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LGP 44 - DTT Sin Compromiso
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This week, we try out the latest addition to Steve Saka's Sin Compromiso line!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
ah everybody welcome back to let's get pairing This is episode 44, and for our 44th episode, we' we're smoking the Sin Compromiso Dolexio No. 4.
00:00:11
Speaker
We'll tell you all about the cigar. We'll get into it. We'll tell you all the details. We'll tell you what we're pairing. But for now, grab yourself a drink. Grab yourself cigar. Let's get pairing. Let's get pairing.
00:00:41
Speaker
And we're back. Welcome back, everybody. i am your host, Tripp. This is Let's Get Pairing. i am, of course, as always, here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio. um Speaking of which, before I forget, Dennis, I need you to get me um video so I can put it together and get it uploaded because we did a little special episode and I keep forgetting to bug you about it.
00:01:03
Speaker
So why don't we just do it live on the air? I was going to send it to you. I finally got it. All right. um I'm your host, Tripp. Here's my co-host, Dennis. Dennis is in the dank dungeon of blackness.
00:01:16
Speaker
ah Dennis, are doing this week, brother? i am fantastish.
Sin Compromiso Cigar History and Details
00:01:21
Speaker
ah great man I'm i'm happy it's snowing outside so I can't be possibly any happier it's not snowing here so I'm very happy I love walking around shorts and barefoot or even sometimes just in the skivvies little skimpy little skivvy thing roll around in the snow go back in as one as one Soviet does hell yeah doesn't work for me but hell yeah for you alright we are smoking the Sincompromiso
00:01:50
Speaker
Selexio number four for our 44th episode. that That wasn't planned. It's just kind of the way it worked out, and I figured it was kind of fitting. ah So Sin Compromiso, first released in 2018 by Dunbart and Tobacco and Trust.
00:02:05
Speaker
um Sin Compromiso, of course, translates to without compromise. um So this was kind of his his fancy cigar. um it was It was always planned to be a core line, to be kind of a just a You know, yeah you can't really say much more than the name without compromise. He wanted to make a cigar that has no compromise.
00:02:27
Speaker
He's making the best possible cigar he can, regardless of cost and anything else. um That's where the Sin Compromiso came from. When the Sin Compromiso came out in 2019, it launched without a Robusto. And Steve Saka has since said that he had planned on having Robusto because it's generally the most popular size ah of pretty much any line.
00:02:50
Speaker
And ah he basically wasn't satisfied with the blend. He thought the blend just wasn't quite right. There was something a little off about it. And so he just said, you know, we'll circle back in a year or two and try to make a Robusto. as As happens sometimes with folks in the cigar industry and anybody for that matter.
00:03:12
Speaker
ah You plan on doing something and you just don't quite get around to it as quickly as you hope to. um So it was about six years. And he has now launched the 5x54 box pressed Robusto version of Sin Compromiso with an updated blend that he feels matches the size perfectly.
00:03:30
Speaker
um So this is, he hasn't said, he hasn't given any details on what's changed with the blend. I would guess it's probably just ratios to... of the you know the tobacco leave ingredients to better fit this size um but i have smoked this before i did enjoy it more than i usually do sin compromises i feel like it's just a little punch here ah which i think is probably what he was going for now as far as the blend goes uh or the details i guess the factory that this is made in is hoy the nicaragua
00:04:02
Speaker
um where most of Steve Saka's cigars, but not all of them are made. It's the original factory that he worked with when he started Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust. Wrapper on this is a Mexican San Andreas wrapper that is a, um not necessarily proprietary, but it's a very specially selected wrapper by Steve Saka.
00:04:21
Speaker
ah Binders Ecuador and Habano, fillers are all Nicaraguan. Like I mentioned before, this is a 5x54 Prince Sato, meaning Fox Press. um Price,
00:04:32
Speaker
is sin compromiso. So it comes in at $17.95 per cigar. They come in boxes of 13. um And like I said before, they are regular production. So, ah you know, you can find these at any of your nice cigar shops, purveyors of Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust.
00:04:51
Speaker
um As far as comparison goes, I think there's a pretty obvious comparison between this cigar and the Padron...
Cigar Taste and Beer Pairing
00:05:01
Speaker
one of the padrone anniversarios i don't know if there's a particular one that he was aiming for but it's pretty obviously a little bit inspired by padrone maduro um let's that being said den data but yeah that being said what do you think of the cigar so far dennis other than the density so uh yeah well the density of the actual the wrap on it it's really nice and sturdy it's just it's pretty to look at it feels good in the hand um
00:05:28
Speaker
Man, a lot of chocolate, wood, and spice off the off the first light. Now it's warming up a little bit, so I'm getting more of a kind of a rounder chocolate. Before was just that dusty chocolate. You open that box of cocoa, that like pure 100%, and that intensity and the dryness that you get, I had off the first light.
00:05:48
Speaker
Now it's starting to warm up a little bit, which is really nice. And the spice not as, I would say, not as intense similarly kind of rounder maybe even fuller definitely a lot of black pepper spice are you getting something similar yeah i'm getting exactly what you said um there is you mentioned in the green room a little burnt popcorn i definitely get that a little bit like burnt popcorn burn burnt corn tortilla chips like a little bit of char right yeah that little bit of char kind of flavor yeah which is cool um
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, so far, I mean, like I said, it's ah clearly inspired by the Padron Maduros, and it it matches that in flavor profile, I would say. It's got its own thing going on, um but it's fairly similar to those.
00:06:38
Speaker
ah Thanks for Coop and Sam for watching. Good evening, guys. Hey, guys. We're going to get into some pairing now that we've just kind of hammered the details out of the way. Let's get pairing.
00:06:49
Speaker
I did a little better that time. It was good. It was a good transition. I liked it. all right. I'm working on I'm working on right. First off, I have a beer from a company called Heater Allen Brewing.
00:07:01
Speaker
um I'll show off the can here a little bit. They've got very understated, very nice packaging. Got their their logo very ah prominently.
00:07:11
Speaker
um So this guy, Rick Allen, they're based in McMinnville, Oregon. um Rick Allen was an investment banker who started homebrewing in the late eighty s um And he kind of quickly found that he loved brewing and he was pretty good at ah Unlike most homebrewers, yourself included, ah Rick found himself very rarely experimenting with new recipes.
00:07:36
Speaker
He would... do a recipe and just keep making it over and over again ah dial it in. um And that was just kind of where he found his passion. And eventually he started brewing lagers, was like man lagers of the way. um He basically started brewing lagers exclusively and he would just brew similar beers over and over again, ah trying to dial in you know, incrementally improving his recipes and methods each time.
00:08:03
Speaker
ah He was so committed to this kind of style that at one point he brewed 14 batches of the same Pilsner in a row just to like tweak that recipe ever so slightly and get it dialed in.
00:08:15
Speaker
um Dedication, man. i I really respect and appreciate that. you Right. It's homebrewing is not something I've done a lot, but I get it. Like, you know, you will, you want to be constantly making something cool and new Um, and you don't just, it it feels boring to make the same thing over and over again, but when you're trying to absolutely nail it, that's what it takes.
00:08:38
Speaker
Um, after two decades of homebrewing, he decided to leave his banking job and he started heater Allen brewing in McMinnville, Oregon in 2007. Uh, and he started with a 20 gallon brewing system, which is basically uh,
00:08:52
Speaker
souped up homebrew system like 20 gallons is not much um you said 20 gallon i heard 20 for some reason i heard 20 barrel no they have since upgraded um i think it was in 2012 i think it was i didn't put it in my notes but i remember reading it 2012-ish they upgraded to a five barrel system which is what is that like What is it? 30 gallons to a barrel? Yeah, 30 or 33. Oh, yeah, it's 33.
00:09:23
Speaker
So six barrels would be like 200 gallons. So that's a huge upgrade. um lot And since then, they've again upgraded. I think that was 2018 where they upgraded to a 20-barrel system, which is now what they're using for as their production system.
00:09:40
Speaker
brewing um as you can tell from that they're pretty small they're mostly a tap room they generally have like four or five beers on tap um and they also do canning and bottling so they do have some availability around oregon um as has been my broken record for last couple months i got this on tavor um there's one thing i can't pass up when it's on tavor it's a beer that i used to be able to buy in the grocery store when i lived in oregon uh because The beer in the grocery store here is not as good.
00:10:13
Speaker
I'll say that you can get like, ah we took you to a total wine dentist and this selection is crazy, but you're getting clapped out old beer. A lot of the time and, uh, stuff that's been sitting on the shelf for at least a couple months. It's hard to get fresh beer around here, which in Oregon, everything you get is fresh pretty much.
00:10:36
Speaker
Um, So when I saw this, I had to get it. All right. So Peter Allen, the name heater Allen is a combination of Rick's last name, Allen, and his wife's maiden name.
00:10:47
Speaker
um And he put hers first because in his words, you should always give your wife first billing, which is a sweet little thought, isn't it? Nice. It's a sweet gesture. It is a family business. In 2009, Rick's daughter, Lisa, started working for the brewery. Since then, she worked her way up to take over for him as head brewer in 2017.
00:11:07
Speaker
And in 2022, her and her partner ah took over ownership of the brewery. Interestingly, her partner, I didn't put his name in the notes, but he's the owner or one of the co-founding brewers of Wayfinder Beer, also in Portland.
00:11:22
Speaker
Cool. Okay. So now he's helping her run ah Peter Allen. The brewery focuses pretty much exclusively on Czech and German style beers.
00:11:33
Speaker
And in a, like I said, with Alan is a creature of habit. ah They almost exclusively make lagers. Like it's very rare to see an ale from them. I don't know if I've ever even seen one.
00:11:48
Speaker
Actually, I think they've done one or two that I can think of. I think they did an IPA at one point, just kind of a, this is our version of an IPA, but they are one of the only breweries in Oregon or for that matter,
00:12:02
Speaker
the entire united states that doesn't have an ipa on regular rotation at all it's incredibly rare to see that yeah especially today so what i'm drinking from them today is roush beer hell which of course means smoked beer light ah this is a helles lager that is brewed using pilsner and beachwood smoked malts Originally, they brewed as a collaboration with Wayfinder Beer in 2018.
00:12:29
Speaker
And since then, it's become one of their core beers. um One of their core seasonals, I should say. um They kind of have a seasonal rotation like a lot of breweries do where, you know, in the winter, you're getting a couple beers from them. And in the summer, you're getting quite different offerings.
00:12:46
Speaker
So, looks good. Got that lager clarity to it. like These guys are masters of lagering. ah Make some of the best pilsners I've ever had. so I'm excited to try this beer with this cigar um and see how that ah that smoked corn or yeah, that smoky burnt corn popcorn flavor matches up with this beer.
00:13:10
Speaker
I'm very curious. I think it'll work really nicely. What
Creative Beers and Hidden Springs Ale Works
00:13:13
Speaker
you got up first? I'm extremely nervous as I've been sipping on my beer. I did notice you sipping on it. um yeah I understand the nervousness.
00:13:25
Speaker
This is my... That's a beer, believe it or not. It's not an ecto-cooler. It's not a cocktail.
00:13:34
Speaker
Not even a Powerade.
00:13:37
Speaker
Well, close. Close to a Powerade.
00:13:41
Speaker
Good Lord, I got to clear my palate now. Let me tell you a little bit about this brewery. I think they're actually one of the um the better known breweries in the state of Florida. So this is Hidden Springs Ale Works, which is located in Tampa, Florida.
00:13:54
Speaker
And they're kind known for being kind of creative and crazy and making these nostalgic... Kind of they look'll they'll pick references from the 90s, sometimes from the 80s. They'll do fun stuff.
00:14:07
Speaker
So maybe as you as you look at this, think about where this could possibly be going. I think, Tripp, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. So it was founded by Joshua Garman and his wife, Jackie, in 2015, which is not that long ago, really.
00:14:21
Speaker
And they officially opened their doors to the public in September of that year. Classic story. Again, this happens often. We talk about homebrewers starting off with kind of like a little janky kit.
00:14:32
Speaker
He particularly started with a Mr. Beer kit, which I had. And I thought, man, going to make beer. It's going to be great. I'm so pumped. I did all the things. I put it in this plastic you know container that you get this little plastic mini keg.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I made it and I was so jazzed for it. And when I drank it, it was god awful piss with alcohol. It was like malt liquor, but worse. ah It was just awful. And I can't believe that people actually continue to brew after that experience. But in my case, I just upgraded to a kind of a more proper setup and started brewing. So I suspect same thing happened with him.
00:15:10
Speaker
He kind of left the Mr. Beer Kit world behind and i wanted to really explore brewing. They're located in, ah i guess it's I've never been, but Tampa Heights. It's ah historic Franklin Street in Tampa Heights.
00:15:24
Speaker
Never been, but I feel like that's the place to go. Everyone's always talking about it. They've got a kind of a cool, easygoing tap room, classic like Florida brewery style. Bring your dog, bring your kids, bring everybody to come play some board games and hang out.
00:15:38
Speaker
So that's kind of cool. But these cats, as I mentioned, this nostalgic thing that they love to do, one of their core line beers is called Orange Crush. And if you can imagine, it is very close to an Orange Crush if you've ever had one.
00:15:54
Speaker
I've never actually seen that beer. I've heard of it, but I've never been able to try it. I need to hunt some down. Well, i'll I'll get into distribution. It's really interesting for them. It's much bigger than I realized.
00:16:05
Speaker
I'll get into that in a moment. So special weird beers, the other thing they like to do is dessert-inspired sours, which is really cool. Milk stouts with different additions, which I think this is the classic, like this is the norm now.
00:16:17
Speaker
When people were just starting to explore IPAs, I think that the milk stouts with adjuncts is the new kind of that that new shift of what's cool and exciting. People are leaving the IPA world and they're going back to darker beers, stronger beers, kind of beers that are arguably designed to be put in a bottle and stored in a cellar for a year or two, right? Like buy this special edition beer for 30 bucks for a bomber and sit on it for a year and then share it with your friends.
00:16:48
Speaker
No longer are you sitting there and in drinking this by yourself, which to be honest with you, I think that's a really, it's a nice strategy. We talked about bottle shares last, I think on last show.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah. I love the concept. I love that sometimes a beer is, you can't really drink the whole thing. Some beers are not really meant to be consumed as a beer, right? Like some of them are just to be like, Hey, look how cool this experiment we did is not good, but it's very interesting.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yep. A lot of them are great for tasting. But if you're going come home from work and sit down and pour yourself a beer, it's probably not. I don't know. Some people might, but it's probably not going to be a 15% bourbon barrel aged stout with, I don't know, maraschino cherries or something, which actually not a bad idea. I might do that.
00:17:39
Speaker
I might try that. Old fashioned ale. Well, Guinness has, and it's lovely. like Guinness brews one that's available in the U.S. and it's made in their Delaware brewery.
00:17:52
Speaker
Really? it is It's lovely. I think I had it on the show probably a year and a half ago at some point. um Anyway, so the other thing they do is pastry-inspired beers, of course, and fruited sours, again, rounding out the profile of sort of this new age of beer exploration.
00:18:11
Speaker
Interestingly, as many other breweries do, they do collaborate with a lot of local businesses and local breweries, which is cool. But the distribution thing threw me off, man. They're available in 18 states.
00:18:22
Speaker
Wow, really? They're not a huge brewery, but they're available in 18 states. They're distributed throughout Florida with many different distributors. But a lot of their core stuff and a lot of their, or some of their seasonal stuff, in addition to the core stuff, is also available in the UK, in Europe, China, and Japan.
00:18:39
Speaker
Wow. Which is, it's wild because they're really, realistically, they're kind of a very small brewery. Yeah, it's lot more distribution than I would expect. They have massive reach for a small brewery. i I'm not entirely sure on the the the capacity, the output, but I don't imagine it it's anything in the realm of, I don't know, probably not more than 20 barrels, certainly less, I think.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would guess so. But anyway, so that's kind of cool. This beer, let me show you now that I've talked about a little bit. There was a movie back in 2006. don't know if anybody remembers. It was a limited theater. I certainly remember.
00:19:15
Speaker
Only seven cities this movie came out, and it was... um I'm pretty sure people hated it. And now it has become, like many cult classics, it has become a cult classic. This beer is called Rondo.
00:19:31
Speaker
The Thirst Mutilator. but but Which is, if you haven't guessed it from the movie Idiocracy. Yes. Great. um I mean, not great movie, but ah it's a cult classic for a reason.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah. It successfully predicted many things. Did you know Crocs? Yes. Were not like, like they were barely a thing. And yeah the creator found out and was like, I gotta, I gotta put these in my movie about idiots.
00:19:58
Speaker
ah Now all the idiots are wearing them.
00:20:03
Speaker
I remember. dare i Dare I put it out there, Mr. Trip Waldrop. Dare I put it out there that you had once tried to entice me into wearing some Crocs. Yeah, oh I'm wearing some right now.
00:20:15
Speaker
i was like, dude, I can't. I felt it so deep in me. It went back to the movie like, I can't do this. I hate them, but they're comfy shoes for around the house. um so in the movie this brando thing was really cool because it was you it contained electrolytes it was the thing that replaced water right so it says even on the on the can it says classic quote from the film water is for toilets drink brando and this one is a sports drink sour ale so it's confusing because there are really not a lot of flavor notes uh you know kind of in the description of the beer itself but
00:20:50
Speaker
It's a sour ale. It is exactly the color of Brando. And sure as shit, it's got electrolytes in it. It's just a little bit hard to put down.
00:21:03
Speaker
ah Yeah, I have tasted this. It is a different beer. um and Like we were saying before, it's really one of those ones that works better as a hey, try how weird this is. And you're like, wow, that's not terrible, surprisingly.
00:21:21
Speaker
um But you don't really want a whole 16 ounces of it. Well, you know, this this is the kind of thing that we like to do on our shows. is We like to put ourselves out there and and really pay the piper, if you will. the limits.
00:21:33
Speaker
We're pushing the limits of pairing around We are pushing. It's so hard. um Quick thing about this one. Yes, it is sour. It also tastes a lot like um old Gatorade.
00:21:47
Speaker
I got the vibe of, like, the yellow Gatorade. Kind of yellow Gatorade, but if you let it sit out in the heat of the summer all day, you open it... If you left it in your car all summer.
00:21:58
Speaker
You left it in your car, you go play basketball, whatever your thing is, and then you go back and you drink it, and it's got, like, a little... There's something not quite right about it, right? its Something has changed.
00:22:10
Speaker
Well, things do tend to change, right? And so... For better or worse. You know, I like it a lot more now that I've had, don't know, little bit, couple ounces of it so far. It's better.
00:22:23
Speaker
It's just, you know, remember, we want to drink better, but we want you to drink less.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah. How was your first beer for you? It's great. um As the name would imply, smoked pale lager, or smoked hell. Roush beer hell.
00:22:41
Speaker
That's the name. smoked Helles lager. It's a little lighter on the smoke than a lot of Roush beers. Um, it's a little sweeter than most Helles lagers, little hoppier.
00:22:55
Speaker
Um, it's got a really nice kind of light to medium body. Um, but very well rounded with that sweetness, that little bit of smoke.
Cigar and Beer Pairing Experience
00:23:04
Speaker
There's a lot of bread, lot of cracker in the beer. And it's actually working remarkably well with the cigar better than I thought it would.
00:23:11
Speaker
Um, those two kind of smoked notes kind of play off each other in a nice way do you know by any chance is it beachwood or is it beachwood okay so that's classically beachwood is what's used for roush beers we've seen lately in the last in a couple of years we've seen this sort of now mix of different things not just beachwood but sometimes you'll see oak um rarely you'll see other types of smoke but unfortunately in beers, the more intense you get on the type of wood you use for your smoke, the the more, it's not astringency, it's kind of like a, yeah almost like a sourness, I think. You know what I'm talking about, right? when you overcycl up
00:23:50
Speaker
It's like a funk to it. I've been trying to describe it because even a couple weeks ago when I had a beer that had a little bit of smoked, peachwood smoked malt, you get kind of this heatiness this campfire, but it um it's it's one of those things where I can describe it, but it sounds a thousand times worse when I describe it than it actually tastes.
00:24:20
Speaker
But like ah a burn pile, like you're burning a bunch of garbage or something, like a bunch of random old wood and pressed wood and just furniture.
00:24:33
Speaker
And you're just getting this funk to it that I can't quite put my finger on um That's what Beachwood reminds me of when you overdo it a little bit. Yes. This one doesn't quite have that. This one just has like that little, that little, a little smoke influence.
00:24:51
Speaker
Right. um And it, it's a very well-balanced beer, especially for a smoked beer. It's much better balanced than most smoked beers. Typically a Roush beer is going to be a darker beer. Yeah.
00:25:02
Speaker
It's going to be a lot more intense than this. have a lot more sweetness. um this is everything's dialed back a little bit to a nice mild to medium body mild plus body i would say um man it's it's fantastic
00:25:20
Speaker
what about and what about the uh how's the brando pairing is is it what pairings crave
00:25:27
Speaker
yes it's i don't know if it's what pair pairings crave but i think it is what plants crave which is as we know from the movie electrolytes obviously plants love electrolytes yeah and give them water because it's a toilet honestly it's kind of growing on me i don't like the pedialyte aftertaste it's got that pedialyte like a little that viscosity on the tongue, on the palate of a Pedialyte.
00:25:56
Speaker
But it's not bad it on the initial. I think I'm kind of liking it with the cigar. Sounds awesome. one on Thanksgiving, and I was kind of shocked at how... I started off with a half a glass, and I was like, I'm just going to try it.
00:26:09
Speaker
I'll see if anybody else wants it, and I couldn't get anybody else to commit to a glass. No, not with that color. I got a couple of people to take a sip. Okay. For me, it was it was crazy sweet, like candy sweet.
00:26:23
Speaker
ah which I didn't enjoy. hey I hate... I just don't like sugar that much, right? like Same. Sugar is just too intense for me. and it I get over it really fast. So, like, candy and stuff like that are a little too intense for me as far as sweetness goes.
00:26:39
Speaker
um But I finished, like, I had it in, like, a rocks glass, like, just half ah half a glass full. And I found myself going back for more because I was like, there's something about it that I just...
00:26:53
Speaker
I just want to experience it more. Like, it's not terrible, but it's so weird. And I'm just, you know, just, I mean, a a lot of times I'm doing the same thing on the show where I'm just tasting it again to try to wrap my head around.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yep. I will say there is salt in this. Wholeheartedly, 150% there's salt in this. The problem is, I'm afraid they probably used iodized table salt and not sea salt or any any other kind of salt.
00:27:24
Speaker
Maybe. don't
00:27:27
Speaker
Or even a calcium chloride, but that would be weird. You don't want to taste that. yeah but That would surprise me. That there's for your mash bill. That calcium chloride.
Whiskey Introduction and Pairing Insights
00:27:37
Speaker
but Sorry, it's fresh from brewing earlier today on my mind. so ah How are you doing with this cigar so far?
00:27:46
Speaker
and Any changes as we're kind of getting into the second third here? I really love the fullness of the chocolate flavor is really coming through now. and the spices is is but maybe it's the sour beer but the spice is subdued a little bit and this chocolate flavor is coming out like a um you know those lindor truffles with the filling the cream filling yes it's that like it coats your mouth that coats your palate you take a draw and that smoke just sits there and i really like that yeah i completely agree um for me i think the spice is still pretty intense um
00:28:20
Speaker
I don't know if yours has dialed back more than mine. um
00:28:26
Speaker
There's also a you're probably not tasting it because of that beer, but there's also a salty component coming in. Like, ah again, it reminds me of a corn chip, like a salty corn chip.
00:28:39
Speaker
Well, it's also that that kind of toasted, roasted, burnt end kind of quality. That singe. Well, singe is probably not the best word. The the char, that's what it is. Mm-hmm.
00:28:53
Speaker
Trying to figure out if there's... um don't know. There's like a tingly-ness on the palate for me that I'm getting that I can't quite figure out.
00:29:03
Speaker
Maybe it's from smoking too fast or something. Anyway. I like RetroHill. RetroHill is really nice. Yeah, RetroHill is nice and spicy. A little bit of kind of a almost maple syrup kind of sweetness.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, there's an intense sweetness on the Retro. Um, very spicy though, which I like. I love a spicy retro. All right. I'm going to move on something very different. I really don't know how my parents going to work with this.
00:29:29
Speaker
I love it. i' I'm just throwing it against the wall and seeing what happens. This is blue. No, you've joined whiskey. Yeah. You've seen this one on the show before. Um, I had never tried it, but I tried it several months ago and I'm a big fan, man. That beer is making me hiccup.
00:29:45
Speaker
Uh, so blue note whiskey, they are, ah owned by BR Distilling Company, which was founded in 2014 in Memphis, Tennessee, ah which surprisingly, I just love to always put this little note in that they were founded in 2014 and that means they're the oldest licensed distillery in Memphis, Tennessee, because at the time there weren't any other ones.
00:30:08
Speaker
were the first one.
00:30:11
Speaker
um This is their, i don't I don't have a whole lot of other information on BR Distilling, um but I do know that Uh, they're sourcing their whiskey, which I'll get to in a moment. This is blue note juke joint whiskey sourced from an undisclosed, undisclosed distiller.
00:30:27
Speaker
Um, and while they don't say where they're aging the whiskey, it does say right here, crafted in Memphis on the bottom of the bottle, which I take to indicate that they may be aging the whiskey there themselves, or at least doing some blending on site at their distillery.
00:30:46
Speaker
Um,
00:30:48
Speaker
but I'm not certain. I couldn't find any more information on that. It is aged a minimum of three years, wherever it's aged. And we do have the mash bill, which is 70% corn, 21% rye, 9% malted barley. ah This is an unfiltered whiskey. So you get a bottle, you may see some little floaters in there. The, you know, those, those proteins sticking together sometimes, especially when it gets colder as proteins like to do.
00:31:14
Speaker
ah And a bottle of this runs you about 40 bucks. I think it's got a just a nice little label there, nice look to it. um And I've been a big fan of how this whiskey pairs.
00:31:27
Speaker
I'm going to take a couple sips, try it out with the Sin Compromiso. Why don't you talk about your second pairing in the evening?
00:31:34
Speaker
but Actually, I'm so happy. Before I do that, I just wanted to highlight, Sam is smoking a ah meat lover's beef stick by Dunbar and Tobacco and Trust with a local beer called 903 Sasquatch.
00:31:47
Speaker
That sounds like a tasty beer. That sounds apropos. Yeah, exactly. It sounds like yeah an apropos pairing. All right. What are you drinking? I'm so happy for my second pairing. I think not that I disliked my first one so much, but I've been digging on this. I kind of bought it on a whim, and I've just been digging on it for a little bit.
00:32:07
Speaker
Let me first introduce what it is, and then I'll kind of tell you a little bit about the the distillery that this comes from and really kind of what all of this means, because this is kind of a new age now with distilleries doing batch cocktails. i ah we We remember clearly when High West came out with their series of but of pre-batched cocktails.
00:32:25
Speaker
High West is really cool and interesting in that they started barreling all their cocktails. So I think they do today. They release... um What was it? They release an Old Fashioned, and they also have a Manhattan.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. And they're both great. They're fantastic. I love those things. I'm not having High West tonight. I just wanted to bring up that this is now... Oh, I think I know which one that is. Can you see the bottle?
00:32:51
Speaker
Here. Let me show you. It's a cool bottle. It's Bullet Manhattan pre-batched cocktail. Comes in at a cool 37.5. think they can because of The certain laws are on designation for spirits.
00:33:07
Speaker
Oh, really? Similar to like when you travel to, let's say, Nicaragua, right? When you buy Florida Kana Nicaragua, it's not 40%. Yeah, it's 38, I think. it's I think, yeah, probably 38 or 37 in change. But it's under 40.
00:33:20
Speaker
When you buy it here in the U.S., it is actually 40. So there's some rules and designation around like true spirits versus if you mix your spirit with something else, now it becomes a different designation.
00:33:33
Speaker
Like it's a spirit adjacent, similarly to like a liqueur. um a lot of times liqueurs fall into that category. They do. They do with the ABV, but I think there's a, I forget the name of the designator, but I think it's also popular for for certain types of um beers that are, we'll call them look the malt liquors, like the four locos that are 12%.
00:33:55
Speaker
They're technically not a beer. They're a malt beverage. yeah And so they're treated it a little bit differently from a tax standpoint and from a distribution standpoint. Anyway, all that aside, let me tell you about the Bullet Distillery, which is pretty cool in that they are pretty new. They're fairly new. They've only been around since 2017.
00:34:13
Speaker
and seventeen Down in Shelbyville, Kentucky, which I've never been to. was about to say, like, I was about to call you out on that, but you're talking about their actual distillery. Not Bullet Company.
00:34:24
Speaker
Bullet Company has been around since, like, yes want to say two thousand five ish Yeah, so the Bullet Company in the background and all that that, it's a little bit spicier, that story, but I think let's look at it from the the modern age perspective first. Yeah, their whiskey started getting more interesting in 2017. We'll put it that way.
00:34:43
Speaker
Well, you have to remember, one of our favorite friends, Diageo, came in to the pair company of Bullet Now, and they put in $150 million dollars investment into rebranding, into kind of getting product out.
00:34:56
Speaker
It's the first time that they really had their own dedicated distillery, officially, right? After that that deal came through. Now they're located on a 300-acre property, which is nuts. Wow, that's huge.
00:35:08
Speaker
Massive, massive amount of space. uh they have a 52 foot still that has a production capacity of 1.8 million proof gallons a year wow that's it is insane but now what does that really mean if you break it down they are filling about 720 barrels of whiskey every single day think about that the next time you go into your local bar and you see a bottle of bullet and go ah it's bullets on my thing it's whatever it's You know, a lot of the dedicated rye drinkers, the dedicated bourbon drinkers, any whiskey drinker really will kind of look at it and go, all right, it's like lower mid shelf.
00:35:47
Speaker
Maybe I'll buy it for a Christmas party because it's affordable. They generally don't go for it. Now, again, that's not to malign you if you love Bullet. I i like Bullet very much. I prefer the rye personally, which is actually what this is made with.
00:36:01
Speaker
So this is the straight rye. There's vermouth and bitters. I'll get into that in a moment. um And yes, they have also, I forgot to mention, they have four warehouses that can hold around 220,000 barrels. Good God.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's like, can you imagine the one schmuck going up for a cigarette and just lighting that whole place up? Oh, man. i mean, it's happened before.
00:36:28
Speaker
It's been a tragedy. Yeah, that was awesome. It does.
00:36:34
Speaker
A couple of quick things. Popularity grew. They opened up a really cool visitor center in 2019, which is one of the things that I would love to go to and visit if I ever make it down into Kentucky.
00:36:45
Speaker
They do the classic, like, you know, they do a guided tour. They talk you through the process. And they have a little cocktail bar that walks you through sort of the different things you can do with with what they make, um which is lovely. But really, they're known for their bourbon.
00:36:59
Speaker
And as far as my own experience, they're known for their bourbon and they're known for their rye. Mm-hmm. I love the rye. It's a high rye. It's very exciting. Even their bourbon is a high rye.
00:37:12
Speaker
They have a straight bourbon, sorry, I should have mentioned straight bourbon and a high rye, which is 68% corn, 28% rye, and then 4% malted barley. Pretty classic recipe for a little spicier kind of bourbon, which is nice.
00:37:26
Speaker
but they've been exploding. And part of that explosion has been this transition into cocktails. So I took that, I i made a I poured it over ice, made myself a Manhattan. Generally a drink Manhattans up, but couldn't find the right glassware and was a little bit in a rush. And I thought, ah, it's fine.
00:37:45
Speaker
It's nice. Yeah. Now what I have in there, you're looking at and wondering what is that weird color? Why does it look like that? Well, You see what had happened was I wasn't paying attention.
00:37:58
Speaker
And I was fishing around from one of my lovely Woodford Reserve barreled Luxardo cherries. Nice. Well, weren't any cherries in there, but I got a whole lot of that juice in there by accident.
00:38:12
Speaker
So you were out of cherries, but you know it? I was fishing around. It's such a dark, luscious. I was going to say the Luxardo syrup can really throw you off because it's like black.
00:38:24
Speaker
but it's all When you've got a couple inches of it in that jar, you can't see it it at all. Yeah. And so what they do is they take Luxardo cherries. There's a separate company. I forget their name. But they take Luxardo cherries.
00:38:36
Speaker
They stuff them into Woodford Reserve barrels, probably with a little bit of Woodford as well. And so it's a much thinner liquid, but it's still equally dark, and the cherries age for a nice period of time. um And when I say Luxardo cherries, I mean the cherry, not the brand, if that makes sense.
Whiskey Culture and Economics
00:38:54
Speaker
for those of you that are cocktail folk out there. But i always I always have to bring it up. I got to get up on my Apple box. um Tell me. I always got to bring it up. People scoff on my Apple box.
00:39:07
Speaker
What's an Apple? It's like a thing you stand on so people can hear you when you're talking to a big group. Isn't that soapbox? Oh, maybe it's a soapbox. I mean, listen, in New York, in yeah it's a milk crate.
00:39:19
Speaker
ah That's what everybody says. I'm going get up on my milk crate here, and I'm going to tell you guys, Luxardo cherries are $25 a jar. Every time you see that, every time you try to buy them, you're going to go, that's crazy.
00:39:32
Speaker
I'm not buying those cherries. buy those cherries. If you have a cocktail that needs a cherry, Luxardo is the best cherry you can use. There is no better cherry than Luxardo brand Luxardo cherries.
00:39:44
Speaker
ah The Woodford ones are great too, but... Stop putting maraschino cherries exactly in your goddamn cocktails. Put them on Sundays, right? you're you're how what are they I don't even eat sweets, but but what's the banana sundae thing that Americans love to eat? The banana split.
00:40:00
Speaker
Banana split, there you go. I've never seen someone eat one, by the Not to be confused with the 7-10 split, which is a different thing altogether. but And listen, I grew up in Brooklyn, man. I love maraschino cherries. I love the bees that are making the the bright red honey with the whatever red number 69. It's great. But...
00:40:18
Speaker
yeah great but Switch to Luxardo for your cocktails. And on that quick thing, what the hell is a Manhattan? Why are we drinking? Why am I drinking them in a Manhattan? Why do they make this thing that's a Manhattan cocktail?
00:40:31
Speaker
You almost always, if you see on a menu an old-fashioned, you will see a Manhattan as well. Slight differences, right? in Manhattans, I will say distinctly, classically speaking, are made with rye.
00:40:44
Speaker
Classically, you will see a Manhattan with rye. ah What you have is equal parts of sweet and dry vermouth traditionally if you want to really like really traditional manhattan you do a little bit of dry a little bit sweet but it has vermouth bitters and the rye pretty simple you can have it over over ice you can have it up which is just chilled and in a glass which is really nice uh but the history we don't know exactly 150 really like not even don't know
00:41:16
Speaker
Where it really originated, there's a theory that it came from the Manhattan Club back in the 1870s. People have come up and have fought that theory for years. Like, it's contentious. So you can go down that rabbit hole.
00:41:28
Speaker
I certainly have over the years. It's fascinating. but i need to stop doing this. By the way, I have this, ah one of these glasses, right? When you put a cigar in, which is really cool, but I have a bad habit of sticking my thumb in them.
00:41:41
Speaker
I do the same thing. The problem is, when you go to take sip... You can't drink from that side. no well you can't see but it right there it is there's the curve so as soon as you hit that lip it just splashes all over you yeah it's a lovely glass though yeah it's pretty nice uh all right so balloon note duke joint whiskey once again pairing very well there is um
00:42:08
Speaker
the rye content in this i what did i say it was twenty one twenty one percent rye Um, adds a really nice spice, really nice body, kind of that baking spice, a little bit of not cherry, but it reminds me of if you've ever used cherry wood for grilling, um that kind of like very subtle cherry notes that you get.
00:42:33
Speaker
Um, nice sweetness to it is man. Every time I drink this whiskey, I'm like, I need to drink this whiskey more and I need to explore their other offerings. um because this is truly great whiskey that is going really well with the cigar. It really kind of, i i've think you're going to kind of have a similar experience.
00:42:53
Speaker
It almost brings out a cherry note in the cigar. Interesting. And you have said that, to be fair. Every time you've had that on the show, you have said that exact comment of, I need to get more, i need to like spend some more time with this.
00:43:08
Speaker
It sounds fantastic. I have yet to see it in stores by me. If you see it, I definitely recommend checking it out. Um, it's, I think it's just a really, it's not an amazing whiskey, but it's very solid, especially, you know, the $40 price point is extremely competitive.
00:43:25
Speaker
Like that's kind of the, I think the most crowded space. it's myy Um, and this is one of the better ones I've had. Usually I'm, I'm kind of a skip the $40 ones and go for $50 bottle ah This one is just really good. i can see it working really well as a cocktail.
00:43:43
Speaker
um it's It's kind of what, um in my younger days, what Bullet would have been, which is a whiskey that I can drink on the rocks. I can drink it straight. I can mix it with Coke. I can bring it to a party where people are going to do God knows what to it.
00:43:59
Speaker
And I don't feel bad because it's not like that elevated price point that's that's the you know where I'm going to be like, Man, that guy's making a Manhattan with this. He should be sipping
High West Distillery and Unique Blends
00:44:10
Speaker
it. It's certainly not not like seeing somebody take a truly fine bottle of scotch and mix it with Gatorade because I've seen that.
00:44:19
Speaker
Listen, to each their own. That's horrible. On this show, I think we pride ourselves. You and I certainly, i think, pride ourselves on the show and in public and in our own lives. We don't judge. like Whatever...
00:44:32
Speaker
Whatever you like to drink, man, it's cool. You go you enjoy it Tell me about it. I want to hear about it. If I see you drinking something unusual to me, I'm going to, you're going to be approached and I'm going to ask you questions. but And I think people are not used to that sort of like, Oh, why are you talking to me? I feel judged that you think that I'm an idiot or something.
00:44:53
Speaker
So there's a bit of a disclaimer, but I think the culture is starting to shift back to, oh, yeah, man, check this out. This is what I'm doing. It's kind of cool. You should try it. Yeah. this is how This is how we ended up with Mountain Dew originally being made as a mixer for whiskey.
00:45:06
Speaker
That's what it was. It wasn't like a soft drink for children, you know, to... Get all hopped up on play Call Duty all night. I was going to say, well, yeah, the red one was great.
00:45:19
Speaker
Code red. Code red. So good. Anyway. what's here what do you What's your third pairing, man? umm I'm nervous. I'm curious. ah I wasn't sure what to go with, but it was something that is almost a mix of what else I'm having tonight.
00:45:35
Speaker
And you actually mentioned them a little earlier. High West and Fire. so high west is a cool company um they are based in utah they were the first licensed distillery in utah since prohibition happened uh founded by a former biochemist named david perkins in 2006 in park city yucatan um he was at a visit to a distillery in kentucky with his wife on vacation um He kind of, you know, during the, during the tour, he saw just kind of the processes that they go through. And he's like, man, that's a weirdly similarly, similar to what I do in biochemistry.
00:46:18
Speaker
Um, and that kind of got the wheels turning and he decided, hell, I'll start a, start a distillery or make my own whiskey. That could be interesting.
00:46:30
Speaker
Uh, he takes inspirations from all over the place for his whiskeys. Um,
00:46:36
Speaker
I think they've done less experimenting in the last decade or so, but they kind of made their name on experimentation, doing weird stuff like this, like Midsummer Night's Dram, like Burr Rye, like Double Bourbon.
00:46:49
Speaker
ah Prairie is nice. I love good prairie. Prairie is great. ah But that's kind of where they made their name, was making these kind of mash-up whiskey products. Um, and I wish that they would, they would get out there and experiment more and just come up with more weird stuff, but I don't see them doing that much lately.
00:47:08
Speaker
Uh, this is campfire, which is a blend of MGP distilled rye and bourbon, uh, with an undisclosed blended malt scotch, which is peated.
00:47:19
Speaker
Um, David came up with the idea while he was visiting the Brook Lottie distillery. Um, and they were staying in sort of a ah little bed and breakfast. And is ah his hosts, if you've ever been to like one of these kind of bed and breakfasts, they'll make you a little snack. They'll make you lunch.
00:47:38
Speaker
um you you'll just you know You'll have little little food things throughout the day to snack on. um And for dessert, they spent like part of the whole day simmering a entire bottle of pitted whiskey with sugar And then they created a syrup with that and poured it over fresh honeydew melons.
00:48:01
Speaker
And he was like, man, this is amazing. you can You can do such interesting things with peated scotch and it's simply drink it. um And so he went home and started experimenting with combining the the spice of a rye, the sweetness of a bourbon, and that ah you know that signature smokiness of a peated whiskey from Scotland.
00:48:26
Speaker
um so he came up with this like i said it's a blend of rye bourbon and heated scotch which is a blended malt which is i'm going to get into scotch territory here just for a minute because we don't usually talk about blended whiskey uh we're single malt guys for the most part the different categories of scotch whiskey are blended well i'll start with single malt which is all malt whiskey all from the same distillery Single grain, which is all whiskey from the same distillery, but not all of it is all malt. It can contain other grains in the distillate.
00:49:04
Speaker
Then there's blended malt, which is single malts from different distilleries um that are... Yes, single malts from different distilleries that are blended together to form you know a new blend.
00:49:19
Speaker
and new blend blended grain which is what stuff like johnny walker usually is um where you're not using all single malts you're using single grain whiskeys and single malts that are blended together um and so this is a blended malt whiskey so what that means multiple single malts from different distilleries that are blended together at least some of those are peated um which is going to impart that that little bit peat into this whiskey.
00:49:47
Speaker
You get a little bit of that American, little bit of that Scotch influence. um And i'm I'm usually pretty happy with with this one. So I'm curious how it's going pair with this. ah ah little but I should mention it is 92 proof.
00:50:03
Speaker
i love So it's it's a little higher. The juke joint, I think, was 93. I don't remember if I mentioned that or not. um so this is just just a little lighter than that just by a hair um but i wanted to do it in this order because that smokiness i feel like can uh conflict with other flavors depending on on what other pairings you're doing i'm i so i have been a huge fan i just want to say i've been a huge fan of kai west for for many many many years i remember when campfire came out and it was 38 bottle
00:50:39
Speaker
And one of those things where a friend would come over to to my apartment and would would bring ah would bring a bottle of that and we'd get food or something like that. And we just sit there for hours and just kill this whole bottle and feel fantastic. The next day, it was just such a lovely experience. It was such a cool thing. To your point, you know, he explored and realized that you can mix these different flavors together that are delicious.
00:51:05
Speaker
they're not typically what you would imagine, right? When you when you take like bourbon is bourbon, rye is rye, scotch is well, it's this old thing. And then to find a blend that really works is really cool. Man, I love ah loved those early days. And so I was always very curious. What is this?
00:51:22
Speaker
like hidden undisclosed thing where are they getting this stuff from who knows somebody must know right uh yeah so part of the reason that they don't disclose it is the legal reasons in scotland oh yeah yeah in scotland it's a whole thing legally you're not allowed to disclose anything that's in your whiskey unless it's from your own distillery And even then, you're not allowed to disclose ages.
00:51:50
Speaker
You're not allowed to disclose barrelings or anything like that. You're only allowed to speak generally unless it's single malt. That's the only exception. So a single malt... Actually, no, that's not an exception. Never mind.
00:52:03
Speaker
i was going to I was thinking single barrel, but ah single cask. That's what they call in Scotland. Single cask, you are allowed to say this is this mash bill aged in these barrels for this long exactly.
00:52:16
Speaker
um if you're doing any kind of blending at all, which all of the big dogs are, if you've ever had Laphroaig single malt, Ardbeg single malt, Glenfiddick, any of those, all of those are blends, even though it says maybe 12 years, 10 years, 15 years on the bottle, that is the minimum age of anything in there.
00:52:36
Speaker
You are not allowed to state any other ages at all. You can have 90% 70-year-old whiskey and 10 three-year-old whiskey and it has to be called three-year-old whiskey you can't tell anybody legally that there's 70 year old whiskey in there um i think that's part of why distilleries end up being so secretive when they do blending with anything related to scotch um because it can blow back on that scottish distillery because then they're distributing illegal information
00:53:08
Speaker
yeah And it's also right the reproduction of year over year, batch over batch. These things take so much time that when you put a specific statement on, you may realize that the next batch um doesn't work for that blend anymore. You have to switch to a different year. You have to shift some things around.
00:53:26
Speaker
It's in a sense, I guess it really ah kind of goes back to everything goes back to cigars for me. But it's in a sense when you talk about crop years for tobaccos and you go, a man, this blend is great, but this crop year is a little off. Like we need to figure something out.
00:53:39
Speaker
How far can you push that limit of what you're allowed to put in and still call it the same thing that it is? Right. So I was going to say there's there's been a little bit of. um controversy around which distillery it's coming from and i think it's ardmore people are talking ardmore it would make sense because they do have some blended stuff they are not highland necessarily the right between highlands and space side possibly but um i am going to be seeing a ah friend of ours in the industry ah mr one mr simon for a robert burns supper oh nice next saturday
00:54:15
Speaker
so I'm going to see what i can squeeze out of him because that that's a man that has been in many rooms and has heard many conversations. I think you might know. um My guess has always been that saying that he came up with the idea while visiting Brook Lottie is actually some kind of coded message that I've only figured out one part of and that it's Brook Lottie whiskey.
00:54:40
Speaker
that would be That would be fantastic. I've heard the Berclati theory as well. um i think the prevailing ones are Berclati and Cowila? Cowila, yeah. yeah we well So Cowila is generally... and They're Isla.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah, they are... Cowila is an Isla distillery, but they are...
Lord Hobo Brewing and Craft Beer Impact
00:55:07
Speaker
Man, I... I'm tempted to do that thing that you see people do on like TV sometimes where just call up your famous friend, you know, but only in this case it would be.
00:55:19
Speaker
ah but Yeah. John. Yeah. Call John. um How he, I believe is the most used blending whiskey from Isla. Yes. I may be incorrect on that, but I know that most blends that use heated whiskey are using cowlila.
00:55:39
Speaker
Interesting, interesting. I will say this. Maybe we do this in some future. We play with this idea for a segment of we get John online and we ask him a yeah ah hot Pete question or a pop quiz or a but whatever it is.
00:55:54
Speaker
Burning Pete question. Burning Pete question. There we go.
00:55:59
Speaker
Anytime we need a little bit more intel about Scott, we can call him up, get him in get him in here. All right, we'll see if we get that logistics, the tech working for that. um all right what do you got up next why while i while try out this campfire oh i uh i'm not sure about this one i mean i hold on i'll tell you what it is i'll tell you what not sure after let me let me get into it first cool candle like that galactic vagabond from lord hobo little cool shiny uh shiny glasses there very cool
00:56:33
Speaker
pretty snazzy man i'm like really digging into the 80s vibe the late 80s vibe is coming back that uh retro wave groove if you have any roku's do i what you have a roku in your house you ever leave it on and you get that screensaver where it's got like the cars oh it's great i love it i love i love it too they they change it all the time they got little ads sometimes that are really smartly integrated That's what that background reminds me of.
00:57:00
Speaker
Yes. i like Yeah, it looks exactly like that. You know what I do in my local my local bar because their Wi-Fi network is pretty flat and their Roku TVs are on that network.
00:57:11
Speaker
I have access to that network. I always change the channel to ah Pluto TV and old action movies and it's great. Or Bob Ross. Anyway, Lord Hobo Brewing Company, this is a 9% double IPA from them.
00:57:28
Speaker
if you've ever had anything from lord hobo you already know kind of what to expect they were founded in 2015 uh by daniel lanagan in woburn massachusetts that's where one of their tap rooms is or sorry it was tap room brewery um and i visited them actually last i want to say when did i go there last year well i was there last year and i visited for the first time kind of cool got some food got some some cool beers very interesting but i remember when lord hobo first launched 2015 man is not that long ago but i was in new york living in new york at the time and i remember going man this is crazy these cans look wild the logos are cool they released uh i think was boom sauce came out oh yeah which became one of their most popular beers
00:58:15
Speaker
they uh i believe that facility is 47 000 square feet so it's really not it's big but it's really not that big in the grand scheme of things as as far as production breweries go it's not a giant building yeah no exactly it's and it's also like it's split between the production brewery like the whole facility is that size it's split between the production brewery and the um And the actual taproom area, which is massive.
00:58:41
Speaker
The taproom area is massive. They can house a ton of people, which is really cool. So Boom Sauce was their first beer. Came out in June of 2015 and took the East Coast by storm, which was wild. um I think they were actually like officially rated in a in a magazine as being one of the fastest growing breweries in the US.
00:59:02
Speaker
I would believe that. Because I remember at the time they were, everybody was talking about it So a year after coming out, they actually made 15,000 barrels in of beer. That is a beer.
00:59:19
Speaker
an insane amount beer. reached nearly thirty seven thousand barrels of beer that is a lot of beer it is an insane amount of beer
00:59:30
Speaker
And that was when they were still doing every, like literally everything on site, right? Yes. Sales were only on site. That whole thing was on site. They use a really cool 40 barrel brew house, which when I say cool, I mean like as a, as like a production beer nerd scale, a thinking about scale.
00:59:49
Speaker
It's some snazzy gear. They have, I can tell you it's expensive. Oh yeah. It's as expensive as some of the houses that just burned down LA of celebrities.
01:00:01
Speaker
It's like that level of like Diddy's house. It's almost like Diddy's house. Very expensive. but No expense. um but Which is great. So I'm having this double IPA from them.
01:00:12
Speaker
I was a little bit reluctant in the beginning, kind of putting this pairing in because I thought, man, this double IPA is really sweet. It's classically, you've been on the East Coast. You've been part of this um kind of when when when the East Coast IPA scene kind of started to explode. You were there. I was there.
01:00:29
Speaker
Those were really sweet beers. Oh, yeah. They were intensely sweet. but And you also needed that to get the high ABV on them. So this one is 9%, which for a AAIPA back in 2015, well, their first beer was at 8%. So that was up there. AAIPAs were back then, they were like 6.5%, maybe 7%.
01:00:51
Speaker
Anything above 7% was considered, wow, that's crazy, dude. No one's going to drink that. It's undrinkable. heady topper comes out changes the whole game triple ip coming in i think it's 10 like melted faces everywhere but again very sweet very malty so i purposely picked this for my last pairing because i wanted it to kind of mesh with the cigar as it you know we talk about the cigar as you get to the final third it warms up it can be a little bit
01:01:23
Speaker
more more wet than obviously when you right all that moisture is coming out it some of those flavors may work really well some those flavors may be a little bit acrid i'm constantly uh purging that's part of the reason i think why i smoke so fast i'm always purging but i thought the sweetness would really sit nicely with any of the potential acrid or bitter flavors that might come out so it's not bad so far nice uh high west campfire as expected, it's going pretty well with it.
Cigar and Whiskey Pairing Reflections
01:01:55
Speaker
Man, this whiskey is so good. It's got that, man, just the combination of bourbon, rye, and scotch gives you this intense, like, caramelly kind of sweetness. It's got a little bit of that, um I always call it heather honey kind of scotch flavor.
01:02:13
Speaker
um It's like a light, ah think of if you if you cut Honey with a little bit of water to make like, I don't put on pizza or whatever, whatever you're putting it on. I don't care. Whatever you put honey on, you cut it with a little bit of water just to cut that sweetness a little bit.
01:02:28
Speaker
That's what it reminds me of. What? Sorry. So whatever you put honey on, I said, my wife. Exactly. My wife. um
01:02:39
Speaker
You get that. it like convalesces. into a almost salted caramel kind of flavor, I think. The combination of the sweetness from those three different whiskeys.
01:02:50
Speaker
um And then you get the that kind of rye spice, those baking spices, that little bit of um almost a peppery spice to it.
01:03:01
Speaker
And then the finish is just scotchy, little bit peaty. Just a very nice finish that works really well with the rest of this whiskey. um And it works fantastically with cigar. The cigar, I think, I'm not certain if it's the flavors in this whiskey that are that are changing my palate a little bit or whether it's the flavors changing as um getting as I'm well into the last third now. ah But there's a little bit of leatheriness coming in.
01:03:31
Speaker
That chocolate to me is um it's diminished. It's not gone, but it's diminished quite a bit. It's a little bit more in the background. The spice that sort of, um I can't remember what I called the sweetness before.
01:03:50
Speaker
That little bit of sweetness that this cigar has got and that leather are really the story for me Yeah, the leather also, room note, going back to the room note, going back to the retrohale. it has that intense for me the retro hails back to really spicy but it's also really sweet and that leather is that finish that i absolutely love little bit earthy so birth so and not as much for me now i was getting that more in the uh probably about halfway point okay i was getting more of the earth and i think i missed a little bit of minerality from the earth from the uh my first pairing
01:04:25
Speaker
unfortunately but high west dude from a pairing standpoint this is one of those things that i tell people it is one of my absolute favorite pairing whiskeys i constantly tell people you can pair with cigars with with food with um you can mix it with something if that's your jam and you'll still enjoy it and you'll have a great time and you can give it to somebody who's never really had any kind of real whiskey experience and it won't destroy their palate.
01:04:52
Speaker
It won't make them necessarily sick. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's really nicely balanced. Yeah, man. uh, like you're saying that, you know, even somebody who's not really a whiskey person, they've had Jack Daniels or whatever.
01:05:07
Speaker
um but they're, they don't really know much about whiskey. There's just a, there's a lot of complexity to this without it being overpowering. And what's the what did you get that bottle for, if I may ask?
01:05:20
Speaker
I'm very curious now. Let me check. I don't remember. Because I can tell you. Bottle of High West, where I live now. um I think it was more than I wanted to pay. $75 bottle.
01:05:33
Speaker
Between $75 and $79 a bottle. I think it was more than that. A lot, dude. Crazy. It's because... So Campfire was out of production for a period of time.
01:05:45
Speaker
yeah they ah they they I think it was a distribution thing or i whatever happened, it was not getting out to stores. They weren't producing it or they were waiting to source write the whiskeys for the blend.
01:05:56
Speaker
um So it went from like $38 bottle to almost $80. almost eighty Yeah, I paid about $85 for this. Goddamn. Which sucks. I mean, it's it's hard because as much as inflation has hit everything, um the whiskey market has it had its own inflation separate from that, just due to the but whiskey craze, which, ah from what I'm hearing, is now starting to peak, starting to go the other direction, which will be nice if prices start to come down at some point.
01:06:28
Speaker
don't know if It be fantastic. i think unfortunately If I um if i make make a prediction, we can call McTavish and talk to him about this too. But I think the the success of crops in the last two, three years and kind of where we're looking at in terms of weather patterns for the next couple of crop cycles, I think that because of the the the raw materials required, this is going to get more expensive.
01:06:54
Speaker
Because you think that we're going to have shortages? Yeah. There could be shortages. It could be also because we were at an age where there was an abundance of different things to do really cool stuff. The experimental really cool stuff, same thing with cigars, man.
01:07:06
Speaker
You get that crazy tobacco that was really good in 2014, and you put it in your cigar, and now you can't regrow that same profile. Yeah. Because... everything's changed man the environment's different a little bit you know whatever it is i think we're gonna see that now we're kind of getting down to the dip we're getting away from where blanton's dude i was buying blanton's for 42 a bottle i know and the i mean i always go back to weller 107 i used to pay 23 a bottle for dirt cheap what's the price now it's like 90 dollars
01:07:39
Speaker
usually yeah if you can find it uh 50 is msrp now so the msrp more than doubled since 2016 and the the going rate of it is yeah 90 to 150 um like people are crazy about it and people are willing to overpay that much for it i'm not if i see it for 50 bucks a bottle i'll buy it every time i see it uh if i see it for 90 a bottle i'm gonna get something like campfire instead Yeah, well, this is, we're we're living in an age where with spirits specifically, I mean, Mezcal has its own kind of thing going on right now that I've been following very closely.
01:08:19
Speaker
Maybe we do a Mezcal only show and I'll tell you about this huge rabbit hole that I went up. It's massive. But we're in an age with whiskeys where basically if you have to ask how much a ZJ costs, you can't afford it.
01:08:33
Speaker
that's That's where we're at. It's wild. I was going to say it's like Opus Dex. where sex had that but's very not same if you want to keep it on the shelf you're overcharging if you if you want every guy to come in and buy it and you'll have people every day of the week coming and saying did they come in today did it come in today um if you charge msrp that happens in some places there are some places where if they put opus at msrp they'd be gone in an hour
01:09:06
Speaker
yeah and so they charge triple because that way they can at least keep them on the shelf and i get it but i'm not the guy that's gonna buy it
01:09:18
Speaker
yes sir anyway high west works really well with the cigar i got barely any cigar left um i was mentioning i think it was on bear show last week i think this might be my favorite size in sincomm bur miso me same compromiso the original sizes did not blow my skirt up i thought it was a very good cigar um but not just for the price but i mean partially you know if if i'm buying it for the price there are other cigars that i would go for um but just in the silver in the uh dunbarton tobacco and trust lineup there were other cigars that i preferred to smoke
01:09:59
Speaker
This one is up there with the Paladin de Saka for me, which is kind of the the extra special version of the Sin Compromiso that had an updated blend.
01:10:10
Speaker
But this one to me is like fantastic. Like this is a cigar I can see myself going back to. All of the other sizes, I would kind of pass them up anytime I saw them available. If I see this size, I'm probably gonna buy a couple.
01:10:21
Speaker
It's a lovely size, and i'm I'm kind of similar with my interest in Dumbarton. i Maybe this is not a popular feeling, but my go-to if I'm in a Dumbarton kind of mood, i go Umbaga every time.
01:10:35
Speaker
I do love an Umbaga. i For whatever reason, i just it it sits well with me. I think i've I've smoked so many that I figured out really what I like, a kind of what ah how I like to enjoy that cigar.
01:10:46
Speaker
ah Sitting down, kind of drink I want to have, right? It's the pairing experience we talk about. we all have to figure out what works for us for that given moment that given cigar for me it's still sober mesa sober mesa is the cigar that changed everything for steve uh it was his first cigar out of the gate with his own company and to me that is still the one that hits my palate just right and um but i also love the umbagog i smoke those pretty frequently i smoke the micorita especially the red and the black like all three of the micoritas i haven't had the green yet but all three of the existing ones are incredible um totos los dias i think is very good but not kind of my everyday flavor profile it's kind of similar to this one some ways um or not this one but to the syncom
01:11:40
Speaker
a lot of flavor there they're good flavors but they just don't uh excite my palate the way that some of his other cigars do but like i said this is a different story this is this one does excite my palate which i'm very
Sin Compromiso Cigar Review
01:11:54
Speaker
happy about
01:11:57
Speaker
how'd your uh final pairing go there yeah i think it was good i I will say the beer is so much better with the cigar than without. And I struggle with, but now that I'm older, I'm not like getting down on these like crazy IPAs.
01:12:13
Speaker
My palate's changing. Our palates are constantly changing, right? I'm not looking for a triple IPA that was yeah like, you know, fermented and in in like a old dungeon that has the original body still there, the skeletons of the body. Like, that's cool, but I don't want it.
01:12:33
Speaker
it's the I think it's the sweetness of the malt. I'm kind of shying away from the sweetness of the malt, the intensity. So when I go and I hit this like 9% super sweet IPA, it's it's almost like a shock to the palate.
01:12:45
Speaker
So I want to have something like this cigar to counteract the shock from the from the you know the beer. But in a sense, I want the beer to counteract a little bit of the shock from the fact that I'm going to nub this.
01:12:56
Speaker
And it's going to get a little funky and it's going get a little hot. and Maybe it's going to get a little dirty. I don't know. We're still talking about the cigar here. Hold on. Okay. I wasn't sure. Good to know.
01:13:08
Speaker
So the smirk on your face there, but um but I'm loving it. And i think this is one of those cigars, certain cigars I love start to finish. Other cigars, I sit through the first half so I can really enjoy the final half, especially the final third. Certain cigars like this one is a good example.
01:13:26
Speaker
This is my happy space. Like I love, this is the last little bit. I love it. And it makes me,
01:13:33
Speaker
And your pairing, your favorite pairing of the night was? Oh man, it's tough. I guess, I guess High West Campfire. um
01:13:43
Speaker
it's It's just a fantastic beer that works really well with this cigar, or fantastic whiskey, rather, that works really well with this cigar. um And I feel like it kind of brought out the most flavor in this cigar, you know?
01:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:14:01
Speaker
I'll tell you what, the
01:14:05
Speaker
that Brondo, man, let me bring you back. Let me bring you back to what this looks like. You go, wow, that's really great. It looks like a kiwi juice. Maybe it looks like a high C punch, right? Or a Hawaiian punch.
01:14:19
Speaker
Oh, man, it's it's Brondo, baby. It's rough. Yeah, it's a little rough. Yeah. it's a little rough um Man, you reminded me wi come better with the saying that how played out triple IPAs are, that I have a couple triplelet triple IPAs that'll be here this week.
01:14:37
Speaker
Oh, good. That I'll tell you about. Dude, next week, let's play in for that. you hit some triple IPAs. I'll hit the polar opposite, which is... a i don't know. What would be the polar opposite of a triple IPA?
01:14:54
Speaker
Talosloggers?
01:14:57
Speaker
Hellas, yeah. we yeah And Gozes? Well, Gozes maybe, but I think, okay. Hellas loggers and pilsners. Wet hopped pilsners.
01:15:08
Speaker
m That's probably the dancing side of the triple IPA crew. That could work. Alright. Well, I guess that brings us to the end. I picked High West Campfire as my pairing of the night. What was yours?
01:15:24
Speaker
ah Mine... Oh, mine was the bullet. that's That's really, I think, the best. The the bullet um Manhattan cocktail. I really love that. But any Manhattan cocktail, I think, would be great.
01:15:37
Speaker
Awesome. That brings us to our one for the road segment. Sam, I know you're going to have one in the comments. Chris Healy wants to know what we are smoking next week. Dennis, you got an idea? You want to do it live on the spot so I can put up the show notes?
01:15:53
Speaker
That's a lovely question. Well, I mean, i am about to receive a fantastic box of cigars. it It may not get there in time, though. like we I've had a couple boxes in the last few weeks that arrived a week late almost.
01:16:07
Speaker
So I'm worried about committing to one of those. We haven't had a 601 in a while. um don't have any 601s. Oh, you don't? that's No, I have the Warhead, but not the 601.
01:16:18
Speaker
um I think there's one I sent you.
01:16:24
Speaker
If I remember correctly, you should have... Man, we're doing this live, which is freaking me out a little bit. a j No, I don't have any of those left either. Do you still have a Flint Knoll?
01:16:35
Speaker
Oh, I do. Yeah, let's do the Flint Knoll Number two. um With wine. Maybe. Yeah, we'll we'll probably have some wine. I'll do at least one triple IPA.
01:16:48
Speaker
But we'll we'll do some wine. I got a wine in mind, actually, that might work well with it. We'll see. um Yeah, so let's do our one for the road. Then we'll get out of here and well we'll get ready for next week's Flint Knoll show, which is a very good cigar. I'm excited for you to try, Dennis.
01:17:05
Speaker
I am. excited to have it on the show.
Entertainment Picks and Show Recommendations
01:17:07
Speaker
I think I smoked one at PCA. Probably. I think so. but pc PCA is always hard because you're smoking so much.
01:17:16
Speaker
You can't really, at that point, you're just like, oh, cigar, cool. Yeah, and and that cigar in particular i don't would not work well in the PCA context. if At PCA, a you were tasting the tip of the iceberg as far as flavors go. You you are just touching the tips of those mountains of flavor um and bouncing off.
01:17:37
Speaker
Yeah. This is a very complex, very ah medium to light-bodied kind of cigar. It's really good. I'm excited to try it with you. All right.
01:17:48
Speaker
But one for the road. I'll go first because I have one right off the top my head. movie I haven't watched it in a while, but I did see it, made it to Netflix this week. I'm going to recommend people watch it, which is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which Nick Cage plays a pseudo version of himself,
01:18:08
Speaker
being abducted by a crazy person and, uh, forced to be best friends with this guy. And it is fantastic. Hilarious movie starring Nick cage and Pedro, his name, Pedro, um, Pedro Pascal, uh, man, we both thought of it at same moment, Pedro Pascal.
01:18:30
Speaker
Um, and, uh, yeah, it's on Netflix now. So you got no reason not to watch it. I know you all have Netflix, um Go check it out. it's ah It's a hilarious movie. All right, Dennis, you're up.
01:18:41
Speaker
Actually, before you do that, I'll say Sam's, Sam Finnell's one for the road is Squid Game season two. And a reminder that 125, January 25th, that is, is the alignment of the planets.
01:18:55
Speaker
ah Chris Healy's one for the road is Slow Horses. which I have been wanting to watch, but I have not started yet. I may have heard of it. Uh, it's an, I know about it, but I have not watched more. I watched about three minutes of it.
01:19:10
Speaker
And I was like, I can't watch this show while I'm working. Cause there's too much to pay attention to. I got to watch it when I can pay attention. Uh, it is a spy drama in the UK on Apple TV.
01:19:22
Speaker
Um, I've heard very good things about it. Gary Oldman is in it, which is always a sign of quality. Um, Thanks, Chris, for the recommendation. i'll I'll try to get that on the docket at some point soon.
01:19:34
Speaker
Wife and I have ah run out of shows, so she's always like, okay, what do we watch now? Oh, I'm good. And I'll have to put that in the rotation. All right, Dennis, what is yours?
01:19:44
Speaker
Perfect. Perfect segue. A show that's only two episodes and it's a burner if you need to burn ah quick, like, i don't know, maybe two hours in an evening, like a movie time. Burn through this show on Netflix. It is Jerry Springer fights camera action.
01:19:59
Speaker
Oh.
01:20:02
Speaker
document I've seen it go past on Netflix. Okay. And I've thought, I'm going to watch that at some point. Dude, it is, i mean, you're you're an Ohio cat. Was it Ohio? You were in Ohio? Connecticut.
01:20:14
Speaker
No, not Ohio. Ah, the other Ohio. Okay. The Ohio of New England, as they call It's like Virginia and West Virginia. It's like, that's the connection. um Great show.
01:20:25
Speaker
Really cool. If you remember Jerry Springer growing up, I know I did. lot of sick days at home watching Springer's show. But I didn't realize just how intense, how messed up it was.
01:20:36
Speaker
ah lot of things. I didn't realize about the Springer Triangle, which is... like the Bermuda Triangle, but in the U.S. of where they cast about 75% of their guests from small towns. Funny how that works, right?
01:20:50
Speaker
Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, people that they, they you know, they they pulled people that had obvious issues, but the doctor filled them in and said, yeah, well, Jerry's going to fix your problems, man. Come in.
01:21:03
Speaker
Let's talk about that, you know, that horse that you married. and we'll
Episode Conclusion and Teaser
01:21:08
Speaker
do it and it was anyway very salacious very exciting very cool great show only two episodes so I think it worth a quick watch sounds fun um Sam says he'll miss next week's episode because he will be on a cruise uh hosting a cigar exchange and rolling chat at the gray cloth gray cliff in at the great cliff factory in Nassau that's awesome I love a good cruise I've been on probably 15 or 20 cruises over the last decade or two
01:21:37
Speaker
um Cruises are great. hope Hope you have some time to smoke good cigars, relax a little bit, have some good drinks. and um Have some good food. There's usually very good food on cruises. A lot of people assume it's bad.
01:21:49
Speaker
ah No, it's fantastic. Some good stuff. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thank you, everyone, for watching. and We will talk to you guys on the next one ah when we will be smoking the Flint Knoll release number two.
01:22:03
Speaker
ah yeah. I'm pumped. Oh, it's going to be a good one. ah So everybody have a good one. We'll catch you next week. And Dennis, hit him with a little catchphrase. Thank you. Thanks everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink less, but we want you to drink better.
01:22:18
Speaker
Oh, switching it up that time.