, Oktoberfest ended. Oktoberfest was ah end of August, September time. But 1516, Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law, Reinheitsgebot, they are one of the few hardcore breweries that stick to that and believe in that.
00:17:32
Speaker
So, yes, tell us more about it. It's very exciting. It's a cool story to them. Oh, I don't have a whole lot. i didn't i don't I don't know if I got the whole story. No, got the whole story. My only other real note is that they're the largest privately owned brewery in Germany.
00:17:47
Speaker
That's a big deal. I think it was the fifth best-selling brewery in Germany.
History of Guinness
00:17:53
Speaker
But this is their Oktoberfest. It's a Marzen lager, as with most Oktoberfests, as opposed to the... ah What's the other style? Well, you fest beers, you have marzins, you have... Well, they call this a fest beer, but this is a marzin.
00:18:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah, dunkle. Dunkle's the other one I was thinking of. A lot of Oktoberfests in the U.S. are usually dunkles, as opposed to marzins. I prefer a marzin. It's a little on the lighter side, nice and bready, little bit sweet, little bit hoppy.
00:18:27
Speaker
I love a marzin. you Do you have more intel on Varstiner that I didn't find? No, i I think you nailed it pretty much. it's They're very old. They're one of the biggest. Basically, Varschiner, when you see them in the U.S. stores, you think, oh, this is a a hokey pokey brewery that was designed to sell to the American audience. No, man.
00:18:47
Speaker
This is a beer that locals drink, Germans drink, that people grew up with, that people are historically and and culturally attached to. They're like, yeah, I remember my grandfather drinking that yeah years ago and that you know in Germany. There's a lot of respect for what they do.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I think a lot of that is lost to to the American beer crowd because we're so involved in the IPA scene and whatever else is happening in the US, like you know but
00:19:18
Speaker
milkshake IPAs and all that stuff. We get so involved in that that we forget that there's an entire history of beer and beer culture. And Varsina is a great example of that because they've been very much the same.
00:19:33
Speaker
As far as we know, we they've been the same for the last 300 years. they They have stuck with exactly what they have been doing, and they keep doing that, and people really love that. And I think that' that's a really cool thing.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm loving this beer so far. I'll talk about my pairing notes after you tell us about your ah first pairing the night.
00:19:53
Speaker
Oh, boy. Hmm. It's very, it's it's a, there's there's a bit of curiosity to the fact that you have that beer. Oh, really? Because I am drinking, where's my, hold on, let me get my second screen. Did you notice my light go out at some point during that?
00:20:12
Speaker
I don't know when it went out. Not at all. Did it go out? One of them did.
00:20:20
Speaker
I just don't know when it happened. I've looked up and noticed it. You look just as bright as you always do. Oh, thank you.
00:20:28
Speaker
So what I'm drinking, you can't really tell a whole lot, but it's dark. It's some dark stuff. Odd Duck Brewing Company, the shameless plug, ah myself and my neighbor are are basically Odd Duck Brewing Company.
00:20:44
Speaker
And this is a beer that I brewed. shit man don't even know eight weeks ago oh yeah but it's about eight weeks um it's a Marzen oh nice ah well so Marzen dare I say Marzen Dunkle truly a Dunkle if you will It's a little bit meatier than Marzen.
00:21:10
Speaker
Okay. So the Dunkel style in general, typically what you're looking at is like a deep amber brown kind of color. There's more chocolate notes to it than ah than a Marzen. Yeah. So like if you look at a Marzen, you say, all right, that's kind of a dark beer, but it's still fairly light on the on the body.
00:21:25
Speaker
A Dunkel is more of that chocolate, deep caramel, very kind of sweet in your face. um And you' really you're not looking at a whole lot of hop profile. So this one I know for a fact does not have a whole lot of hop profile, and that's okay.
00:21:41
Speaker
It's meant to be on the sweeter side. And I brewed this just kind of like I figured for the season it would be perfect. End of September, early October.
00:21:52
Speaker
This is a beer that I want to drink. This particular one comes in at 5.6%. So... five it's five point six percent so ah About right. you know Generally, used you'll see Dunkles between 5.7 and 6.8. 6.8 is more of the American style, so you'll see in America, if you if you get like an American brewery that does a Dunkle, it'll be a little bit higher higher gravity profile.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. Which is fine.
00:22:22
Speaker
But this is the beer that people don't realize. like This is a beer that really... It's been so classic for so long that it influenced a lot of other beers.
00:22:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Schwarzbeer is a great example of a beer that that took its roots from from the Dunkel styles of early Germany.
Insights into Home Brewing
00:22:41
Speaker
Schwarzbeer being a, well, so it's a black black beer if you translate it literally, but it's much darker and much more intense.
00:22:51
Speaker
It took its roots from Dunkel's. and the and the sweetness of it. It took the sweetness a lot of the sweetness from it. We talked about the Reinheitsgebot. That's 1516. It's crazy to think about this.
00:23:04
Speaker
Since 1516, there has been a mandate in Germany about what you can or cannot put into a beer. it It's very pure. It's very simple, very pure. Barley, water, hops, obviously yeast, but Yeast was not part of the law when it first came out. Really?
00:23:24
Speaker
yeah it was just everything had to be naturally fermented. It was, it was never a part of the official law until years later when they decided, okay, we're going to add yeast to this because yeast, because again, if you think about at the time, it wasn't like today where you can go and you can buy a variety of different yeasts and different shops are doing different things and you get all kinds of really interesting strains.
00:23:47
Speaker
Back then it was just yeast or no yeast. And yeast was like, oh yeah, that thing that that we leave it outside, it kind of does its thing. yeah That's what had back then. As technology developed, as chemistry developed, yeast became a really essential part of the beer making process beyond water.
00:24:07
Speaker
Water is a different thing. Like we we can talk about water all day. Water chemistry is very unique in and of itself. But yeast is the second biggest thing. Once you get your water profile down for a beer, if you're talking about classic styles, Reinhaitz-Kibbutz styles, you're looking at water and then you're looking at yeast.
00:24:25
Speaker
It's not even about the grain so much, or the malt, I should say. it's really not about that. The yeast is what takes that water to the next level and ultimately affects your flavor.
00:24:37
Speaker
A great example of that is if you look at Belgian beer, Belgian beers, their yeast is designed specifically to be stressed. So meaning you take that yeast and you you put it into a higher temperature depending on you know the brew cycle.
00:24:53
Speaker
beyond your diacetyl rest and whatever else, you take it beyond the brew cycle, you put pressure on that yeast, and at higher temperatures, that yeast is going to produce a different level of flavor, different profile.
00:25:04
Speaker
So for Belgian beers, we talk about that spicy sort of banana, kind of funky black pepper banana flavor. That comes from the yeast being stressed at higher temperatures, releasing all those esters.
00:25:17
Speaker
And the esters are what we get on the nose when we drink things. that Think of like Duvels. is a good example. Karat is another good example. So they finally added yeast as ah is an official thing.
00:25:31
Speaker
And I would argue to say today, when you talk about Ryan Heitzkabot and breweries that are operating today, their primary focus is not the grain. It's not the it's not the hops even.
00:25:43
Speaker
It's not the water, which is interesting. They have gravitated toward just focusing on the yeast. And the yeast is what really is your profile. and the Interesting. I never knew that. Yeah, it's cool, man.
00:25:53
Speaker
So that's why at the beer store they have like 50, 100 different types of yeast that you can buy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. An analogy, man. Yeah.
00:26:06
Speaker
I had a question. I can't remember what it was. Oh, what what's up with the Ryan Heidsk about now? Is it still in effect, or is it kind of optional-ish these days? um Because I know that there are there are more American-style beers in Germany now, um but I don't know if they do the the fruited, the adjunct kind of things.
00:26:27
Speaker
Yes, they do. So they they do. The beer culture in Germany and in general in Europe has shifted toward this kind of like adjunct style, more interesting. like think of the More experimentation, right? I mean, like we talked about, Varsteiner has been making beer the same way for 250
00:26:51
Speaker
um And just breaking that mold is a big step over there.
00:27:00
Speaker
So it exists, and I think nowadays, more so than than in the last probably 50, 60 years, now when you see a brewery that says, hey, we are strictly Reina Heitzkabot,
00:27:11
Speaker
This is like a ah mark of honor for a lot of them. that makes sense. It's because it's it's significantly harder. And it's harder not because it's actually more difficult. It's harder because the demographic of the beer drinker has access to other beers like IPAs and adjunct beers and a different variety that you didn't see in a lot of European pubs.
00:27:35
Speaker
Really, I want to say pubs. Specifically because we're they're not going to beer stores. They're going pubs. The exposure to level of beers. This is the first time in the last, you know, really the last 15 years, 18 years, we've seen beers like Italian pilsners, sorry, Italian IPAs.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah. where they were always Pilsners and they were very crisp and were specific, very Italian, very kind of like sort of Italian version of Reinheitsgebot. And now we have IPAs and we have adjunct stuff and you can get, you can get a sour. It's crazy. You can get a sour at a German pub.
00:28:13
Speaker
Now it's like a thing. I didn't know that was a thing. The culture has. thing So now in a sense, the Reinheitsgebot beers are almost elevated to that, that status of this is more pure.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, nothing it's more classic. This is this is the old way. yeah This is the old way. Exactly. That's a great way to put that. And it's really fascinating. Yeah, that's super interesting.
00:28:37
Speaker
All right, so on to my beer. If you can't tell by looking at the glass right now, it is very good. ah Look at that lace. I've almost finished this already in just the eight minutes we've been talking or whatever.
00:28:53
Speaker
It's fantastic. I forgot how good this beer is. I look forward to Oktoberfest every year. Then I forget about it all September. And then right around now is when I'm like, oh, yeah, Oktoberfest.
00:29:05
Speaker
um And then I start drinking these beers and I'm happy.
Beer and Cigar Pairing Notes
00:29:08
Speaker
The beauty of that lace is that it's in its nature, the inherent nature of that lace is that it's thin, which is something that is markedly different than what we've experienced as beer drinkers coming up in the last 20 years in the U.S.
00:29:21
Speaker
coming out, forget about, you know, the macro beers, that's a different story. But like in the micro brew scene, you look at some of the largest, might they call them micro brewers, but Boston Beer Company is is an example, whatever else we've seen, they haven't been doing that kind of stuff. So people have experienced a lot of other things. And then you sit down and you have one of these beers during Oktoberfest and you go, fuck, this is really great.
00:29:46
Speaker
yeah What's so different about it? What's exciting? It's not a whole lot. b But the thinness, not on the head, but in the body is key. That's the crispness that you get from a, what they took is is is classic Pilsners and they took the crispness of a Pilsner and put it into a body of a beer that is more accessible to the average person outside of the Pilsner. Like I want a darker beer.
00:30:12
Speaker
I don't want a a red ale. I don't want a brown ale. It's too sweet or it's too hoppy or whatever else. And you have these beers, Dunkles, Marzen's, Fest beer. Very exciting.
00:30:23
Speaker
Anyway, I could talk about it all night. And for this one, it's i mean it's a little less bright orange than it looks in the picture. It's still fairly light. It looks like a ah more intense Pilsner.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah, just about. it's like a Pilsner Plus. Yeah, like a Pilsner Plus. But then the like the flavor of it is way more than Pilsner. There's a lot more sweetness. yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
up front, and then there's like that intense breadiness. And there is a noticeable amount of pops in here. I feel like a lot of German beer, I drink it. And it tastes like they forgot the hops, you know?
00:30:59
Speaker
It's just there as as just a little to add that little bit of balance. um And this one's got like just a tiny bit of hop kick to it. It's not an IPA. It's not going to blow your socks off or anything.
00:31:11
Speaker
But it just has that little bit of extra bitterness um and kind of, again, kind of like the cigar, citrus note. um As far as the pairing, I'm finding that breadiness is working really well with this cigar.
00:31:24
Speaker
Like you were talking about, the cigar is starting to ramp up a little bit. um I do have to say I don't think this cigar is going to make it to the end of the show because it's smoking a lot faster than most of the stuff we smoke on here.
00:31:38
Speaker
We kind of make it a point to not smoke small ring gauge stuff on the show because it goes by too quick. But this is the magic thing with this cigar. These cigars with this kind of profile, and you think about for me, a lot of the Cuban cigars that I really love, they end up being Werther's original quality to them.
00:31:57
Speaker
Mid cigar, second or final third, you know, you get to that point. It's got that intensity of where there's a full flavor. It covers your palate and it sticks to your palate. And it's that caramel little bit of that sweetness. Not much.
00:32:13
Speaker
Not a whole lot of sweetness. But just enough to carry that bread flavor forward. Yeah, I agree. how's How's it working with your Marduncle?
Exploring Johnny Walker's History
00:32:24
Speaker
Well, I... i will I will say on one side, yes. On the other side, yes. so On the one side, which is you know me being, I made this beer. It's it's my baby. She my baby. I ain't going to talk bad about my baby. But I think it, yes, sincerely, I think it works really really well as a style.
00:32:41
Speaker
I would absolutely recommend Dunkle for a cigar like this. All right. um All right, time to move on to our second pairing. I am a ah moving on up to our second pairing.
00:32:55
Speaker
because I've got something a little low on special side. i I was going through my liquor cabinet, and I found this. ah You could probably tell by looking at the top that this is a very tiny bottle.
00:33:09
Speaker
I was just trying to hold it in a way that is a much bigger bottle. No, this is a little 50-milliliter airplane bottle. um it was it was a gift that was included in a cigar package many years ago.
00:33:22
Speaker
Oh, didn't it didn't come with your flight? No. And i got a,
00:33:31
Speaker
I mean, I had it and i drank maybe half and left the other half and forgot about it. So I was digging through my liquor cabinet like, what am I going to drink tonight? What would go well with this cigar? And I saw this and I was like, this seems like the perfect cigar to try that with.
00:33:47
Speaker
because it's not something super intense, I'll be able to taste the whiskey a little more, and it won't be wasted. So I'm going to talk about Johnny Walker a little bit. So Johnny Walker was originally... It wasn't actually even created, really, by him, but John Walker, um he was originally a ah he He was 15 years old, and his parents, I believe, died...
00:34:14
Speaker
And he got some investors and decided to open a grocery store with wine and spirits, which is wild. This dude's 15. ah By the time he was 20, he was mostly focused on the spirit side of things.
00:34:31
Speaker
um And so customers would come in. They would ask for a whiskey. He would say, what do you like as far as flavor? And he would blend them a scotch whiskey um out of a bunch of single malts he had.
00:34:44
Speaker
and he would just kind of blend it to cuff customer preference. um Over time, he gained a reputation for this. um So eventually, he started writing his name, john Johnny Walker, on the bottles ah that he would sell um and just kind of made ah made a name for himself locally. So in 1857, I don't remember if I mentioned this, this the 1820s.
00:35:08
Speaker
um So in 1857, he passed away, leaving the business to his son, Alec Walker, um At this time, at this point in the story, whiskey is said to have been about 8% of the store's income.
00:35:22
Speaker
um So Alec spent pretty much his whole life building up Johnny Walker. um He was the source of many of the kind of lasting changes that would end up where we are today, um still being around.
00:35:37
Speaker
In 1860... He introduced not just the signature square bottle, which he did because it reduced the amount of bottles that broke in transit on ah a carriage or on a ship or whatever, um but it also, you could you could just fit them better in a box.
00:35:54
Speaker
um And that was just a a kind of utility innovation that ah really stuck and really became iconic. um In the same year, he also introduced the angled label that is apparently, i think it was a 24-degree angle, that it's always 24 degrees.
00:36:14
Speaker
um And ah he was this was also the first year that, because of a change in Scottish law, um you were kind of allowed to sell a blended whiskey as a product.
00:36:26
Speaker
um So all in the same year, he introduced all these changes. He started blending whiskey, selling it as a series of consistent bottled blends. So he had um a couple of different versions of Johnny Walker's Old Hydelands.
00:36:44
Speaker
And when he passed the business to his sons, which was around the 1890s, his sons Alexander and George, whiskey was about 90 95% of their sales.
00:36:55
Speaker
um So over the course of, what is that? 50 years? 30 years. About 33 years. um It completely changed the the face of this company.
00:37:10
Speaker
From being a shop that sells whiskey to being a whiskey company.
00:37:16
Speaker
Just a few years, so this I said that was around 1890. 1893, in eighteen ninety three the company bought Cardew Distillery so that they could use it as the primary whiskey in the blends.
00:37:29
Speaker
um They bought Cardew and they stopped selling their single ball. All of their production went straight into Johnny Walker. So at that point, it was already a juggernaut.
00:37:41
Speaker
In 1909, and at this, I should mention at that point, it was still Old Highlands. um It said Johnny Walker on the label apparently, but I couldn't find a picture or anything or illustration of what it looked like at that time.
00:37:53
Speaker
In 1909, they rebranded, adding the, well, he's not even on here. Oh, he is. The Striding Man, who's been redesigned a couple times over the years.
00:38:05
Speaker
um And they renamed the three whiskeys that they had from, I think they were Old Highlands.
00:38:16
Speaker
It was like Extra and Extra Old or something like that. But they renamed them to Johnny Walker Red, Black, and White. And so they had those three whiskeys in 1909. And I mean, the white has kind of come and gone, but the red and the black have always been there ever since.
00:38:35
Speaker
um During the first part of the 20th century, this is where I'm speeding up my storytelling because I didn't want to spend the whole time talking about Johnny Walker. But in the and the first third of the 20th century, Johnny Walker acquired bunch of new distilleries, including Colburn, Clenellish, Dalwini, Talisker, and Mortlock, um among a couple others.
00:38:58
Speaker
What? I'm a big fan of Clenellish. Oh, me too. Dalwini as well. Yeah, oh yeah. And they they, again, once again, and same as Cardew, they bought these distilleries for no reason other than so they had more whiskey that they could get consistently.
00:39:14
Speaker
um Which is wild. Just a few years later in 1925, they joined Distiller's Company, ah which we of course know because in 1997, Distiller's Company turned into Diageo.
00:39:30
Speaker
um So these days they're owned by Diageo. They are still a juggernaut of Scotch whiskey, the the biggest selling ah blended malt in the world, or blended Scotch whiskey in the world. They're not a blended malt anymore.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah. And the rest is history. So Blue Label. Let's talk about that. It was first released in 1992. It has never had an age statement, which is wild. Yeah. In 1992, it was $150, which is... ah Inflation has not hit Johnny Walker Blue very much, apparently, because it's still, like, 180 to 200 in most places.
00:40:13
Speaker
be fair, that's a Diageo... The buffer, the Diageo buffer. Fair enough. Fair point. But $150 seems like a lot less money than it did in 1992.
00:40:28
Speaker
But in 1992, it was the most expensive whiskey on the market. um I assume there were more expensive whiskeys that you could get at auction and stuff like this, but this was the most expensive thing you could buy that was in production still.
00:40:45
Speaker
That wasn't some whiskey from the 60s that nobody's ever heard of or something. The crazy thing is it bears no age statement. There's never really been any information officially on what is in Johnny Walker Blue that makes it so expensive.
00:41:02
Speaker
um They say their little blurb for it is it's blended to recreate the taste of some of the whiskey blends of the 19th century. So they're trying to make it taste like it did in the 1800s, but...
00:41:17
Speaker
You've got to assume that in the 1800s, whiskey was probably pretty bad. he was. We know from from accounts. we've We've had historical accounts that it was not. In today's world, where we talk about the refined quality and the characteristics of a whiskey, whether it's Scotch whiskey or otherwise, it's not.
00:41:35
Speaker
It's not nearly as refined. It was not back then as it is today. Yeah, exactly. um In the 32 years that ah Blue Label has, or 28 years, rather, that Blue Label has been on the market, ah there have been over 30 different limited editions of it that range in price from around the same price as Blue Label to...
00:42:01
Speaker
a lot more than normal Blue Label. um they have There have been reports of what goes into it, which is it's said that most Blue Label contains at least some whiskey from Ghost Distilleries, which is a distillery that was making whiskey.
00:42:19
Speaker
They closed down, but they still had whiskey in barrels. um So they sell that whiskey and buyers can age it for as long as they want after ah before they bottle it.
00:42:30
Speaker
um It's also been reported that whiskeys in the blue are aged a minimum of 28 to 60 years. But that sounds pretty far-fetched to me for a whiskey that's $150.
00:42:42
Speaker
you're You're talking like bourbon myth quality there. Bourbon lore. I would say if it was 18 to 30 years, I would believe that.
00:42:54
Speaker
But I've only got a tiny little pour left, as you can see. so I'm going to take a couple sips, see it pairs with this mofo. And let you tell us about what you're pairing next.
00:43:07
Speaker
I've got interesting pairing that is is very near and dear to my heart, but is a is a homegrown...
Creating a Guinness Clone
00:43:17
Speaker
another Another beer, basically, I have to say homegrown, it's another beer from...
00:43:22
Speaker
Odd Duck Brewing Company, which is, the beer is titled, officially, it's titled Maybe Guinness. You had this last week, right? Did I do Maybe Guinness last week? I think so. You did you did something about Guinness.
00:43:39
Speaker
unless you have Unless you have multiple Guinness clones. I thought I had all non-alcoholic. Oh, sorry. That was two weeks ago, maybe three. ah Two weeks ago, yes. Fair. My bad. fair my but Yeah, so this is maybe Guinness.
00:43:55
Speaker
Well, it's been sitting for a while, so i dare I say we're not going to look at the head on this and in the retention, but it is nitro-poured Guinness clone, if you will. i have Personally, I've done two clones.
00:44:10
Speaker
This one is, you know, when my neighbor and I, when we brew, we basically get down and he makes a beer, I make a beer. So we end up with two beers in one session. We end up with two Two different beers.
00:44:23
Speaker
We go into you know two different two different kegs. ah So this is the beer that he brewed when I was making my Dunkel. He made this one. And this is a an homage to the Guinness magic, if you will. if if if you love Guinness out there, it's the Guinness-y sort of magic.
00:44:42
Speaker
The interesting thing when I talk about Guinness, I always bring up the the the whole Hershey's thing. You're familiar with the Hershey's thing at all? Oh, yeah. So that for those of you that don't know, the Hershey's flavor, the classic, that little bit of difference that Hershey's milk chocolate has from a lot ah lot of other milk chocolates is that they, well, historically, if you look at it,
00:45:05
Speaker
um The vats that had the milk, they had so much milk in such a big vat and it sat for a good bit of time that it started to sour just enough. It soured just enough to affect the flavor of the final milk chocolate, making it iconic, right, is the iconic Hershey's milk chocolate flavor.
00:45:23
Speaker
If you get Hershey's and you get another chocolate, you'll you'll taste the difference. It's it's very interesting. So to me, ah when I talk about stouts, I think Guinness really stands at that level of of Hershey's kind of funk.
00:45:36
Speaker
And part of that is acidulated malts. Like if you want to talk about it's like lactic acid acidulated malts, a little bit of funk to it. The famous fish guts, right?
00:45:47
Speaker
Well, we yeah yeah, for for clarifying fit fish guts were were a part of that. which is um I don't know that they actually use that anymore. i think they've No, they've switched to more modern methods, I believe. I think they're using like Irish moss. They're not using Isenglass. Isenglass was the fish guts thing.
00:46:06
Speaker
They used Isenglass for years, and I think it's it's probably now like Irish moss or or adjacent. Probably more more, actually, chemically at that scale, I think chemically adjacent now. It's it's very pure.
00:46:20
Speaker
But... Dude, holy shit. Guinness has been making beer since 1759. Talk about old stuff, right? I think we have a theme for for this show. It's old beer.
00:46:31
Speaker
Arthur Guinness, we've talked about this. You've talked about this as well. Arthur Guinness signed that 9,000-year lease for the St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin.
00:46:42
Speaker
At the time, it was only 45 pounds. I don't have the conversion of what 45 pounds was back then, but it's not a whole lot. like I think ah it's it's I did the math.
00:46:54
Speaker
Oh, you did? Okay. And I believe it was like 5,000-ish pounds in today's money for a year. Which is not a whole lot. I mean, at the end of the day. I mean, it's nothing. that's Considering what it is, what what it's become, right? That couldn't pay the electricity bill in most production brewers. Yeah.
00:47:19
Speaker
Guinness is also famous for pushing this campaign, which is Guinness is good for you. This was a big deal. this This is one of the things I think that got Guinness into the mainstream of of people's minds.
00:47:32
Speaker
They saw these slogans of like, yeah, Guinness is good for you. right It's like it adds to your health benefits. it's got sizable amount of calories and other things for your day. So you can almost like when I grew up, I remember Guinness was kind of like, it's a meal.
00:47:50
Speaker
It's a meal in a glass. And that's what it was for, for so long, but actually Guinness doesn't have that many calories. It's about 125 ish, right? Depending on the Guinness that you drink, but the classic Guinness about 125 ish.
00:48:07
Speaker
But man, I love them so much for the history of beer that they've been a part of. Yeah. Like they they were the first, really, they were the first to innovate nitrogenation in in their beers.
00:48:19
Speaker
We know this because they have the patent for the the widgets that go into the cans that allow for a really unique draft experience. When you when you get a can in Guinness,
00:48:32
Speaker
Almost, i think, all. I don't want to say all, but... Everything except, like, the Export Stout. Yes. Some of their more specialty beers that aren't aren't the classic Guinness Stout don't have widgets, but everything that's normal Guinness Stout does.
00:48:50
Speaker
They do, which is it's amazing. It's a thing that didn't exist. They made this, and now it just kind of we we drink it, and we forget about the history of it. Guinness was also, by the way, did you know was the first beer sent to space?
00:49:04
Speaker
In 2011, they sent Guinness to space, which is amazing. But also, it was an experiment. if you You may not realize this, but Ardbeg.
00:49:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Was supporting this project to study how those flavors mature in a zero gravity environment. So like, yeah, again, great. Let's send it. Let's they sent other stuff. Obviously, they sent whiskey, but they wanted to see what kind of space zero gravity would do to to a Guinness. And that's kind of what was there any results from this research?
00:49:36
Speaker
Because that's the one thing I've never heard is if. Yeah, we never heard. We never heard a whole lot from from kind of what happened, what the results were. um But if I may, the Guinness World Book of Records, as we hear it and we know it, was created in 1955 by Sir Hugh Beaver.
00:49:58
Speaker
And this is in fact tied to Guinness. So when you when you hear a Guinness Book of Records, it is the Guinness. It is the the beer that you see in stores everywhere. It's the same Guinness.
00:50:10
Speaker
The same Guinness, man. And in today's in today's time, St. James Gate Brewery produces something like 3 million pints of Guinness every single day.
00:50:21
Speaker
Wow. That's a lot of beer. 3 million day. They ship it out to over 150 countries, which is amazing and incredible. And like for me, you know, as someone that brews beer and I sit at home and do my thing and whatever, it's amazing to me to think about that scale.
Florida Cogna Rum Discussion
00:50:38
Speaker
it's the scale. It's the, it's dealing with the logistics of multiple countries and different laws across nations and shipping laws and everything else. Like, holy shit, man.
00:50:50
Speaker
It's a big deal. So to that point, I think it's a beautiful homage to be able to make a clone of that in respect and love for a beer that we all know.
00:51:04
Speaker
And, um, My hands were not directly in the process. I was there for it. right I was in the room where it happened, so to speak. But I think it's it's fantastic. like The cologne, it worked out really well. We have it on nitro, which certainly helps.
00:51:20
Speaker
A lot of home brewers generally don't have nitro setup to do all that. We're fortunate enough to have that. And like, yeah, man, this this beer has been... guinness very Guinness happy.
00:51:34
Speaker
um I guess I should say the ABV on this is a little bit higher than classic Guinness. I think it's 4.6. Guinness is around 4.2. 4.5, 4.3, something like that. Well, 4.2 in the U.S. It's a little bit higher outside the U.S. So if you have Guinness in the Caribbean, let's say you go on a vacation, it's going to be a little bit higher.
00:51:54
Speaker
Potentially, depending on country. Some countries go the other way, and it's significantly less. We've seen this with whiskey and with rum. Like in Nicaragua, you go to the Dominican Republic, you go at 38%. That's weird.
00:52:08
Speaker
Some are as low as 35. Or 35. Why is it not 40? I don't know. You're
00:52:15
Speaker
right. You can't explain it. Science can't explain it. All right, Johnnie Walker Blue. I got a little drop left. This is one of the softest drinking whiskeys I think I've ever had.
00:52:33
Speaker
It's like...
00:52:36
Speaker
It reminds me of a Macallan with just like a drop of Laphroaig. Just enough to give it a hint of peat.
00:52:47
Speaker
Um... But it's really more that like sweet honey kind of flavors that you get from Macallan. But if... it This is a thing I do not say often, because I hate when people say it.
00:53:01
Speaker
You can't even taste the alcohol. Like, you could tell me this was 30% ABV, and that you did some magic to make it still taste like whiskey, and I would believe you.
00:53:14
Speaker
um Like, it's very, very soft on the palate as far as the the alcohol burn that we're used to.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's like, it's almost confounding the way that it's it's just so different from most whiskeys that I've had. That being said, it goes wonderfully with this cigar. I mean, Johnny Walker is one of those things. I i find that it's very divisive in sitting...
00:53:38
Speaker
sitting in bars and meeting people and chatting with, you know, about spirits and things. I feel like Johnny Walker is one of those things where self-proclaimed whiskey folk kind of, they kind of shit on Johnny Walker and say, oh, that's garbage. It's blended whatever shit, a macro, right? Macro whiskey, if you will.
00:53:57
Speaker
And to a degree, I think for a long time, I felt that way as well. But until Hurricane Sandy hit, Hurricane Sandy, hit my parents' house, completely flooded, flooded like beyond the second floor of the house.
00:54:12
Speaker
And my parents had a bottle of Green Label that's been there for, i don't know, probably as long almost as long as I've been alive. It's just been sitting there. And in helping them clean up, I distinctly remember seeing this bottle covered in mud and whatever else. And I i pulled it up and like I was sealed and I kept it.
00:54:33
Speaker
And I don't know if it's the like where it came from, it's a story of, you know, came from Hurricane Sandy, or if it really was that good, but man, that bottle was fantastic. ah Johnny Walker Green is very good.
00:54:45
Speaker
it was It was so nice and so pleasant. And I was a naysayer for for you know many years, so I came into it thinking, like, god it's going to be fine. I'm not going to think about it. And I had to stop and really sit down and enjoy every sip that I had from from that bottle.
00:55:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things about blended whiskey is that with a single malt— There are rough edges. There are pretty much always going to be rough edges.
00:55:15
Speaker
Maybe they're not rough for you, but they're rough for somebody else. Maybe they're not rough for other people, but they're rough for you. But there's going to be ah rough edges, whether it's the harshness or that you're like, that has a little too much peat for me or whatever.
00:55:27
Speaker
um And blending whiskey was created to solve that problem. So you could get kind of the best of both worlds. Johnny Walker has spent 200 years perfecting that.
00:55:38
Speaker
So they've got to be doing something right. That being said, Red Label is garbage. ah That stuff is rough, man. and
00:55:50
Speaker
Oh, you mean the people that drink it Red Label? Both. but every Every Red Label drinker. and Excuse me, it's not to knock anybody's choices, but I found there's a correlation with people that drink Red Label.
00:56:05
Speaker
their general societal quality and ability to coexist with other folks in an intelligible manner as an adult that I find like there's a discrepancy there.
00:56:18
Speaker
It seems there's a very strong correlation of like, okay, I see red label double on the rocks in a plastic cup.
00:56:31
Speaker
I know you're, I know exactly what you're saying the night. If something goes down, you're not the guy. um Certain things, yeah, maybe. Certain things that go down, sure, I'll call on you.
00:56:43
Speaker
But if there's a ah matter of import, um you're not going to be the guy. Sorry. Or whatever. I will say, but Blue Label, if you have a chance to buy one of these little bottles for anything reasonable, I think in some places these bottles are like...
00:57:01
Speaker
30 or 40 bucks for an airplane bottle which is like no don't pay that are you crazy um but i've i've seen sometimes one of these for like 25 dollars 17 dollars um if you're looking for something fancy just to try it i'd i'd recommend it it's it is really good whiskey well
Cigar Flavor Profile and Pairings
00:57:25
Speaker
$5,000 first class ticket on a middle Middle Eastern flight will get you one of those bottles for free. Probably. Small price to pay for a small bottle.
00:57:38
Speaker
um How's your Guinness working with this cigar? i could see like I'm finding chocolate notes in the cigar that I think could be could work really well with that Guinness. I've always said, since since the beginning, first taste, I've said, man, this particular one, the Maybe Guinness, has an interesting twang of vanilla that classic Guinness does not have.
00:58:00
Speaker
And I really enjoy that. I really love that about this beer. I love that it's a little bit different. It's not true Guinness.
00:58:08
Speaker
I don't know. I think where where the Dunkle sits with the sweetness, the Guinness doesn't have that sweetness. And it's not bringing out some of those extra flavors that I really liked about the cigar.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah. I'm feeling like more sweet is better, at least at this point halfway through the cigar. for More sweet is more better. Yeah. like that. um All right.
00:58:34
Speaker
Time move on to last pairing. I went with something kind of different that I don't know if it's going to work or not. This is McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt. I'll hold up the bottle there. There's a lot of words on there.
00:58:46
Speaker
What is that? Geez. I've never seen that before. I've had it on the show once or twice. Maybe. So this is, it says Clear Creek Distillery. That's kind of a brand name under Hood River Distillers in Oregon, based in Hood River, Oregon.
00:59:02
Speaker
um So this was first released in 1996, making it the oldest American single malt. Isn't that wild?
00:59:12
Speaker
Is that true though? Or is it one of those like the first single mall since prohibition? All right. That's fair. I don't think any were produced at all after pro prohibition.
00:59:24
Speaker
Um, but this, this is currently the oldest single malt in the United States.
00:59:31
Speaker
Um, they make it, as I said, in hood river, Oregon, but they use 100% peat malted barley imported from Scotland, which is pretty rad. Um, this This is a bottle from a couple years ago.
00:59:44
Speaker
It says on the back that they use a Widmer Brothers Brewing Company does their malting for them. No shit. Okay. Or or they rather their fermentation for them, I mean. um I don't know if that still goes on because I think Widmer's gone.
00:59:59
Speaker
Not positive about that. I think they were absorbed at some point. Yeah, so they may still be making it in the same facility, but it may have different name. Yeah, they they exist. I think it's just a different name. um This is the standard...
01:00:14
Speaker
McCarthy's. They also have one that's a five or a six year age statement. This one is three. um But one of the interesting things is it's aged in Oregon oak.
01:00:27
Speaker
So this is not aged in American white oak. It's aged in Oregon oak, um which I don't think makes it much different, but it's still pretty neat. um And it comes in at 42.5% ABV, which is a weird number to be bottling at.
01:00:43
Speaker
But you've got to think some thought probably went into that. 43 was maybe too hot. 40 wasn't what they wanted. Well, at that point, also, because you're blending, you're adding water back to cut the barrel proof, it makes...
01:01:00
Speaker
It seems crazy to your point. It seems crazy like half a percent doesn't seem like a whole lot. But actually, at scale, it's it's kind of a big deal and affects the flavor profile. Yeah, that's true. And it and it affects your profits.
01:01:16
Speaker
Because if you cut a little ABV, that's X amount more bottles that you can make per year for the same price. That's a point.
01:01:24
Speaker
yeah I'm going to take a couple sips of this see how it is see how peaty it is because the last time I had it was with a stronger cigar um if I remember correctly it might have been no I don't know if I've had it on this show at all actually um but I remember having it with a stronger cigar um that really got blown out by the flavor so I will i will take a couple sips of this and see if I can taste the peat in it this time
01:01:57
Speaker
as you struggle riding the struggle bus with that cat i i i've done been open this it's fine um you know this hell yeah we all know this we know and love this florida kanya 18 couldn't resist with with a kind of cuban inspired cigar i could not resist jumping on that bus and i Man, there's so many things to be said about Floridonia outside of the fact that just the experience of of you and I when we first experienced, we had our first sip.
01:02:35
Speaker
Was it together? I suspect it was the first time. You and I first tried Florida Cognac together, and we were never really rum people. I was never very much into rum. You were not as well. I had never tasted a rum I liked.
01:02:48
Speaker
The only rum that I ever liked was a rum and Coke or ah like ah you know a frozen rum cocktail or something. Yeah, and that's fair. And I was very much in the same boat where I i really didn't gravitate to rum from a spirit perspective and spirit being that I'd want to pour this over ice or in a glass or just have it by itself.
01:03:09
Speaker
Forget about cocktails and everything else. It's a different world altogether. Right. But man, when I tried Florida Konya, there was something to it. And I think you feel the same way. It had a certain magic to it. That was,
01:03:22
Speaker
Well, I mean really very much like the bourbon. I've called it the bourbon of rums for years. To me, it has that bourbon quality to it, that stickiness to it. The the st stickiness that is distinctly different than what you would expect with a rum that's very sweet.
01:03:38
Speaker
Generally, the sweet rums like you think Bacardi makes you know a variety of rums. Oh, yeah. They're kind of sticky and sweet. That was never my thing.
01:03:49
Speaker
I wanted something that had some legs to it. Certainly this has, well, you might not be able to see it.
01:03:58
Speaker
Hold it a little higher. There you go. There we go. You can't see the legs on it. No, not quite. That's a cool Laphroaig glass, though. That's a little, yeah, it's a little baby Laphroaig from Burns Night from earlier this year.
01:04:14
Speaker
Burns Night. Anyway. ah Florida Canyon was established in 1890, which is another old brand, which is pretty cool. But what makes them really distinctly unique in terms of rum is that they where they basically come from volcanic soil.
01:04:29
Speaker
This is the San Cristobal Volcano. in Nicaragua, which is really cool. The soil, the climate, all all that minerality of the water contributes to the flavor of you know what we get. It's distinctly different than when we have Caribbean rums, whether they're industrial rums or or agricultural rums.
01:04:49
Speaker
the The minerality of the water is a big, big, big deal. Yeah, absolutely. Man, holy crap. They've done a bunch of cool stuff. They've been around forever.
01:05:01
Speaker
They are really, I think, ah officially, the I think they're the first carbon neutral and fair trade certified rum to exist. I believe so.
01:05:12
Speaker
I think I read that. Before, that was a thing. they you know Purportedly, that's that's what they say. And I believe that. I absolutely believe that in them. But what's really interesting is also they don't add anything else. They don't add sugar. They don't add artificial flavor. They don't add color. Now, the color thing...
01:05:31
Speaker
Listen, it's it's on the fence, right? You can argue yes or no. they They don't specifically state there's no added color, but I would suspect there is not. yeah I'm leaning on the side of probably not.
01:05:44
Speaker
It's hard to tell. It is hard to tell, yeah. but But Florida Konya has been a a staple for, but I'm having a cigar, 90%, 85% of the time, I'd say I have a bottle of Florida Konya, I'm going to go for that.
01:06:02
Speaker
It's um when you have a cigar and you need a drink, Florida Cognac is hard to pass up. If you have it on hand, it's getting hit in that rotation more than everything else. for sure. For sure.
01:06:15
Speaker
I think, and also Florida Cognac, to be fair, if you are a bourbon drinker and you are, for for you know for me growing up with Cognac, I have consumed lots of Cognac, like family events and things.
01:06:30
Speaker
I grew up with a palate for cognac, but a lot of people haven't. And a lot of people that are bourbon drinkers kind of don't know how to approach a cognac or a rum. This is the perfect intermediary to get you into that space.
01:06:43
Speaker
Florida Kanye is a good mix between bourbon and cognac. It has that body to it. It has a little bit of sweetness. It has that, the fullness on the palate, which is buttery, which for a lot of rums, it's not buttery. A lot of rums are just kind of the, you know, they hit you hard. It's just full speed sweet.
01:07:03
Speaker
It's full speed sweet. it's It's got the alcohol bite to it. Florida Konya has a finish, like a long sort of extended finish on it. Very similar to Cognac. So if you're Cognac drinker, I would say Florida Konya would be a really great alternative.
01:07:20
Speaker
Certainly the 18. I mean, I'd love all of them, but the 18, I think, is a really great everything wrong, if you will, for me. Yeah, the 18 is fantastic.
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, man. I always talk about the 12 is my favorite because it kind of has the most oomph to it. But the 18 is fantastic.
01:07:44
Speaker
I think the 18 goes better with kind of more medium-bodied cigars. And the 12 goes better with full-bodied cigars. That's where I'll put it. Yes, absolutely agree.
01:07:54
Speaker
Wholeheartedly. Yeah. and And, you know, generally I find that now that I've explored rums, I love Florida Konya, but but i I find that I don't gravitate toward industrial rums as much.
01:08:09
Speaker
Florida Konya is the reason why I wanted to explore rum and I found and agricultural rum, which is subtle. It's floral. It's distinctly unique.
01:08:20
Speaker
I really enjoy that as well. Yeah, Florida Cognia is an industrial rum, but because of the way that they distill and age it, it doesn't really taste like it.
01:08:34
Speaker
um yeah We got some people in the comments over here. oh That's my father-in-law.
01:08:43
Speaker
Hey, Fenner. ah Thanks for joining. all right, McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt. This peatier than I remember it, because like I said, I've had this with a couple of cigars that were on the more full-bodied side. Yeah. um This cigar being like medium plus, I get a lot more of that peat, a lot more of those delicate flavors in this whiskey.
01:09:07
Speaker
um I'm trying to think of what's there. It reminds me of Talisker with a little more little more sweetness. Yeah.
01:09:19
Speaker
Oh, interesting. If that makes sense. So it's got like that little bit of peat, that little bit of sweetness that yeah um kind of one of one of the flavors that I always get from many, many scotches is hard hard candy.
01:09:35
Speaker
Like kind of that Werther's original Jolly Rancher kind of sweetness. The Belgian hard candies. Or Belgian sugar. What's a Belgian sugar?
01:09:48
Speaker
a beer thing. Okay. All right. I don't know. I don't know anything about it. um But this cigar is working really well with this whiskey. um I'm struggling with what my pairing of the night will be. How's your how's Florida Cogno working with this thing?
01:10:05
Speaker
Oh, it's fantastic. I almost want to say this is the pairing for the cigar.
01:10:12
Speaker
I would argue to say, now the beers are fine. It's not that they're bad. You know, generally we have distinct, like this is good. This is not good. Or this is better.
Recommendations: Movies and Books
01:10:23
Speaker
This is one of those nights where I think for me, the pairings are very close, but then Florida kind takes it to the next level.
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah. Um,
01:10:35
Speaker
i' Man, I'm trying to figure out what my pairing of the night is, and I'm kind of the same boat where it's like the Varsteiner worked really well with the first third because it's it's got that bready note, that subtle sweetness.
01:10:48
Speaker
um Then the Johnny Walker was just so good. and brought out kind of those chocolate notes in the cigar. The McCarthy's is really bringing out chocolate notes for me. I think it's that that smoke.
01:11:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah. bet. It brings out this intense chocolatiness in the cigar, like really dark chocolate, which I wasn't expecting at all from this cigar. um I think I'm going to go with McCarthy's, but it's ah it's kind of a toss-up.
01:11:17
Speaker
this is What do you think of this cigar before we get out here?
01:11:22
Speaker
Halfway through, now that i'm I'm more than halfway through, once I hit the middle mark, that's when I really started to enjoy the cigar. It really started picking up for me, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, it it reminds me. I mentioned this this in the green room. um I love Bolivars. I love the Bolivar Coronas, the Coronas. Just fantastic. And um I think this embodies that Cuban spirit in such a great way. That's that's really cool.
01:11:50
Speaker
And it's a nice change pace, to be fair. it's Smoking a lot of heavy Nicaraguan stuff, heavy Pennsylvania stuff, Mexican tobacco. It's a nice change of pace. Yeah, I agree. And I really could see people who like um
01:12:06
Speaker
the fuller-bodied side of Cubans, I think, would enjoy this.
01:12:13
Speaker
This is not um it's not going to be a cigar for everyone, I don't think. But it's a, ah what's the thing that people call it sometimes? It's a connoisseur cigar.
01:12:25
Speaker
If you smoke a lot of cigars and you really like um a mix of intense and delicate, this cigar fits that bill perfectly. Oh, for sure. I can see that.
01:12:36
Speaker
Yeah. My, you know, my my Florida Konya, I, man, I struggle. for like Florida Konya, I struggle all the time. To not drink at all? Is that what you're saying?
01:12:48
Speaker
No, well, I struggle because I distinctly remember multiple times sitting at the airport in Nicaragua on ah on a flight out when i I have time to kill. And I'm in you know the little room, the little back room they have at the airport where you can smoke and drink.
01:13:05
Speaker
And sitting in that room with a cigar, drinking Florida Kanye before my flight and going like, this is this is the experience. This is it. A Florida Cogna and a Tonya.
01:13:17
Speaker
That's my before flight record. Well, for for look Florida, yeah exactly. Yeah. Florida Cogna and Tonya. And then something from from Esteli generally. ah It's so hard to describe that experience.
01:13:31
Speaker
Right. I agree. But it's magical. and i And I love Florida Cogna for that. it's It's the history, and I think maybe in that sense I have a little bit of a – I'm leaning more toward it because I've been fortunate to experience the the magic that is Nicaragua.
01:13:47
Speaker
Yeah. But, dude, everybody that I've turned on to Florida Cogna loves it. Me too. Adores it. In fact, this bottle that I'm holding right now is not my bottle. It's my neighbor's bottle.
01:14:00
Speaker
Did he leave it there and you're just were taking it off the top? I ran over to the pole barn and i grabbed the bottle. We have a collection of things. Nice.
01:14:10
Speaker
Nice. I love it. All right. I guess that brings us to the end. It's time to get out of here. But first, we always have our one for the road where we tell you about something that we've been into lately.
01:14:23
Speaker
Dennis, I'm going to let you go first. You want me to go first? Oh, boy. Well... I mean, I can go first if you need to think. I just i think I went first last week, and I'm trying to go back and forth. No, there's not a whole lot of thinking on my part. i you know i feel I feel almost kind of bad because I've been leaning on a certain theme for a couple... Yeah.
01:14:45
Speaker
But... You know what? I think maybe some people need to experience this theme. They need to experience the magic of of what this really is. And, and you know, I'm i'm wearing this...
01:14:56
Speaker
Ridiculous 80s stringer thing, right?
01:15:02
Speaker
I want to bring you back. You remember movie? 1989, Tango and Cash. Oh, yeah, of course. Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, just like, wow. It was nuts. And there were other people.
01:15:16
Speaker
To the man with with the with the chin, I forget his name, but he was in... What was he in? He was in a famous... Ah, shit.
01:15:31
Speaker
You who I'm talking about, right? I don't. No, was the guy with the... You know who I'm talking about. like You haven't said the guy with the something. The guy with the... The guy with the chin. The chin.
01:15:43
Speaker
Jay Leno? Gary Busey? Oh, Robert Zadar. Oh, okay. Robert Zadar, he was in a couple of films, cult classic films.
01:15:57
Speaker
he I forget what disease he had, but he had something that that made his chin... Big chinitis, I think. Something like that. But, dude... Holy shit.
01:16:08
Speaker
Super cool. Tango and Cash. Terry Hatcher's in it if you're into that kind of thing. but Terry Hatcher does a great script. I remember like as as a kid watching this movie going, this is a great film.
01:16:20
Speaker
It's exciting. It's got action. It's got some tech to It because you know it has a little bit of comedy. I love that movie so much. It's a good movie.
01:16:32
Speaker
you've You've re-watched it. Maybe eight-ish years ago was the last time I watched it. It's been a while.
01:16:41
Speaker
Yeah. They, you know, there was so much going on, like Kurt Russell in drag, which, which was really cool and kind of not a thing that was not super acceptable back then. Yeah.
01:16:53
Speaker
Not that it was. Yeah. It wasn't like particularly acceptable, but it was really cool that he did that. And he pushed through, um The chemistry between Stallone and Russell on that set was... You could see it. You could see that, man, in the in the in the movie.
01:17:10
Speaker
And, yeah. it It's one of those films, like, I can put it on in the background and just do my thing. And it's just a feel-good background film. So Tango and Cash, if you haven't seen it, 1989, check it out.
01:17:25
Speaker
Lots of action. Definitely lots of action. Tango and Cash always reminds me of... a an arcade game I played when I was a kid. Which one?
01:17:37
Speaker
It's called Lucky and Wild. I think most people have never heard of it. So Lucky and Wild was a game. You remember the light gun games you had the gun? Time Cop and all those. So Lucky and Wild was a game where you had the gun, but you also had a steering wheel.
01:17:53
Speaker
And so it was a two-player game where you sit next to your buddy, and one of you can drive one of you drives and shoots, and the other one just has a gun and just shoots. And it was so fun.
01:18:04
Speaker
But I remember it immediately reminded me of like, wow, that's a complete knockoff of Tango and Cash. I don't remember if the game itself is, but the name was. 100% the game was a ripoff.
01:18:15
Speaker
And I remember, um what was it? Time time Crisis. Oh, yeah. I love that game. Time Crisis. Where you had to pedal. Yeah.
01:18:26
Speaker
So you could duck behind stuff. Yeah. yeah Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah. Great. What's yours?
Book Feature: The Handyman Method
01:18:31
Speaker
All right, so mine is going to be a book. um It's getting to be spooky season.
01:18:38
Speaker
ah It's almost here. I've been ramping up a little bit, watching some movies, some TV shows, some books. um I read a book called The Handyman Method, which is a I don't know what I expected, because i always I never know what to expect from a book, but this was different than I expected. So it's about a ah ah family, husband, wife, and child that move into a brand new house. They just had it built.
01:19:10
Speaker
They basically walk in, and the husband opens up his closet, and there's a big crack in the drywall. And his wife says, just call the guy, and he'll send someone to fix And he goes, no, I got this. I can fix it.
01:19:24
Speaker
ah and he starts watching this guy on YouTube that shows him how to fix it, ah and then without giving much away, ah it escalates in in many ways.
01:19:40
Speaker
um Basically, he you you pretty quickly find out that something some kind of energy in the house is making him compulsively repair things. So it's all it's mostly in his point of view, first person.
01:19:56
Speaker
And he's like, he goes to ah Home Depot and he's like ogling the the like side cutter, kind of wheel wheel cutter, ah rotary cutter.
01:20:12
Speaker
um But like getting way too into it. like I don't know what I'm going to use this for, but I need it. And it just kind of becomes this obsession that starts affecting his life very negatively um and eventually affects it a lot more negatively. it's like a It's kind of a different kind of haunted house move how book, which I thought was really interesting.
01:20:37
Speaker
um And it's just really well written, really creepy, and I could not put it down. you You are describing, I think, in a lot of ways, a film called Stay Tuned. are you familiar with this?
01:20:48
Speaker
No.
01:20:52
Speaker
1992, John Ritter and, I mean, a whole bunch of people were in John Ritter and what's that guy's name? Ah, shit.
01:21:04
Speaker
I wish I knew. Jeffrey Jones? There we go.
01:21:10
Speaker
Jeffrey Jones is not ringing a bell. Oh, Jeffrey Jones. Noted noted pat ah pedophile Jeffrey Jones. Yes, I guess now, unfortunately.
01:21:22
Speaker
but Yeah, so it was a John Ritter film where he was he was like an overworked schlub and paid for like a fancy cable system.
01:21:33
Speaker
And when he signed the contract for the cable system, was actually the devil. And the devil signed him into this contract where he got sucked into the TV with his wife and they became characters in the TV. But everybody dies.
01:21:47
Speaker
Oh. Every show you're in. You remember this? I do remember this. The guy with the eyebrows. What's his name? Guy with the eyebrows?
01:21:58
Speaker
Jewish cat with the eyebrows. My man. I got nothing. um I'm drawing a blank on that other than what's his name? The guy the the director guy.
01:22:10
Speaker
But it's not him.
01:22:13
Speaker
It's a guy with the eyebrows. You and your descriptions. Big eyebrows. If you can tell me what he was in, i can probably name him.
01:22:23
Speaker
Eugene Levy. Oh, okay okay. Guy with the eyebrows makes sense. Never mind. Yeah, it's the best I got. so it's a Eugene Levy was in it. Jeffrey Jones, David Tom, Heather McComb was in that, which is crazy. But, yeah, it was it was cool, man.
01:22:42
Speaker
I'll have to check that out. i don't i It sounds familiar, but i don't I'm not positive I've actually watched it.
01:22:50
Speaker
So I'm not sure. sorry But yeah, Handyman Method. Check out that book. um Really good kind of ah horror thriller kind of book. It doesn't get too intense, I don't think. So even if you hate horror, it may still be up your alley.
01:23:05
Speaker
Check it
Fabrica 5 Details and Conclusion
01:23:06
Speaker
out. All right. Well, this has been the Fabrica 5 Mofo. um Check out these cigars ah from Fabrica 5. What do you think about the price point on this? $12?
01:23:19
Speaker
Seem reasonable? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, agreed. um Yeah, ah go check out the cigars. They ship from the U.S., so they're pretty quick.
01:23:30
Speaker
um There's some confusingness to the site, being that it's you're paying in Australian dollars because you're paying Australia, even though it's shipped from the U.S. It's a whole thing. ah But either way, recommend them. Fast shipping.
01:23:42
Speaker
Good company to deal with.
01:23:45
Speaker
And very good cigars that pair with a lot of different stuff really, really, really well. This cigar was a pairing dream. All everybody. Well, that brings us to the end.
01:23:56
Speaker
Talk to us next week when we'll be back with a new cigar um that I'll hopefully have decided well in advance, but we'll see if I get busy again. So thanks for watching.
01:24:08
Speaker
Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for doing all the stuff. ah Dennis, give him the catchphrase, and then we will call it a night. I'm going to leave you with this. Robert Starr had a disease called cherubism, which is congenital disease for for the lower lower face, lower jaw, I guess.
01:24:29
Speaker
But and don't be that guy. And remember, we wanted to drink better, but we wanted to drink less.