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LGP 71 - Cohiba Spectre 2025
19 Plays1 month ago
This week, we're smoking Cohiba's most premium limited edition offering, The Spectre!
Note: Do not adjust your set, there's a little technical hiccup in this episode.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 71
00:02:28
Speaker
Hey everybody! Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. This is episode 71 and today we're smoking a pretty special cigar, the Cohiba Spectre. We're gonna tell you all about it, tell you what our pairings are, check it out, try the cigar, and let you know what we think and how pairs. So for now grab yourself a drink, grab yourself cigar, and let's get pairing.
00:03:07
Speaker
right, guys, and we're back. Welcome back. This is Let's Get Pairing, episode 71 with the Cohiba Spectre. I'm your host, Tripp, here in LGP South with me from the dungeon of LGP North is denis
Miami Meetup Excitement
00:03:20
Speaker
Dennis. Dennis, are you doing this weekend?
00:03:22
Speaker
Hey. Good, man. i'm I'm so excited. I'm so jazzed. This is a good week, man. This is a good week because we are meeting up in Miami this
00:03:32
Speaker
it's It's my favorite time of year because we get to not just see each other in person, but we also get to sit down with our favorite people and spend time with friends in the industry and and smoke some great cigars and talk shop and just be – dudes doing a thing, hanging out.
00:03:51
Speaker
it's It's so nice because it feels almost relaxing in that sense. Obviously, we have you know some media-based interests as well. but However, it is certainly compared to PCA, this is going to be a kind of a treat for us, and and it's so nice that it's happening this time of year right before the holidays.
00:04:13
Speaker
PCA is like a like going on a ah ah business trip where you're busy the whole time. And there's there's a lot of fun in that that's involved there. But for the most part, we're working our dicks off.
00:04:29
Speaker
The Zona Palooza is more just go relax and be with people and meet new people and hang out with friends that you've known for years. And great. It's great. you know i I would even argue that going to PCA is a lot like going on deployment, man. when we When we get down on business, our schedules are packed, and even though our schedules are fully scheduled and and considered and booked out… Things happen. Unexpected things happen. Every time. that that you know
00:05:00
Speaker
And we have to adjust for it. And we are on the ground from early morning to very late night. And whether that means we're sitting down with people and chatting with them after hours and and kind of getting the scoop on stuff or we're actually doing the interviews and we're doing the you know a lot of the editing that happens behind the scenes, a lot of the work that happens behind the scenes.
00:05:21
Speaker
Man. I would almost argue for next PCA, we probably need some kind of behind-the-scenes footage action to share with the people so they understand what the media house is really like.
00:05:33
Speaker
um that To be honest, that might be a good idea, just to shoot some, like, C-roll of each other shooting our videos and stuff. I think that might might be kind of neat for people to see.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's a lot that goes that you know there's a lot that goes into it, and I think as much as people really appreciate a lot of the interviews and a lot of the work that goes into it, I think they don't get a chance to see it from – in a sense from our lens of all the like, oh, shit, I forgot this cable, or my cable broke, or… oh god i The battery died. I need a new battery. Quick, give me a battery. and in the In the back end, it's chaos, but the front end, when you see the interview, you go, oh, I enjoyed the interview. I didn't notice that there was a battery issue, and you had to hot swap a battery real quick to get the interview you know to continue the interview.
00:06:20
Speaker
It's that thing. Or when you do an interview, and we're halfway through, and you realize that ah something wasn't working, the mic, the camera, yeah whatever it is, something was messed up, and that that happened.
00:06:36
Speaker
It's very exciting. Now, I will say, holy crap, Let's Get Pairing has been going for 71 episodes so far. And obviously, you and I have been on a bunch of other... We've had a bunch of shows under different platforms and things, and certainly guest appearances in other shows. But for us, 71... Ooh, excuse me. 71 is a big deal. I had a whole lot of...
00:07:05
Speaker
herring in a fur coat. Oh, boy. So I'm burping up herring in a fur coat. For those of you that know, you either cringe or you smile.
00:07:16
Speaker
Or vomit. I don't know. But I ate quite a lot of it. Good for you. Glad you didn't handle that. It's the ultimate pairing. Some say.
00:07:28
Speaker
Some say. All right, let's talk about this cigar. This is the Cohiba Spectre 2025. twenty twenty fiveve Look at that. Beautiful cigar. It doesn't have the the kind of, i mean, you could call it a foot band, but it's really more of a paper wrapper that goes on the whole foot.
00:07:47
Speaker
It's a real pain to get off, I've found. Yeah. here Here's mine. I'm about to take it off just for perspective. It
Cohiba Spectre Features
00:07:53
Speaker
is on there, man. They use gorilla Gorilla Glue on those things. ah Yes, sir. They spare no expense including the glue.
00:08:00
Speaker
It's whatever glue Skip uses on his cigars. I think it's the same. same This might be stronger. least it seems that way. So this is um essentially General Cigar's ultimate cigar right there.
00:08:13
Speaker
um I believe – May not be their highest priced ever, but I know it's the highest priced right now that I can think of. So this is the Cohiba Spectre.
00:08:25
Speaker
This is their top of the line, absolute top of the line. Cohiba is their top of the line brand, and Spectre is the top of the line that Cohiba has to offer. Blended by Sean Williams, of course, of Cohiba.
00:08:38
Speaker
um This is like... If you've never heard of this cigar, go Google a picture of the box right now. Every year, the boxes get more and more complicated.
00:08:50
Speaker
This year's is like a... It's an it's a cylinder, and the sides kind of swing out, um but they swing out in like one-inch sections, so it has like this upside-down, this funnel kind of look.
00:09:05
Speaker
Very cool. Each cigar is in like ah aluminum coffin. It's very... Like some of the best packaging that there is. It's over-the-top packaging for sure.
00:09:16
Speaker
um But if you're paying $150 per cigar, packaging should be pretty nice. I'll say that. Hold on. Is the MSRP on this one $150? It is.
00:09:28
Speaker
I thought it was $90. The prices have been going up. The original one was $90. Then they went up to $100. think last year's was $125, this year's $150. one fifty Yeah, not a cheap cigar.
00:09:43
Speaker
So as Sean Williams says, they spare no expense in, you know, they want they want this to be the most premium it can be. So the wrapper on this is a Connecticut-grown Habano, which was harvested in 2017. So that's, what, eight years of aging?
00:10:00
Speaker
The binder is Mexican San André. The fillers, got some special fillers, a Criollo 98, which is a, there's a Lajero and a Seiko in there. And this is the first Criollo 98 ever grown in Mao, Dominican Republic.
00:10:15
Speaker
So it's kind of like a a test crop kind of tobacco that's never been used in a cigar before. um It also has San André. filler in there and then the other fillers are a Viso and a Seiko from Honduras which are Huita Abajo seed which is a region in Cuba so these are specific Cuban seed seeds and yeah we're we're smoking the 6x52 some of the tobaccos they don't say which ones but some of the tobaccos used in this are aged in Spanish sherry barrels and
00:10:53
Speaker
Like I said, $150 for this thing, which is... I mean, if if you're asking me, too much for a cigar. But if you're in the position to to consider spending $150 on a cigar, um you're not in the same target market as I am.
00:11:10
Speaker
So this may be right up your
Exquisite Packaging of Cohiba
00:11:15
Speaker
alley. $1,500, as you would expect, for the unbelievable 10-count box. like This box really is super cool.
00:11:22
Speaker
I should have prepped a picture for it so I could show it to you guys. But go look it up because our audio listeners aren't going to see the video anyway. Go look up the Spectre box. it's It really is over the top fantastic.
00:11:37
Speaker
There were only 600 boxes made. um If I'm remembering correctly, I think there was an announcement just a week or two ago that they are releasing more boxes of this edition before next year's comes out.
00:11:50
Speaker
And with all that out of the way, Dennis, you've had time to light your cigar, have a couple puffs. I will say mine is burning crazy slow, it seems like. Like, look at that. it's I've been smoking for almost 20 minutes now.
00:12:03
Speaker
Wait, that was 20 minutes? Yeah. Oh, man. I mean, we've been live for 10. I lit five minutes before we went live, so 15 minutes. This is me like two minutes in.
00:12:15
Speaker
Wow. How's the draw on yours before we get to tasting notes? Listen, I think – so the draw for me is is actually really good, a little bit a little bit loose. and Oddly enough, I never complain about this. I'm not complaining about it now, but just to point it out, it is quite a little bit of a loose draw.
00:12:34
Speaker
It's – and again, maybe that's why it's burning so quick for me off the light. That may be the explanation because mine has just a like just a hair on the tight side.
00:12:45
Speaker
I don't know how many – Inches of water that is for John McTavish.
00:12:52
Speaker
How many freedom hairs exactly? yeah Listen, it is exceptionally – on the retrohale especially, exceptionally dry like a black pepper and cedar bomb.
00:13:08
Speaker
Heavy, heavy, heavy cedar. More heavy than you can imagine when you talk about a cigar that has cedar. This is like that next level of intensity with cedar. Yeah, but then also, like you mentioned, a ton of black pepper on that retro ale. Yeah, it's a ton of black pepper. It's kind of peppery and dry for me right now, but again, I just lit it, so it's going to take – I think it's going to take 20, 30 minutes for me to kind of ramp up and get a little bit more it. You famously don't love the beginning of most cigars.
00:13:36
Speaker
No, i said and you know, it's kind of a joke now that if I do like a cigar within the the first couple of minutes, it it may not be a great cigar for me. That's what ends up happening. Then it goes the other direction. and then it goes Yeah, and then it goes the other direction. I generally love it for you know the first half hour, and then it starts to degrade over time until eventually I have to dump it somewhere around the band.
00:14:00
Speaker
um Well, we'll see. I think we'll see about this one. It's a little bit early to tell, but the black pepper is so pronounced that it just sticks to your palate. I retro-hailed it sticking to my nose.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's this is like ah the kind of cigar that if you're not ready for it, it'll make you sneeze when you retrohale. Actually, yeah, absolutely. um Man, I forgot about those cigars that make that that used to make me sneeze on the retrohale.
00:14:27
Speaker
There are not many that have done that, but I think this one is very to that. one is close for me. Yeah. But I'm liking it so far. There's a lot of sweetness on the palate. um There's kind of a...
00:14:40
Speaker
I mean, you get that cedar, but there's almost an oaky kind of wood to it. um Then with, don't Dark Earth, that, again, black pepper. Like, this thing has black pepper for days.
00:14:57
Speaker
It's very spicy and intense on the palate. um Man, i'm I'm loving what Sean has been doing with most of the Cohiba releases. there There have been some that I'm not a big fan of. I haven't smoked the Rubicon yet, but I know at least for the Cigar Coop Coalition, we all really like the Riviera.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. scream Three years ago. um But this is I mean, so far, this is kind of living up to to being unlike anything else, at least in the Cohiba range and unlike pretty much anything else on the market in in at least couple of ways.
00:15:32
Speaker
I don't know that I've ever gotten this amount of intensity from a cigar that's not like blowing your head off with intensity. If that makes that doesn't even make any sense.
00:15:43
Speaker
This is a ton of flavor, but it's not like overpowering you with strength. That's what I'm trying to say. Yes, agreed. Very punchy on the flavors. right, let's get into some pairing here, because that's what we do. So let's get pairing.
00:15:59
Speaker
And screw that up as usual. ah So my first pairing is from Freem Family Brewers, as I talked about a couple weeks ago, our last episode. I'm part of a a subscription club with them now where I get a couple of exclusive beers and just kind of their seasonal barrel-age stuff in a box every couple months.
00:16:20
Speaker
um So Freem was founded by Freem and two of his friends in 2012. Obviously, he was the ringleader of that organization.
00:16:30
Speaker
um He started out his brewing career in Utah when he was working at Squatters Brewing and really kind of developed a love for lager working there.
00:16:42
Speaker
He went on to be one of the head brewers at Chuckanut Brewery, which is in Washington State, um made their lager program off the charts good.
00:16:54
Speaker
And they went from kind of being an IPA, to but known for IPAs to also being known for their incredible lagers. Then he went to work at Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon, which Full Sail is, most people don't know about them.
00:17:09
Speaker
They are one of those kind of regional micro slash macro breweries. They they make mostly macro brewery style beer for the most part. They have you know some micro brew style stuff.
00:17:23
Speaker
But mostly if you're looking at Full Sail, it was there um their winter lager. They had a I can't remember what they called it, but it it came in like red stripe bottles, like those short little bottles. Oh, yeah. um The stubby. and Yeah, the stubby bottles. and It was a pretty similar beer, um but he worked there for a few years.
00:17:46
Speaker
After a couple of years working there, he went on to a found his own brewery. so They started off making a Witt and a Blonde IPA as their flagship brands, just because that's what was popular.
00:17:58
Speaker
Widmer Hefeweizen and Every IPA you can think of were huge in 2012, especially in the Portland area. um And so that's where where they really started.
00:18:10
Speaker
Even though he had designed their entire brewing system for lagers, that was what was popular, and he just wanted to get the name out there and make some beer that would actually sell.
00:18:20
Speaker
um They released their first pill in 2014 after two years of making those ales and started winning up boards almost immediately.
00:18:32
Speaker
After theyre they've now been in business over 10 years, 12 years, 13 years. um And they're renowned specifically now for their lagers and pilsners, but also super well-known for their Belgian-instired styles and their extensive and constantly rotating barrel aging program, which is, like like I said, ah every three months I get six different barrel-aged beers from them.
00:18:58
Speaker
So that's 24 a year. that's a lot of That's more than you know most companies do with barrel aging. So they're very focused on it. So what I have from them is a Freemsters Union.
00:19:12
Speaker
oh cool. Exclusive. Freemsters Union is what they call their bottle clubs. um And this is, as you can see, their barrel-aged. So this is their fresh hop barrel-aged saison.
00:19:29
Speaker
So this is a saison made with... I'm going to try to go through all of these... ah These malts, there's only three of them. I have no idea what any of these are, other than like the last word of each one.
00:19:42
Speaker
Link malt Pransen Pilsner, link malt Cash-Up Unmalted White Wheat, and link up malt Cash-Up Wheat Pale Ale.
00:19:53
Speaker
Wheat Pale. I don't know what any of those are. Good fucking lord. I know half of what you said. oh man you're talking about some really really unique stuff and and and saisons in general uh this is like the version two of what a saison classically is which is really cool that's kind of what their intention is um this is kind of old farmhouse style meets modern day um so this is a wheat saison that they make which
00:20:27
Speaker
What does this say, Son? It's kind of a ah slightly sour, but not enough to even call it a sour beer, I guess. it You know, it's sort of a ah really common this season generally are your kind of farmers, your your farmers beer.
00:20:45
Speaker
The beer that you would drink during lunchtime, oftentimes later on you would see this as considered a table beer. So if you were to sit down and have dinner somewhere and and they would automatically provide you beer for free, they'd bring a growler to the table of typically a Saison.
00:21:00
Speaker
and Because it was generally a little bit lower alcohol and kind of readily available to the working class back back in the olden days. It's a really cool style.
00:21:11
Speaker
So this is a wheat Saison aged in – French oak wine barrels for six months. Wow. um I should have mentioned that in that Saison, they use Tetanang hops, which is very European.
00:21:24
Speaker
um And then after the six months of barrel aging, they dry hop it with fresh, right off the vine, citra hops to kind of give it that aroma and a little bit of punchiness.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's got 6.5% ABV, at 35 IBUs.
00:21:41
Speaker
blocks thirty-five ib use It'd look like that. It's like a wheat ale, I guess. Kind of cloudy. Very boobly. That's really great Very fine bubbles up there.
00:21:54
Speaker
Can't see them very well, but it's got very fine bubbles. I suspect it'll be a little bit sharp on the palate with the size of those bubbles, yeah. Definitely. So I'm going to take a couple sips, see how it pairs with this cigar that is completely the opposite direction of it.
00:22:07
Speaker
I think it may pair better with my other pairings tonight, but we will find out. What do you have up first, then? Wow.
00:22:15
Speaker
I'm just trying to keep my cigar lit. And to the cigar point, going back to the cigar when I mentioned, hey, you know, the first couple of minutes of the cigar, 20 minutes, whatever. I'm getting to a place where I think it's getting it's getting good. It's warming up. It's getting to the place where it's kind of like if I could cut off the first bit and start here, this is where I would want to be. It's getting to there.
00:22:35
Speaker
And I hope my first pairing doesn't ruin that.
Żywiec Beer: A Polish Classic
00:22:38
Speaker
So my first pairing is a beer that i essentially grew up with in many ways. As a young man in Brooklyn, you know, in the Eastern European culture, going out and skateboarding all day on the weekends, we would go, we would stop by the Polish deli around 11 o'clock or maybe around noon. We'd stop by the post's Polish deli who never carted us, and it happens, you know. These things happen, but, you know, we were we were all of a...
00:23:08
Speaker
particular proclivity you of the eastern european type and so they kind of they kind of got it we never caused any trouble we didn't buy too much beer we bought like a beer or two per person it wasn't ridiculous we never took advantage so they sold us beer and back then the beer that we were drinking is the beer that i have tonight that i got to see the evolution of from back when i was i think i was about 13, I want to say. 13, maybe 14 on the mean streets of Brooklyn, skateboarding back and forth and drinking Polish beer. I'll give you a little hint. It's a Polish beer.
00:23:48
Speaker
But it's a Polish beer with so much history and so much culture and a beer that is near and dear to so many people's hearts. It's not a beer for those connoisseurs that love You know, the people that that are chasing the hazies, that are chasing the fresh hop stuff, that are chasing the milkshake IPAs, it's not for those people.
00:24:09
Speaker
It's for everybody else, and it's kind of like, in a sense, what I consider your your Polish grandfather's like daily beer. his His beer with a meal, his beer with lunch, his beer with dinner was just that like, yeah, grandpa used to drink that, or that aunt you know my uncle used to drink that.
00:24:28
Speaker
Let me show you the bun. and I'm very curious what it is because I have no idea at this point. You've never had this? I don't know. only It doesn't sound familiar. You might have. So what I'm drinking tonight is a beer called Żywiec.
00:24:43
Speaker
Never heard of Which is Żywiec Brewery. Żywiec Brewery is actually located in the city of Żywiec, Poland, which is really cool. And...
00:24:54
Speaker
5.5%. I just want to make it clear right now. 5.5 ABV for essentially what we're looking at. is kind of like a Pilsner sort of. Pilsner adjacent.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I say adjacent only because if you drink and you can look at the – check out the glass there, right? Pilsner adjacent, this is kind of like the – I don't want to call it the Budweiser necessarily because there's the Czech Budweiser.
00:25:19
Speaker
it's the It's maybe the Sam Adams of Poland. It's – well, it's it's close. It's maybe the core – the Miller Corps' banquet, in a sense, of Poland. But it has such a great story and history because they were founded in 1856. And again, as I mentioned earlier, Zbiet's Poland.
00:25:39
Speaker
And they were established by – and this is crazy – Archduke Albrecht Friedrich Hasberg. Archduke – okay, title – Albrecht Friedrich Hasberg.
00:25:53
Speaker
Or Habsburg of Austria. oh Wow. So this is one of Poland's oldest and most storied breweries, which is really cool.
00:26:05
Speaker
And I never really knew this until I got into it more over the years. and um Essentially, this is a mountain town that's near the Carpathian Mountains, not too far. And they were founded under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
00:26:19
Speaker
And essentially when it came out, it became this sort of symbol of Polish craft craftsmanship and resilience and really kind of the working man's beard. when When Miller – we saw those commercials back in the day, right? Miller Time came out.
00:26:33
Speaker
When Miller Time came out and people had that feeling like, yeah, man, I'm blue-collar guy. I'm going to go to the factory. And that at the end of the day, you saw those commercials where they're all cheersing with – Yeah, it's Miller Time.
00:26:44
Speaker
It's Miller Time, man. Cheers. This is that, but for Poland. for the working class, certainly of the rest, all all of Poland, but at the time in this town.
00:26:55
Speaker
And it it kind of exploded. And, oh, excuse me, I'm burping a whole lot. ah They really quickly became kind of one of the leading producers in Central Europe before for this particular style of beer, which is basically, we'll call it a Pilsner.
00:27:14
Speaker
a Pilsner adjacent, a little maltier than a Pilsner, if you will. So now what happened with them is kind of interesting. They have a very long history. and What happened is the it was nationalized after World War II under communist rule, but then it was reprivatized in the 90s.
00:27:32
Speaker
So after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it kind of went back to private hands. In today's world, Jivietz is owned by Heineken International, oh which is nuts. it's It's so nuts to me. Now, the cool thing about Jivietz, when we talk about – people talk about beer and go, well, what's important?
00:27:48
Speaker
Today, people talk about yeast. People talk about hops. People talk about malts. The one ingredient that people forget to talk about in today's beer world is the water.
00:27:59
Speaker
Which is arguably the most important. It is absolutely the most important. the reason why the water is so important, for those of you that don't brew and and may not understand the process, the minerals that are in the water, all those other things, those lovely things that happen to be in the water when you go and you start making your mash,
00:28:18
Speaker
meaning you heat the water and you you you add your grain. When you do that, all of those minerals and all those other things, they play together and help to break down and smooth out the profile and they add flavor to it. It really interacts in a great way with the grain on so many levels.
00:28:34
Speaker
Today's world now, you know I can tell you for a fact, that at least the way that my neighbor and I brew, we start with distilled water. We start with completely stripped, zero water, adds nothing. And we add we add our own, you know, we we do our own water chemistry essentially. So we add minerals and other things, salts.
00:28:56
Speaker
We add those things into the water to rebuild a profile that's close to a particular region of of beer that we're trying to to make. So whether it's like northern Germany, we'll get a profile and go, okay, cool. we're gonna This is the profile of northern Germany and in 1945.
00:29:14
Speaker
And we'll make that profile and use that profile with the specific grains for that region to really evoke kind of essential essentially what it was back then as close as we can.
00:29:25
Speaker
That's cool. what but you know It's cool shit. So technically they call – legally they call this a pale lager. To me it's a Pilsner Plus, but whatever. It's pale lager. All polo shops, pure mountain water, crisp, clean.
00:29:40
Speaker
Very close to a Czech Pilsner. If you've ever had a Czech Pilsner, I think this is... there i mean, there's so many Czech Pilsners out there, but if you pick a Czech Pilsner, if you've had one, it's very similar to that.
00:29:53
Speaker
um The bottle has this lovely dancing couple, and back in the day on the back, they used to have a little logo And it was literally kind of like the Coors thing where when the bottle was cold enough, it would you would see the colors in the logo, and you knew that it was ready to pull out and start pouring.
00:30:13
Speaker
Oh, wow. and But then Coors patented that and I guess stole it from them. Yes. So i actually I think what happened is they were doing it for a while, and then when Coors came out with their thing, I suspect they fought over it, and now because they're part of Heineken, there is that.
00:30:29
Speaker
that blood right that happens, the battle. So it's part of the reason why I suspect they don't have it today. But they had it about 10 years ago, as far as I remember.
00:30:42
Speaker
Oh, man. And you know during Communist World, this beer was banned. it was It was banned domestically because it referenced kind of a pre-war royal lineage.
00:30:54
Speaker
But people kept smuggling it. You couldn't get any where people kept smuggling, kept pumping around. Today, the brewery sits on this massive network of underground tunnels and cellars.
00:31:06
Speaker
Historically, this was all used for lagering back in the day. Today, it has now become part of this museum. It's a huge museum, the Jowietz Brewery Museum. It's one of the most visited places in Poland, outside of Auschwitz and outside of, i guess, you know, Krakow and all these other cities.
00:31:25
Speaker
But If you see a Polish person and you don't know any Polish and you say, jette they're going to smile. going to shake your hand. You might get a kiss. You might get a hug. You might get a beer.
00:31:36
Speaker
but It might be that person's best friend because they respect the name. It's one of those things. It's like, you know how you go to the Midwest and you sit down and ask you, what you do you want? And you go, have a bud.
00:31:50
Speaker
And and every everyone in the bar goes, my man. yeah yeah Yeah. You get that look. You get that look of approval. It's the look of the old guy from the corner going, yeah, I got you. It's a nod.
00:32:02
Speaker
Jouwietz is the nod of the Polish beer drinker in my opinion, from my experience. So I'm very excited to have this with my cigar, which I think is out. Tell us a little bit more about your first pairing. Before I do – Hello to Sam. He's on the Carnival jue Jubilee right now. Thanks for tuning in even though you're on vacation.
00:32:21
Speaker
Hey, Sam. thank And thank you for paying for that very expensive internet access just to watch us. Yeah, oh man. coolman I was on a cruise a couple weeks ago and yeah, it's not cheap.
00:32:32
Speaker
Crazy. Crazy see how much it costs just to be on the internet from that one of those ships. Anyway, this ah this beer going down nice and good. You can see I've had a lot of it already.
00:32:44
Speaker
um So how to explain it. It's like a very crisp Pelsner with a little squeeze of lemon juice to add that like acidating a little bit of tartness.
00:32:59
Speaker
But with the... It's interesting because you kind of get the bite as soon as it touches your tongue of those hops, the fresh hops. But you don't really taste them. like It kind of dissipates as soon as it hits your tongue.
00:33:11
Speaker
So you don't end up with like IPA style like bitterness sticking your tongue. But there's a ton of like floral flavors that you get from it.
00:33:22
Speaker
And very floral on the nose as well. And something else on the nose.
00:33:28
Speaker
I guess it's really kind of lemony orangey on the nose. It's working better than I expected with this cigar. Kind of the brightness of this beer is working with the darkness kind of flavors, the earthiness, the woodiness, those peppery flavors of the cigar.
00:33:45
Speaker
As you can see, mine started burning a little faster here. So it's not, you know, I'm making my way through it.
00:33:54
Speaker
Making way downtown. Smoking fast. People pass. See, you're smoking slower than I am somehow. Oh, but I guess you were talking for 20 minutes. Well, I, hey, now. It was only about 12 minutes and 22 seconds. I It was long enough for your cigar to go up. That's what I meant. But yes, I agree. Dude, let me ask you a question about this because I'm getting this umami funk on the cigar that wasn't present before. And it's sort of like this taste of if you have short grain rice and you kind of roast it in a pan and you add just a little bit of soy sauce, good soy sauce, not that mass produced shit, but some good soy sauce and just a little bit of rice vinegar.
00:34:46
Speaker
If that makes any sense. Yeah. Like ah this. Like thesis that flavor you can never place in fried rice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of soy sauce, the play for soy sauce is Hikomen in the big plastic bottle that is imported from Japan.
00:35:04
Speaker
there's a big plastic skinny bottle that they make. That's like a liter. It is the best soy sauce I've ever had for like eight bucks. It's so good.
00:35:16
Speaker
Dude, I have cooking soy sauce, and then I have soy sauce, and it's wild how hipster I've got about this. I have finishing soy sauce. My finishing soy sauce is the stuff that is barrel-aged, and I get I've wanted to try that barrel-aged soy sauce stuff. I haven't i haven't made the jump yet It's so beautiful. It comes in these beautiful bottles, of great paper labels.
00:35:38
Speaker
Generally, they're also—they're corked and waxed. Yeah. I've definitely seen those. Come in these like wild – the packaging is so beautiful and so on they're like ceramic bottles and stuff. They're really nice. Sometimes you get ceramic. Sometimes you get glass.
00:35:54
Speaker
Sometimes you get like a bamboo sort of covering thing or a rice paper cover with some really nice kanji on it. And I've switched to that for a lot of my finishing, and it's lovely. It's lovely. and You know, listen, I still use Kikamon like everybody else.
00:36:12
Speaker
You never want to kick a man when he's down, but here we are. I think the cigar is going really well, man, with with this beer. I'm pleasantly surprised. Nice.
00:36:25
Speaker
I'm curious to see what the other pairings are. I'm going to move on to my next pairing now, and we'll talk about that one a little bit. I don't have many more details, because this is also from bit Free and Family Brewers.
00:36:38
Speaker
This is one of their... This the... You can see, if you're watching, the black label is their club exclusive, the Freemsters Union or whatever it's called. Yeah, Freemsters Union. Which is cute. Local 541.
00:36:51
Speaker
Which is really cute. I like that so much. I have some stickers with that, too. um This is their for-sale labeling. So this is the stuff you can buy in, like... I mean, I miss the days when i could just walk into the grocery store buy a handful of bottles of this because...
00:37:08
Speaker
That's how it was living in Portland. This stuff was just everywhere. Like, you could buy this at some, not gas stations, but, you know, ah like a corner store might have a couple bottles of this on the shelf. Corner store? Like a bodega?
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the equivalent of what a bodega would be, I guess. In a more, less less urban, more metro kind of area, I guess.
00:37:33
Speaker
Anyway. This is Freem's barrel aged bourbon barrel imperial stout. So this is an imperial stout with lactose, started breaking to break it into bear, aged in bourbon barrels for almost a year.
00:37:49
Speaker
curious if it says, i mean, it says 12 months, they say almost a year on the website.
00:37:56
Speaker
It's 40 IBU, so it's, you know, that. That classic Russian imperial style where it's amped up that that bitterness a little bit. 11.2% ABV.
00:38:09
Speaker
the Looks like a beautiful barrel-aged stout here. Still holding some head after being poured fairly warm little while ago. Probably only had this in the fridge for 45 minutes or so, so it's probably 50 degrees. I don't know what they're... They say 45 to 50 degrees is their serving temperature, so it's probably right there.
00:38:30
Speaker
I've said it before about frame. I love they always have the serving temperature and their recommended glassware on the back there. You know, that's just, that's appreciated.
00:38:42
Speaker
They also, with all their barrel-edged stuff, they say what vintage it is. So this is, both of these are 2025. You know, unsurprisingly. So i'm going to take a couple s sips of this and try it out. I'll let you tell us about your second pairing tonight.
00:38:59
Speaker
I'm desperately trying to keep my cigar lit. And also, you know what happened? I have this lovely foam thing on top of my top of my mic, and I didn't realize I got too close to this foam. Oh, and you burnt you melted it?
00:39:14
Speaker
I melted a hole ah into this thing. ah So some of my cigar flavor, I think, will be melted foam. nuances of melted foam. on du i'm I'm getting notes of melted foam too. so I'll probably just add it to it. that's what I will say I think the loose draw for me is it's making it burn fast but also um i might be tunneling a little bit. i'm um It's very spongy. I don't know how your cigar is. It's very spongy to the touch.
00:39:47
Speaker
Even before I lit it. Mine was not spongy before but now that you're mentioning it they're like right here right behind where it's burning it's is a littles pretty spongy. i am Which is not super weird, but it's just a little no softer than usual.
00:40:04
Speaker
it It seems soft, and considering conversations that we had, for me personally, it's really not that big of a deal. I could care less most of the time. If the cigar burning, I don't care. If I like it, if it tastes good, it's burning well, I could care less.
00:40:18
Speaker
I know some people are sticklers for this kind of thing. People want like dynamite sticks that rock solid, when they light it yeah and when they smoke it they want it to stay that solid for yeah and i think those people would be upset for this kind of a price point on this cigar they would be upset to to have that that level of kind of give yeah and i i think the i mean mine has is burning like i haven't touched the burn since i lit it so it's burning pretty sharp what i would what i would not razor sharp burn but uh close enough like this is
00:40:52
Speaker
Not the kind of burden that I would think about touching up even. Has yours been... that even the whole way or you had like burn issues no you know i think yeah for me the the burn has been really incredibly even um the ash has been really tight so i actually have to forcefully try to bring the ash off the end which is really nice um i you know other than the sponginess i think it's been it's been smoking really well i think the flavors have progressed to a point where it's not that intense dryness that cedar dryness that um
00:41:25
Speaker
Black pepper dryness that it almost sits on your palate and dries it out after the fact. Yeah, there's definitely kind of a dryness on the palate with this cigar. um In the second half, I'm noticing it more.
00:41:42
Speaker
So let me tell you a little bit we about my next bearing.
00:41:49
Speaker
My next pairing comes from a little brewery, not so little anymore as they have expanded to a very large mall in South Jersey.
Spotlight on Bonesaw Brewing
00:41:59
Speaker
My next pairing comes from brewery called Bonesaw.
00:42:04
Speaker
Bonesaw Brewing Company. Check this Love the name. Let me get my camera up so I can see what I'm doing here. There we go.
00:42:12
Speaker
Bonesaw Brewing Company. I'm drinking their Bontoberfest Oktoberfest Weissens.
00:42:20
Speaker
Ah, the very rare White Oktoberfest beer. Super, super, super rare, which is really fun. I went to a Bonetoberfest couple of years ago, got a cool t-shirt with this guy on it. That's awesome. ah i used to go to this brewery quite a lot. I just, you know, not working from home now. I don't have a chance to really get out there as much.
00:42:39
Speaker
But they are in just about every store you can think of in South Jersey. 23 IBU, 5.9%
00:42:48
Speaker
a b v So it is, you know, it's a little bit up there, but I think it's apropos for the style. So certainly not going to knock them on that. Now, they've been around since 2018, based out of Glassboro, New Jersey, which you may know, you may not know, but Glassboro is kind of a big college town.
00:43:09
Speaker
There's a really, really cool comic book shop in in that town, and there's also another brewery called Axanaro. It does all the sour stuff. So I've had Axanero on the show before. They're in the same town, just kind of different, very kind of further out, different parts.
00:43:26
Speaker
Now, the founders, Dr. Rich de Viernero, very hard to say, Viernero, Viernero is an ortho or was an orthopedic surgeon. I think he's retired now.
00:43:40
Speaker
And his brother-in-law, Dave Derman, they came together, and they made this this this project based on this medical background. Bonesaw is a nod to his orthopedic surgery background. on It's fun. It's cute.
00:43:56
Speaker
They have a 25,000-square-foot tap room. Wow. It is fucking massive. Massive to a degree that when you go there, you don't really appreciate the scale when you drive past it. but when you go inside, you go, holy shit, this is nuts. And they have an upstairs room, which is for private events and stuff like that. The brewery space itself is incredible.
00:44:18
Speaker
It is so large. It is this like walking through Willy Wonka's factory. Everything is so big and so serious and intense looking. They have a giant fireplace, which is really cool. They have a ton of beers on tap at all times.
00:44:34
Speaker
And like a of breweries, they also bring in they bring in talent. So they bring in you know singers and musicians. And they also bring in food trucks. Tons of food trucks. So they can't obviously they can't serve their own food, which is a Jersey thing, which is silly. but Anyway, they have great space.
00:44:54
Speaker
And I have a thought for the end of this that I want to share. And hopefully one of them will will pick it up from Bonesaw. Oregon had some interesting laws that were very similar where in a tap room you actually had to serve food.
00:45:11
Speaker
Wow. But there were no specific requirements for what it needed to be. So in a lot of tap rooms, it just was a like ah a small jar of salsa and a bag of chips. Like for three bucks, you can get tortilla chips and salsa.
00:45:33
Speaker
If you really need something. And a lot of places just have like, you know, PubMix or something like that. Because that that was enough to qualify it. um But then it was a whole thing where if you had a kitchen, the laws became completely different.
00:45:48
Speaker
So you didn't want to have a food prep kitchen. You just wanted to serve that stuff. So a lot of places just serve that stuff and have food carts outside. And every weekend they would they would hire a different food cart to come by, and you know they would kind of rotate through ah a stable of a bunch of different food carts.
00:46:05
Speaker
And i I love that system because that way you can go get a beer and you can try a food you've never had before, which, you that's great. Oh, for sure, man. Now, this beer, let me show you what it looks like to give you an idea of.
00:46:20
Speaker
It's distinctly different than a lot of kind of what you see the American Oktoberfest style beers. that lean on this like amber malty profile, they don't do that. They do this classically, to the classic German style, golden, it's crisp, it's golden, excuse me it's very drinkable, it's that fest beer sort of style.
00:46:41
Speaker
Really it's kind of a Marzen slash Weissen style lager, so it's a mix of both. The idea is that it's it's this the celebration of you know the harvest season, the end of Bavarian,
00:46:52
Speaker
harvest season classic oktoberfest the vice in part specifically vison with the w-i-e-s-n refers to the place where essentially where the original oktoberfest was held in munich which is the therese and weiss therese and weiss is kind of the grounds if you will the the area where this was held classically so it's a nod to that um The cool thing about them, two cool really really cool things about them is their flight boards are designed to look like bone saws.
00:47:28
Speaker
I love that. It's sassy. I think it's you know it's a fun thing. You and I kind of dig the spookiness of it. The other cool thing that nobody talks about, and i've been trying I've been trying so hard to get these cats on board, they smoke a shitload of cigars.
00:47:46
Speaker
While brewing. In the brew house. You can walk by and you see somebody smoking a cigar in the brew house. They love cigars. They're all about cigars. I've been poking at them. I've been trying to get them in. I've been trying to get them on board like, hey man, let's do a show on site. Smoke cigars, we drink Bonesaw.
00:48:04
Speaker
We'll get this done. We're not there yet. But if anybody is watching or listening from Bonesaw, contact us, please. Let's get this going. I would love to do an on-site show. And Tripp, that would mean for you I would send you – couple of their beers, whatever we're having. Pretty much – yeah. Pretty much everything they sell is either canned or bottled.
00:48:24
Speaker
Man, do you remember the first show we did with Ralph and – Hector. Where Hector was at the brewery and Roth just kept bringing him all these awesome beers and we're like just at home drinking local beer.
00:48:40
Speaker
Man, that was tough. watching Watching Hector enjoy all that beer while we had never tasted any of it before. Luckily, later that year we got to go to the brewery and hang out and do a live show. whoa that was That live show was fantastic. and It was such a cool experience.
00:48:59
Speaker
So it's that kind of stuff. i want to bring that back, and and I want to get Bonesaw out and about and into the people's hands. I think it's a really great brewery, good for them. And certainly beer is made by cigar folk.
00:49:12
Speaker
I think in a sense it's – whether you realize it or not, if you smoke cigars and you make beer and that beer makes you happy, likely that beer is going to make other cigar people happy as well. The palates are in tune, the the kind of the profiles you're looking for. In a sense, I almost want to argue that maybe some of their beers are approached in the same way that we approach cigar smoking.
00:49:33
Speaker
In the thirds, in the you know the the binder, the filler, the wrapper, those sections, the beer could be broken down into those those sections as well. And it could. it's ah it's and i'm Hey, man, i'm happy that I'm happy to talk shop, I think, in Miami later this week.
00:49:51
Speaker
We'll get down, and I will school you on my interpretation of cigar kind of cigar formation versus beer. And we may even do it on camera. We're trying to – New lecture series.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'm putting together all of my equipment that I'm going to bring with me so that we can hopefully do some kind of live shoot or maybe a prerecorded thing and actually get uploaded this time.
00:50:15
Speaker
ah It'll be fun. It'll be fun. ah'll be fun And hopefully I won't sound so goofy because normally I'm – there's a reason why you're the voice of this thing because – Is there? I feel like I sound like Kermit the Frog or something.
00:50:35
Speaker
ah My accent comes out quite a lot on the show, and I try to avoid as much as possible. I'm not sure I've ever noticed. If that makes you feel any better. We've known each other for so long, dude.
00:50:47
Speaker
How's that second pairing going for you? Fantastic. This is a pairing that really works with the cigar. um the Let me take an another sip.
00:50:59
Speaker
It's such like the mouthfeel of this stout is incredible. It's got that milk stout thing going, you know, where it's like got that super velvety soft texture on the palate.
00:51:11
Speaker
But then it is both intensely hoppy, intensely malty and roasty, and with a maybe not intense, but significant bourbon influence.
00:51:25
Speaker
Like, you definitely taste that bourbon barrel in there. And it's just a beautiful combination that is working better than I expected it to tube with this cigar. I thought it was going to completely overpower the cigar once I started smoking it, but the cigar really kind of matches that intensity.
00:51:44
Speaker
You know, as I was talking about before, this is a very flavor-intense cigar, and I think that's why it's working really well with this cigar. How about you? How's that ah that bone saw working?
00:51:59
Speaker
I think the Bone Saw is working really good. The Bone Toberfest. So, no, it's... Bone Toberfest. It's part of Bone... Is this the official Bone Toberfest beer? Hold on.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah, okay. I guess it is. It is the official Bone Toberfest beer. um I always just considered Toberfest Weizen, but I guess know that that's kind of what they've officially called it.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, dude, it's going well. However, I am struggling with the cigar, unfortunately. have some thoughts. I have thoughts on the cigar. i I don't know. my My price point on this would be in in a place where I think people will come after me and try to try to do some damage to my my bones. I like that teaser. We will talk about that the end because I want to know your honest, the true thoughts.
00:52:55
Speaker
We don't have to be nice around here. We just have to but be honest. All right, my last pairing tonight is I'm getting my box here. I felt like with a cigar at this price point, I had to go with the fanciest whiskey I have you mother the fucker in my house. I see the box.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah, you know what this is.
Cavillan Sherry Oak Whiskey
00:53:17
Speaker
This is Cavillan Whiskey Sherry Oak. um So, Cavillan. just going to keep it right here in front of me.
00:53:28
Speaker
So Calavan is based in Yilan County, Taiwan, and it's named after the old kind of ancient name for Yilan County. um The distillery was opened in 2005. I love this detail that they they put out there.
00:53:47
Speaker
They first produced their first spirit on March 11, 2006 3.30 p.m. two thousand six at three thirty p m that's That's very specific. That's fun.
00:53:58
Speaker
yeah i just love that they kept that very specific time in there and everything. They know exactly when the first drops came out of that still. um Early on, they bought a large ah set of large German stills. like I don't remember what the size was exactly, but they were they were huge, like 500 liter stills or something like that.
00:54:22
Speaker
so that they could increase production they had started off really small in their first few years they're like all right we're gonna expand and we're gonna get huge um they got these German stills but in classic Germans fashion they produced a still that was quote who processed and didn't have enough flavor which again very German um So they they ended up having custom-built stills made for, I'm guessing, copper pot stills, but I i don't have those details.
00:54:56
Speaker
um In 2012, their Solist Fino Sherry Casque was named New Whiskey of the Year by Jim Murray, which is an immediate boost to the reputation across the entire world. Any whiskey that wins any Jim Murray award immediately wins.
00:55:16
Speaker
goes to you know record sales um this is their sherry oak single malt so this is a taiwanese single malt yes that's taiwan as in um the part of not quite china but almost china um this is a non-cask strength release of what is they what is called their Kavilan Solist Oloroso Sherry.
00:55:43
Speaker
And then they cut it with local spring water. um The whiskey is fully aged in Oloroso Sherry casks, so it's got that sherry color, man.
00:55:55
Speaker
Let me pop this baby open so you can see it. It's really special stuff, look at that honestly. You haven't had this version? You've had the Solist?
00:56:06
Speaker
I have not. It's the nicer version of this. That was the one Pete gave us. I haven't been able to find a a bottle of that that I'm willing to pay for. um This comes in at 46% ABV, so it is cut down from the 55-ish percent that cask strength is.
00:56:28
Speaker
um But this is still you know a bit of a heater. It's still got some heat to it. There's no age statement, but ah you know the be general guess...
00:56:39
Speaker
is somewhere between three and six years because it tastes like a somewhat young whiskey, but it tastes like, you know, some of that early young fire has been taken out of it.
00:56:52
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple s sips of this. Seahouse Cavillan, Cavillan Sherry, I don't forgot what it's called already. I put the box down.
00:57:03
Speaker
Cavillan Sherry Oak Single Malt. See how it pairs with the Cohiba Spectre. which has a a similar price point per cigar to an entire bottle of that stuff.
00:57:17
Speaker
I think I know which one I'd rather have on. I'll let you tell us about your your final pairing in the evening before I talk about that. What a great... I i just i think Kevlar was one of those things where i I saw it and I thought, I don't know, maybe be good, maybe not. The price point's really high. I know nothing about it. And then having a chance to try it for the first time,
00:57:38
Speaker
um With someone who, when it comes to pairing shit and just drinking, I really trust Pete a lot. yeah And I think our palates, you know between you, myself, and Pete, our palates really connect in that kind of way, and whether it's wine or or spirits.
00:57:56
Speaker
So it was a really special treat for me to experience that. And now when I see it, I go, yeah, this is cool. I've got to get myself some of this stuff. right I tell people about how exciting it is and unique and different.
00:58:09
Speaker
What I'm having, um it's almost like with a heavy heart that I'm going to pour this. I don't really want to. I don't really. i't and My body tells me no.
00:58:23
Speaker
what What's that song? My body says no. My mind is telling me no, but my body. Yeah, it says my body tells me yes. Well, my body's telling me no, but my mind is gone.
00:58:35
Speaker
Do it. Ben still, do it. Just do it. to Do it. and Let me pour this for you. Let me tell you about a man who decided to ride a bicycle through Belgium.
00:58:48
Speaker
An electrical engineer turned home brewer, turned master brewer, turned owner of a company that changed beer in so many ways for so many people. He came in at a time that was absolutely wild trip. you I mean, we were fairly young when this happened, but as beer nerds and historians, if you will, I don't to historians too formal.
00:59:12
Speaker
Enthusiasts, beer history enthusiasts. We are aware of what happened in the 90s, this magic that happened. and we talk about cigars too. We talk about this era of cigars in the ninety s that was so distinctly unique and different. And really brought us to where we are today, whether you like them not. the same deal with cocktails.
00:59:31
Speaker
Listen, cocktails, if you were considered a high-end cocktail bar in the 90s, you had to have no less than five blenders on on rotation, ready to go, in a staff that could mix six different six specific things in many different ways with different ratios of additional items. right That was the era. And everything had vodka.
00:59:54
Speaker
every fuck You didn't make anything without vodka. No, it was a weird time. But this is from new belgian New Belgium Brewing Company, founded in 1991.
History of New Belgium Brewing
01:00:05
Speaker
Today they're located in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was second facility in Asheville, North Carolina. And founders were a husband and wife team. Kim Jordan and Jeff Labesh.
01:00:19
Speaker
Essentially, came with this, and it sounds it's crazy, I keep saying this, it that dream, the home brewer's dream. It's a cliche, but it's a true cliche in many ways. Essentially, he had a dream, went to Belgium in the late 1980s, took his bicycle, went through the countryside drinking beer, hanging with people, talking shop, trying to figure out what this all of this Belgium stuff is, what this beer is all about.
01:00:43
Speaker
And that really informed his palate and informed his perspective and approach to what he wanted to do with beer. And so really the brewery came out with their big hit, the Fat Tire Amber Ale, which everybody anybody and everybody that I knew at my time when I was in college in 2006 – yeah, 2006?
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, 2006. Everybody was drinking this stuff, man. That was the first beer – in 2006 actually – x actually i i talked about this just a couple weeks ago, and I can't remember why it came up. but You had a new Belgian beer on.
01:01:22
Speaker
yeah it oh that Yeah, you're right. i had I think you had Fat Tire, no? No, I had Juice Force. oh it tasted yeah It tasted like Gatorade.
01:01:33
Speaker
um But in 2006, I visited Portland because we had been thinking about moving there. My in-laws had already moved there. My wife wasn't my wife at the time. She was just my girlfriend that I'd been with for like a year-ish.
01:01:47
Speaker
um But I went to Portland and I sat in a bar in the Pearl, which is a very cool area in Portland, um smoking cigarettes, hanging out with her dad, getting a little toasted.
01:02:04
Speaker
Lily titties is what they call it. And he introduced me the Fat Tire. And up until that point, I had always been like, i don't really like the macro brews, but anything that claimed it was an IPA, which again, i had been in the Northeast my whole life. In 2006, IPAs in the Northeast, in my opinion, were awful.
01:02:25
Speaker
There were not a lot of good IPAs there. I was drinking like Magic Hats IPA, whatever that was. i remember I had a Seneca number nine magic IPA. and No, because number nine had apricot.
01:02:42
Speaker
But it was there was something else from them that was like... I loved Magic I don't remember what it was. Or no, maybe it was Love Potion No. 9. was a different Magic Hat was that was the apricot one.
01:02:54
Speaker
Right? Anyway. I'd only had a handful of IPAs in the Northeast and I was like, I hate hop. I don't like hoppy beers. I just want... At that time, i was like, I'll have a Dos Equis or or a Guinness.
01:03:11
Speaker
Look at you now, baby. Like, you know, i was I was drinking the stuff that wasn't Budweiser or Bud Light because I didn't like that. But it wasn't in the micro category. It was just kind of in between. Fat Tire was the one that changed my mind. Fat Tire was the one that opened my eyes to what beer could be and turned me into a beer nerd within Yeah.
01:03:30
Speaker
I was like, oh, I need to hunt down some beer from Portland and see if I can get some West Coast beer. And then I i found Sierra Nevada for the first time and Green Flash and stuff like that. miss it was It was all over.
01:03:46
Speaker
now But Fat Tire back then was the one that turned it all around. Sorry to go completely off track, with but Fat Tire's got a special place in my heart, especially since the recipe is now no longer a minus.
01:04:00
Speaker
It has moved on to the further realms. It has. It has moved on. And, and dude, the brewery itself is is really cool because they were one of the early adopters of Wind Power Energy for their brewery.
01:04:14
Speaker
One of the first certified B Corp. B Corporations in brewing. And also in 2019, they were acquired by Lion Little World Beverages.
01:04:25
Speaker
Which makes no sense unless I say owned by Kieran Holdings. So they're owned by Kieran Ichiba. Essentially, yes, yes. the At the at very, very tippy-top level. So now what I'm having tonight is not Fat Tire because you're never going get it again.
01:04:42
Speaker
unless You will, but it's not the same beer. It's completely different. I will argue you're never going to get again because, yes, it's not the same beer. It's still called Fat Tire, but it's a different beer now.
01:04:53
Speaker
Those of us that remember. Those of us that were there when the book was written know what it was. I'm not having that. What I'm having is quite fucking salacious. And when I drank it, I didn't know what it was. I was like, oh, yeah, New Belgium. I'll i have one of those. Cool.
01:05:09
Speaker
Oh, no. No, no, no. There's so many things going on. I'm having a Voodoo Ranger beer, which was the the series, the the line, if you will, was launched in 2017. The idea was that doing this this hop forward thing. And you experience this yourself a little bit as well. experimental spinoffs, kind of core IPAs, kind of a mix of like edginess, fun stuff.
01:05:32
Speaker
I mean, it kind of started with, like, Voodoo Ranger was just, all right, fine, we'll make an IPA. And it just took off like nothing else.
01:05:44
Speaker
Dude, it exploded in so many ways. And again, the mascot. The skeleton with the sunglasses became this mascot that took the world over by storm the same way that Eddie did with with Iron Maiden.
01:06:00
Speaker
And so, what I'm having tonight is... Here we go. Voodoo Ranger. Hold on. Let me see if you can see
Voodoo Ranger's Atomic Pumpkin
01:06:11
Speaker
it.
01:06:11
Speaker
Atomic Pumpkin Special Release. But it doesn't say special. It says spicy. This is Atomic Pumpkin from Voodoo Ranger coming in at a solid 6.4% ABV.
01:06:28
Speaker
percent ab v
01:06:31
Speaker
It is spicy, baby. It has got habaneros, Saigon cinnamon, and nutmeg to round out this pumpkin funk. And it's not like a pumpkin where it's like, oh, I feel like fall.
01:06:43
Speaker
You know, I feel like, oh, I just came out of a Starbucks. No, no, no. This is if you covered a pumpkin in spikes, doused it in gasoline, and forced it down your throat.
01:06:54
Speaker
That is this. I've never been so curious about a pumpkin beer before. Good for you because have a can. I have a can. Ready for you that you're going to have to experience at – well, I don't know what time going to be. ah You're going have to experience it at about 1030 in the morning on Thursday.
01:07:13
Speaker
All And, man, you are going to be tickled in so many ways. It's spicy. It's actually spicy. It's properly spicy. It's very – It's one of those things – It's fucking wild. Somehow – Places like, i don't know McDonald's or whatever, like when they when they say like, oh, this a Carolina Reaper ranch.
01:07:34
Speaker
And it's like, is there really any, did did you wave a Carolina Reaper next to it kind of thing? When you put any pepper in beer, it hits.
01:07:47
Speaker
It's hard to make a spicy beer. That isn't like real spice. Even a jalapeno beer will hit you hard. Oh, yeah. And so de say if you're putting if you're putting exactly if you're putting habanero in a beer, it's going to be intense.
01:08:04
Speaker
it It reminds me so much of the the essence that was. um Oh, God. Sculpin. Thank you. Habanero Sculpin. I loved Habanero Sculpin. I loved it so much.
01:08:17
Speaker
That I would buy Habanero Sculpin, and I would buy fresh Habaneros. I would carefully uncap the bottles, throw a chunk of Habanero in there, and reseal it. Because I had a capper back then when bottling beer, my home brews.
01:08:30
Speaker
And I would recap it and just leave it in the fridge for like two, three weeks after that fact. And it gave it that extra kick. So right now I drew i took a bunch of sips. My lips are tingling. They're a little burning, but a nice way.
01:08:45
Speaker
There's a little bit of that cinnamon, but it doesn't taste like eating pumpkin pie or you know any of the pumpkin shit that comes out during the season. It's like pumpkin in the sense of if I took squash and I made a beer out of squash and I added some cinnamon to it and a bunch of habanero, it's that.
01:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, that doesn't sound weird. It's fucking wild. Now, fun facts. You know New Belgium, but do you know this about New Belgium?
01:09:11
Speaker
Their Fort Collins Brewery has a slide between floors for employees. You're kidding. I shit you not. They have a slide between floors so that the employees don't have to take stairs.
01:09:23
Speaker
Because they can ride the vibe. It's like the thing. so Ride the vibe, they call this. So if you need to get to a different floor, hit the slide, man. Slide it on down. Man, I hope that they have a rule that's like, if you need to go downstairs and you don't take the slide, you're out.
01:09:38
Speaker
just Just get the fuck out. We don't want you here anymore. If you're not taking that slide every chance you get, you're screwing up. They're really fun, so they kind of lean into this whole thing. Again, 100% employee-owned company still to this day.
01:09:53
Speaker
Essentially, even with you know the parent companies everything else, they're still giving employees an opportunity to be invested, which is really nice. Now, they were one of the first companies to offer these kind of like interesting bonuses where – If you work for for New Belgium, after a year, you get a fat tire cruiser bicycle after one year of service.
01:10:14
Speaker
That rules. Which is really which is really fun. And Voodoo Ranger itself, the logo, it's it's this you know this really cool skull guy, has its own NFTs and Voodoo Ranger hotline where fans can call in, leave messages, or hear a message from the Voodoo Ranger himself.
01:10:33
Speaker
Which is, you know, it's kind of cute. I really like it Oh, I have another New Belgium story. You do? Did you ever have Lips of Faith?
01:10:45
Speaker
No. what Oh, man. Lips of Faith was the first sour beer had. She sounds expensive. Yeah, so it was, it was this was, let me think of the year.
01:10:56
Speaker
This would have been 2013 or 14 when I had it.
01:11:02
Speaker
Lips of Faith, it was a 6 or 12 bottle series that they did. Around that time. round Between 2010-ish to 2015-ish.
01:11:14
Speaker
And it was a bunch of sours. Barrel-aged sours that they did. When they were getting real weird with it before they they started doing the Voodoo Ranger thing. um And we had this company retreat at a company I worked for where we had a guy take a van and the company credit card to go buy beer for everybody.
01:11:35
Speaker
So basically, we had a 70-ish person company at this point and we were we rented out a a resort in northern Washington near the Canadian border and it was super cool. It was like this old German town um and they sent a guy to buy beer and so he bought I don't remember how much it was but it was a crazy amount
01:12:07
Speaker
It was like 60 12-packs or 24-packs or something like that. It was a ton of beer. And he had like he had to split it up. He was like, what do I like? What a what are do these people like? What do those people like?
01:12:19
Speaker
And so we had like a little bit of everything. And one of the things he got was a 12-pack of Lips of Faith number two. Let me look this beer up. Lips of Faith. It sounds wild. I'm surprised I haven't heard it
01:12:38
Speaker
It was a ah wild double ale. A what? A double ale? Yeah. What's a double hillll
01:12:49
Speaker
ale? A double? Maybe it was a different one. Not a double, like D-U-B-B-L. Yeah. he be yeah Oh, a double. Okay, okay, okay. Belgian double.
01:13:02
Speaker
Ah, La Foley, sour brown ale. That was the one from 2013. I remember the bottle. I don't He bought 12-pack of 22-ounce Bombers, and nobody was drinking these things.
01:13:15
Speaker
Everyone was afraid of it, and so he was like, here, try it. And I was like, okay. And it was, I mean, at that point, it was absolutely the sourest beer I've ever tasted. It's probably nothing compared to some of the weird stuff we've had now.
01:13:29
Speaker
ah But it was like one of the original sour beers in the U.S. Yeah. From New Belgium. they They were innovators, man. like They did sour beer before anyone else in the U.S., I think.
01:13:43
Speaker
Or at least they did it, they made it mainstream before anybody else did. Shout out to New Belgium. They were a true, like, and they were at the forefront of micro-brewing for decades.
01:13:58
Speaker
And then now you can buy it at a gas station. And trip it tastes like red Gatorade.
01:14:08
Speaker
Trip, man, let me tell you. This – so I have a can for you in my fridge. I'm bringing it. You can experience this. You are going to be pleasantly surprised by how non-abrasive this is for a spicy beer. I will try anything once. how along How long it lingers on the palate. The heat, it's it's a proper habanero beer. You can tell they used real habaneros. It was just like some bullshit they added.
01:14:35
Speaker
Like, oh, the skin of a habanero. We've added the farts of 30 habaneros. Just the farts, nothing else. No, it's it's got habaneros in it. And it's awesome.
01:14:47
Speaker
And for people that don't like seasonal beers like the you know the pumpkin spice Halloween stuff, I think this is a game changer. Because if you take the habanero out, I think this is a really drinkable, really approachable beer for a lot of people. Well, mean, they have a non-habanero version, I'm guessing, right? They do, yeah. It's called the special. So this that's why the the special in the can is is crossed out.
01:15:08
Speaker
It's still called Atomic Pumpkin? It's just the special release instead of the spice release? Okay. Yeah, yeah. So it's Atomic Pumpkin, which is a special release normally. And this one is the Atomic Pumpkin. They crossed out the special. You can still see it says special. yeah And they they they kind of scribbled spicy over the top of that. It's the, you know, the Sculpin Habanero, essentially. It's kind of that vibe. Makes sense. Makes sense.
01:15:30
Speaker
And, dude, it is a great beer. And I don't know what is, but I think spicy works with this cigar. Really? um Very strangely. I'm finding for the Cavillan...
01:15:43
Speaker
It really overpowers this cigar, which isn't super surprising to me. This is a super intense whiskey. It's very sherry forward, so you really get that, like, those kind of almost strawberry, cherry kind of flavors.
01:16:02
Speaker
Fermented strawberry or cherry, I guess I would say, because there's no sugar. There's no sweetness. but you really get that kind of strawberry and cherry kind of essence.
01:16:14
Speaker
But then it's really drying on the palate and super oaky, and it's amazing, but it really overshadows the flavors of this cigar.
01:16:29
Speaker
i you know I think the cigar is, so far, not bad. I have opinions. think you have opinions as well. um Yes.
01:16:41
Speaker
But we will find out because I'm getting to that to that point there. Wow. I am smoking a lot faster than you tonight. Holy hell. Somehow. I've been talking a lot. to be It may be that I'm enjoying this cigar more.
01:16:56
Speaker
I don't know. right. So let's do pairings of the night.
Favorite Pairings with Cohiba Spectre
01:17:02
Speaker
I think mine, no surprise, is the... cream imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels.
01:17:09
Speaker
um It just works. the the It balances really well with the cigar. The brightness of the hopped Cezanne works, but not as well as a milk stout aged in bourbon barrels for a year. I mean, oh no that's asking for a cigar to be paired with it, right?
01:17:28
Speaker
Oh, no, Tripp. I finally did it. Sweet Satan. I finally did it. I dumped my entire beer all over my keyboard. ah been there. oh Oh, no.
01:17:40
Speaker
Is it a laptop keyboard or separate keyboard? It's a separate keyboard. Oh, no, no. no no yeah So here's what you do. Unplug it and put it upside down.
01:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, talk talk to talk to the folks out there while I try to figure this out. All right, well, in that case, I guess I'll talk about my experience with the Spectre. um This reminds me of a mix of kind of all of the Liga Privada.
01:18:09
Speaker
It seems to me like that's the market they're going after. That's kind of the the profile they're going after, is a mix between the T-52, the Liga 9, and the H-99. The wrapper being somewhat similar, both being Habano grown in Connecticut.
01:18:25
Speaker
I guess it's closest to the T-52. I think it's got a little more um
01:18:34
Speaker
it's got a little more depth than the T52, I think.
01:18:40
Speaker
But at 10 times the price. So that's, for me, that's hard to justify. I'm not saying, like, I can't say go spend 150 bucks on the cigar, but I don't think there's any cigar in the world.
01:18:52
Speaker
that you can convince me to tell people to go spend $150 on it, right? Like, um for me, being somebody who's working class, like, that's just...