Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 23 - DTT Stillwell Star Aromatic No. 22
3 Plays1 year ago
Denis is out this week, so John 'Cigar Surgeon' McTavish joins Tripp for a pairing exploration of Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust's Stillwell Star Aromatic No. 22!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Host Changes
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back everybody to another episode of Let's Get Pairing.
00:00:04
Speaker
I'm your host Tripp, of course, as always, and today we are going to be smoking the Stilwell Star Aromatic number 22.
00:00:12
Speaker
We'll have all the details for that and get to our pairings.
00:00:17
Speaker
But first, grab yourself a cigar.
00:00:31
Speaker
There we go.
00:00:32
Speaker
I got you.
00:00:33
Speaker
Now we're live.
00:00:34
Speaker
Yes, we are live.
00:00:36
Speaker
Hey, everybody.
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome back.
00:00:38
Speaker
I'm your host, Tripp, as always, here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio.
00:00:42
Speaker
And not joining me today is Dennis.
00:00:44
Speaker
Some medical complications, nothing too serious.
00:00:48
Speaker
But, you know, he couldn't hang out with
Water Conservation Story
00:00:51
Speaker
us tonight.
00:00:51
Speaker
So filling in once again, we have Mr. John McTavon.
00:00:55
Speaker
John, how are you doing tonight, my brother?
00:00:58
Speaker
Uh, I'm doing all right.
00:01:00
Speaker
Um, I was mentioning that I was mentioning that we got a bit of a water issue in the city.
00:01:06
Speaker
So it's thrown a bit of a wrench in my week with washing, dishwashing, using the washroom.
00:01:13
Speaker
We're basically on water conservation.
00:01:15
Speaker
So the greatest way to reserve water, conserve water is by drinking, right?
00:01:21
Speaker
That's the responsible thing to do.
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:01:24
Speaker
It doesn't make you pee more or drink more water or anything like that.
00:01:28
Speaker
Nothing like that.
00:01:30
Speaker
So, you know, I feel like I'm doing my part.
00:01:32
Speaker
I'm doing my part.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's got to be pretty frustrating, though, having an entire city underwater conservation.
00:01:39
Speaker
I mean, I don't think it's happened in the history of the city that I can remember, and I've been here for a long time.
00:01:47
Speaker
That's all right.
00:01:47
Speaker
It's worse than like, you know, once in a while we'll go under like a boil water notice.
00:01:52
Speaker
Some sort of bacteria or contamination that's like, just go drink the water, boil it first.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yep.
00:01:58
Speaker
You can still take a shower.
00:02:00
Speaker
You can still flush the toilet.
00:02:03
Speaker
Whatever you need to do, you just need to boil your water.
00:02:06
Speaker
So not being able to use the water is a lot bigger problem.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:11
Speaker
Everyone's got to do the part.
00:02:12
Speaker
No
Cigar Background and Composition
00:02:13
Speaker
watering the lawns, yada, yada, yada.
00:02:15
Speaker
Like I said, my responsible way to handle this is just drink some beer, drink some whiskey.
00:02:21
Speaker
We've got a water line to our fridge, so I'm not running the taps excessively or anything like that.
00:02:29
Speaker
Taking Navy showers, which is appropriate because Steve's a Navy man, right?
00:02:35
Speaker
Steve Sanka, the next Navy man.
00:02:38
Speaker
So he knows all about those Navy showers.
00:02:41
Speaker
For those who aren't aware, a Navy shower is when you turn the water on just enough to get yourself soaked up.
00:02:46
Speaker
Then you turn the water off, you wash yourself, then you turn the water back on to rinse yourself.
00:02:51
Speaker
Just long enough to rinse.
00:02:53
Speaker
And not even, you've got to get 90% to have a proper Navy shower, right?
00:02:56
Speaker
That's right.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I think the total goal is to have the water running for the total less than a minute.
00:03:02
Speaker
It's an acquired skill.
00:03:06
Speaker
If you've ever been RVing, you've probably done that to prevent yourself from dumping the gray water in the RV.
00:03:12
Speaker
I fortunately have a little bit of experience with that growing up back in the good old days.
00:03:17
Speaker
So at any rate, enough about water.
00:03:19
Speaker
Let's talk about pairing because that's what we're here for, right?
00:03:22
Speaker
That is definitely what we're here for.
00:03:24
Speaker
And as we talked about at the top, we were smoking the Stillwell Star Aromatic No.
00:03:29
Speaker
22.
00:03:30
Speaker
A little background on this.
00:03:31
Speaker
So Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust in 2021 or 2.
00:03:36
Speaker
I didn't put it in my notes.
00:03:37
Speaker
They launched the Stillwell Star.
00:03:39
Speaker
21.
00:03:40
Speaker
They launched the Stillwell Star.
00:03:41
Speaker
It was a...
00:03:43
Speaker
a uh series of four cigars all in the same size all with similar wrapper binder filler but they had differing uh pipe tobaccos blended in and they kind of ranged from your i don't know a whole lot about pipe tobacco so i'm gonna get some stuff wrong but the uh a lot of kia like that super intense um fermented tobacco to you know the brighter kind of lighter sweeter more aromatic stuff in 2022
00:04:11
Speaker
They released the Holiday LE, which was, again, the same size, but with some new pipe tobaccos that are more seasoned to pipe smokers and to Steve Saka.
00:04:22
Speaker
And this year at the trade show, they re-released the cigar as a core offering.
00:04:27
Speaker
So now it's back.
00:04:29
Speaker
You're going to be able to get this year-round.
00:04:32
Speaker
Price point is $15.95.
00:04:34
Speaker
Factory is one we know and love, Hoy de Nicaragua, as with a lot of Steve stuff, but not all of it.
00:04:41
Speaker
Wrapper on this is Ecuador and Habano.
00:04:43
Speaker
Binder is San Andreas.
00:04:45
Speaker
The filler is Nicaraguan, and the thing that makes this blend special is the Cavendish Burley that they use in this.
00:04:52
Speaker
Anything I left out, John?
00:04:55
Speaker
So a couple of interesting factoids, Steve didn't do the blending with the pipe
Pipe Tobacco Challenges
00:05:00
Speaker
tobacco.
00:05:00
Speaker
And that's really interesting.
00:05:02
Speaker
I mean, he's talked at length about this, but he loves pipes.
00:05:05
Speaker
He's long-term, long-time pipe lover.
00:05:08
Speaker
The original blending, I think it still is for the pipe blend that's going into this, was done by Jeremy Reeves, who's the head blender of Cornell and Deal.
00:05:20
Speaker
If you don't know who they are, they're essentially a giant of pipe tobacco.
00:05:23
Speaker
They're the Davidoff of pipe tobacco, right?
00:05:25
Speaker
They're the Davidoff of pipe tobacco.
00:05:26
Speaker
Maybe the Padron, like one of the names that you really know.
00:05:30
Speaker
Long time.
00:05:31
Speaker
I mean, it goes back a long, long time.
00:05:34
Speaker
Pipe tobacco is just sort of an interesting thing.
00:05:37
Speaker
I try to get into pipes.
00:05:38
Speaker
I love, and my stepdad was a pipe smoker basically as I was growing up.
00:05:45
Speaker
So I love the...
00:05:46
Speaker
aromas of pipe i just find for me i couldn't get the flavor intensity so i wanted you know that flavor intensity that i got of the aromas of various pipe tobaccos and i just found that the for me i'm sure pipe tobacco smokers will be like what are you talking about but for me the the flavor portfolio was just so light so like i was always finding myself reaching for it and i i just never felt like i was getting enough
00:06:14
Speaker
So when Steve was kind of talking about this project originally, he's like kind of, you know, the typical Steve fashion is like, I don't know if people are going to like it.
00:06:22
Speaker
You know, people are probably not going to buy it.
00:06:24
Speaker
I'm going to spend a whole bunch of money on this project and it's just going to be a dud.
00:06:27
Speaker
I'm going to have to can it after a year.
00:06:29
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:06:29
Speaker
As, as, as Steve does.
00:06:31
Speaker
I was very enthusiastic and very supportive from the sense of, I love the concept.
00:06:37
Speaker
I feel like he's,
00:06:39
Speaker
Moving the dial for cigars in the sense of innovation, I can only imagine how complicated and painful it is to make pipe tobacco burn properly within a cigar.
00:06:50
Speaker
And to have enough pipe, as he says, enough pipe tobacco so that you're tasting the pipe tobacco, but not so much that it overwhelms the cigar.
00:06:59
Speaker
And then, of course, where Steve comes in is Steve has to find the right blend of cigar tobacco that pairs well with it and either isn't run over or isn't running over the pipe tobacco.
00:07:11
Speaker
So I think it's a really cool, fun experiment.
00:07:15
Speaker
And there's kind of an interesting twist.
00:07:16
Speaker
We were talking in the green room.
00:07:18
Speaker
Kind of an interesting twist on this one.
00:07:20
Speaker
Do you remember?
00:07:21
Speaker
No.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:23
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:07:24
Speaker
So he was previously using a sweet cap.
00:07:26
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:07:27
Speaker
Right.
00:07:29
Speaker
Listen, I know lots of people out there love sweet caps.
00:07:33
Speaker
Sweet cap is used in a lot of flavored and infused cigars in the market.
00:07:37
Speaker
It's a huge offering.
00:07:39
Speaker
Sells way more than you would think.
00:07:42
Speaker
Certainly way more than I would think.
00:07:44
Speaker
The problem is that I have a palate aversion to...
00:07:50
Speaker
unnatural sweeteners, not the artificial sweetener is the correct term, but unnatural sweetener.
00:07:55
Speaker
It's just my palate.
00:07:56
Speaker
It's like tasting.
00:07:58
Speaker
It tastes chemically to me and it, I've never been able to do diet pop.
00:08:02
Speaker
I just find it gross.
00:08:04
Speaker
I can't do it.
00:08:05
Speaker
I can do diet soda.
00:08:07
Speaker
I can drink whatever diet drinks.
00:08:12
Speaker
I drink the Circle.
00:08:14
Speaker
It's like a flavor packet that goes in your water bottle kind of thing that's got soup.
00:08:19
Speaker
I think only some of them have stevia.
00:08:20
Speaker
But anyway, I have no problem with artificial sweeteners in drinks most of the time.
00:08:26
Speaker
But for me, it's an immediate turnoff on a cigar.
00:08:29
Speaker
I cannot do it.
00:08:32
Speaker
I can never get past it.
00:08:34
Speaker
That's the big problem.
00:08:35
Speaker
I can't look past it.
00:08:37
Speaker
For me, it's never something... I guess when I'm... I'm not a blender, but when I think about flavor, I'm thinking about, does this add to the overall experience or does it take away from the overall experience?
00:08:51
Speaker
For me, Sweet Caps always took away from the overall experience.
00:08:54
Speaker
When he said at the show, yeah, you'll be happy about this, McTavish, you cranky, whatever...
00:09:02
Speaker
There's no sweet cap.
00:09:03
Speaker
I'm like, oh my God, this is fantastic.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, this is perfect.
00:09:07
Speaker
And the fact that it's regular production, even better.
00:09:10
Speaker
So cool project.
00:09:12
Speaker
Excited to be smoking it.
00:09:14
Speaker
I'm in kind of the same boat as you.
00:09:17
Speaker
I think I enjoy pipe tobacco more than you and smoking a pipe.
00:09:21
Speaker
but i am terrible at it like every time i've ever smoked a pipe i've enjoyed it for five minutes and then i get tongue bite and i can't taste anything for a week and then it's gurgling and i'm getting grossness in my mouth and like i just can't i can't keep it together with a pipe like i i'm awful at it maybe i need a pipe yoda someday and what i'm doing wrong but i
00:09:44
Speaker
It's deep.
00:09:45
Speaker
It's a deep valley.
00:09:46
Speaker
It's a deep valley of skills.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a skill that I just can't build.
00:09:49
Speaker
So for me, this is like a cigar that's a good cigar with a little bit of pipe tobacco, and you kind of get a mix of both worlds, right?
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:00
Speaker
Which was very interesting.
00:10:01
Speaker
I mean, I think...
00:10:03
Speaker
I think there's a large section of, well, there's a significant section of cigar smokers out there who are also pipe smokers.
00:10:10
Speaker
And so I think this very much, in fact, we have Jared Gerlitt in the chat mentioning that he's a big fan of another brand that does a similar project to this.
00:10:21
Speaker
And there's, there is a few companies in the market that does pipe tobacco in their blends.
00:10:25
Speaker
And certainly I know there's been some experimentation over the years.
00:10:29
Speaker
I think S I,
00:10:31
Speaker
Other brands that have tried it, it's been very short-lived and I think they haven't really found their ground.
00:10:37
Speaker
I think Steve has a pretty loyal following and so I think his project's done obviously well enough for him to make this a regular production.
00:10:45
Speaker
But I think there is a significant portion of people who are dual-use tobacco users that are fans of this and I can totally see why.
Cigar Flavor and Pairings
00:10:54
Speaker
I mean, this is...
00:10:56
Speaker
This is only my first few half-inch, three-quarters of an inch, but this is nice.
00:11:01
Speaker
This is enjoyable for me, especially with that sweet cap.
00:11:03
Speaker
But that's the last time I'll talk about the sweet cap.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, we'll shut up about that.
00:11:07
Speaker
We don't want to complain the whole time about it.
00:11:10
Speaker
I'm trying to figure out flavor notes of this cigar, but I don't have as much of a palate for those flavors that I'm not used to.
00:11:17
Speaker
So I'm having a hard time turning them into worrisome.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm getting the Virginia.
00:11:23
Speaker
I think the Virginia is the sweetness.
00:11:25
Speaker
I'm getting a lot of just a really rich natural tobacco sweetness, a lot more than, say, a Connecticut shade wrapper, which delivers a lot of sweetness.
00:11:35
Speaker
This is more of a...
00:11:36
Speaker
medium bodied sweetness that is sitting nicely in my palate without blowing out my tongue, without blowing out the flavor profile.
00:11:44
Speaker
I think there's a little bit of spiciness underlying that.
00:11:47
Speaker
And I did have to do some research because I have not done a lot of pipe tobacco pairing and I was going into this a little blind.
00:11:54
Speaker
So I went to a couple of pipe sites and they have lots of recommendations about different types of pipe tobacco and pairing.
00:12:01
Speaker
So I followed the advice with my pairings tonight and hopefully it will work out well for me.
00:12:06
Speaker
Hopefully.
00:12:07
Speaker
I went the Dennis route since he's not here.
00:12:10
Speaker
I've taken a page from his all over the place beer pair.
00:12:13
Speaker
So we'll see how that works out for me.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, for the cigar, there's like a unique woodiness, I think, is kind of how that's not quite cedar, but it's kind of adjacent to that.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:27
Speaker
I don't know what wood I would put it on.
00:12:29
Speaker
It's somewhere between a cedar and an oak.
00:12:32
Speaker
It doesn't have that bite of oak.
00:12:34
Speaker
Maybe oak or pine or something along those lines.
00:12:38
Speaker
It's got like, there's just a hint of like a, not grassiness, but like that vegetal bitterness on my palate.
00:12:48
Speaker
Which I think is good because it balances out the tobacco from being overly sweet on the palate.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, completely agree.
00:12:55
Speaker
But so far, I'm digging this cigar.
00:12:58
Speaker
Let's get into some pairing.
00:12:59
Speaker
Let's get into it.
00:13:01
Speaker
I'm going to go with my first one here.
00:13:04
Speaker
I didn't realize my first couple of pairings here have a connection.
00:13:09
Speaker
Actually, my first and last pairing have a connection I didn't know about, but I'll get into it in a moment.
00:13:14
Speaker
This is called Perny.
00:13:16
Speaker
from Wicked Weed Brewing.
00:13:17
Speaker
So Wicked Weed started as a brew pub in Asheville, North Carolina, where a very good friend of the show and fellow Cigar Coalition member, Ben Lee, from Smoking Syndicate live.
00:13:29
Speaker
So he's pretty close by to this place.
00:13:31
Speaker
So it started as a brew pub in Asheville in 2020.
00:13:34
Speaker
It was kind of started by two families who had been friends forever, and they wanted to start a brew pub.
00:13:39
Speaker
So they came up with the name, which is, it's named after a quote from King Henry VIII,
00:13:46
Speaker
that declared that hops were a wicked and pernicious weed destined to ruin beer turns out wicked and pernicious
00:13:55
Speaker
Turns out he was wrong, and now we love hops in our beer.
00:13:59
Speaker
But at the time, it was apparently not cool with him.
00:14:03
Speaker
They're pretty well known for their sour program, which they first started a super-dedicated sour program called the Fermentarium in 2014.
00:14:15
Speaker
It was the first sour-dedicated taproom of the United States, obviously.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
And it's a whole tap room.
00:14:24
Speaker
The only thing that you can get in there is sours.
00:14:27
Speaker
It's where they do all their sour aging.
00:14:30
Speaker
Wow.
00:14:30
Speaker
Very prolific in their sour and barrel aging.
00:14:35
Speaker
The kind of sad news is that in 2017, they were acquired by A.V.
00:14:39
Speaker
Inbo.
00:14:40
Speaker
which i didn't know about they're still producing great beers they're still going hard with their sour program which is most like almost entirely available um they don't distribute much of the much of their sours but they have like i think at that holy crap which is crazy that's got to be more than anybody else by far
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're very deep in the sour program.
00:15:03
Speaker
Around here, I see this wicked weed pernicious all over the place.
00:15:08
Speaker
It's kind of their flagship on the IPA side.
00:15:13
Speaker
So because of that connection with AB InBev, they have way better distribution than they did.
00:15:17
Speaker
So they're all over the place in the southeast.
00:15:19
Speaker
Makes sense.
00:15:20
Speaker
Pernicious is named after that quote that I just... I have a hop list here.
00:15:25
Speaker
It's hopped with Amarillo, Centennial, Columbus, Montueca, Pacific Gem, and Warrior hops.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then it is dry hopped with Amarillo, Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic, Montueca, and Pacific Jade.
00:15:38
Speaker
That's like 11 different hops in this beer?
00:15:41
Speaker
That's a lot of hops.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:43
Speaker
That's a lot of hops.
00:15:45
Speaker
They say pernicious.
00:15:46
Speaker
Pernicious is kind of a... The term kind of means ruined.
00:15:51
Speaker
or ruining.
00:15:52
Speaker
And they say that they named it that because it will ruin your palate for other IPAs.
00:15:58
Speaker
I don't know about that, but it's pretty good as far as IPAs go.
00:16:01
Speaker
And I'm hoping that it goes well with this cigar because IPAs, as we know, are notoriously difficult to pair with.
00:16:07
Speaker
Especially something like this, which I didn't hold it up.
00:16:10
Speaker
This is kind of your classic IPA.
00:16:13
Speaker
This isn't any of that super intense West Coast, Northeast.
00:16:18
Speaker
hazy style.
00:16:20
Speaker
They do have a hazy variant of this.
00:16:22
Speaker
But this is just kind of a classic middle-of-the-road light-bodied.
00:16:26
Speaker
So I'm going to see how this pairs.
00:16:29
Speaker
Oh, and I forgot to mention the ABV because I forgot to put it in my name.
00:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, you need to get that in there.
00:16:32
Speaker
I got to get that in there.
00:16:34
Speaker
But where the hell is this?
00:16:35
Speaker
I'm assuming it's got to be fairly high grav.
00:16:37
Speaker
I'm going to guess 8-something.
00:16:38
Speaker
8-7, 8-8?
00:16:40
Speaker
You're close.
00:16:41
Speaker
7.3.
00:16:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:43
Speaker
So not super high, but stronger than your average supermarket beer.
00:16:48
Speaker
Anything below an aid to me is sessionable, but I'm a crazy Canadian.
00:16:51
Speaker
So what can you say?
00:16:54
Speaker
So I'll talk about my first pairing.
00:16:56
Speaker
I went back to the well for a variety of reasons I'll get into.
00:16:59
Speaker
So first pairing, got to go with the Lagavulin.
00:17:02
Speaker
So we're going back to the wellness.
00:17:04
Speaker
This is the Lagavulin Nick Offerman edition.
00:17:07
Speaker
So this is his second release.
00:17:09
Speaker
I think it's a lot more interesting to me than the first release.
00:17:12
Speaker
So this is the one we've talked.
00:17:14
Speaker
I think I had this on the last show.
00:17:16
Speaker
This is the...
00:17:17
Speaker
Offerman Edition Guinness Cask.
00:17:19
Speaker
So the story behind this is released in 2021.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's an 11-year Lagavulin, and then it's finished.
00:17:26
Speaker
Now, here's an interesting thing.
00:17:28
Speaker
It was very difficult to find factoids, honest factoids.
00:17:33
Speaker
Most sites say it was four months in a cask that had previously held Guinness beer.
00:17:39
Speaker
So I think you mentioned last time they probably put Guinness in there
00:17:44
Speaker
let it sit to season the barrel, presumably drank it because it would be a crime in Scotland to pour that out.
00:17:51
Speaker
You'd have to drink it.
00:17:53
Speaker
And I'm sure they enjoyed it very much.
00:17:55
Speaker
Now, some sites say four months.
00:17:57
Speaker
Most of the sites say four months.
00:17:58
Speaker
Some sites say five months.
00:18:00
Speaker
I don't know which is true.
00:18:01
Speaker
It doesn't say on the bottle.
00:18:02
Speaker
I struggled to find information on Ligable's website.
00:18:05
Speaker
We're going to call it four months.
00:18:07
Speaker
That seems reasonable to me.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
It is.
00:18:10
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:18:12
Speaker
I was just going to say Scotland style.
00:18:14
Speaker
You take the lowest age statement, right?
00:18:15
Speaker
That's right.
00:18:16
Speaker
Always round down.
00:18:18
Speaker
It is 46% ABV, which is going to be a bit of a theme tonight for me.
00:18:23
Speaker
Close around 46.
00:18:24
Speaker
Good number.
00:18:26
Speaker
I love this bottle.
00:18:27
Speaker
I wish I had bought more.
00:18:29
Speaker
I've talked about the pairing before.
00:18:31
Speaker
It's got a wonderful creaminess to it under, underpinning the Lagavulin.
00:18:36
Speaker
So if you, it's one of those sort of, I mean, it's an expensive whiskey, but it's, it's a training wheel whiskey for Isla.
00:18:44
Speaker
If you want to get into Isla whiskey,
00:18:46
Speaker
there's a few expressions out there.
00:18:47
Speaker
Oban, Tomaten are excellent, or Tomaten, um, Talisker and Oban are excellent.
00:18:54
Speaker
Introductories to get into Pete.
00:18:56
Speaker
And then I think this would be, uh, an excellent option as well.
00:19:00
Speaker
If it was more readily available, regularly produced, but it's not.
00:19:03
Speaker
So if you see it on the shelf, you should probably pick it up.
00:19:06
Speaker
I like what you're saying.
00:19:07
Speaker
That's what I always tell people like Lagavulin, I think is the most well-balanced.
00:19:12
Speaker
I love whiskey.
00:19:14
Speaker
Um,
00:19:15
Speaker
If you're seasoned with bourbons, let's say, and you've had some scotches that you're not a fan of, I feel like Lagavulin's a good starting place then.
00:19:27
Speaker
It's kind of interesting because while I think it's extremely well-balanced for an Islay, it doesn't have that punch in the mouth of Band-Aids or Campfire stuff.
00:19:40
Speaker
or just that like overpowering smoke that the super smoky whiskeys have.
00:19:45
Speaker
But it has a lot, but it's really balanced with this that I think works really well, but may not be approachable for somebody who's not a whiskey.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I misspoke on the last show.
00:19:59
Speaker
I was talking, Jay Davis from, what is Jay's shop?
00:20:05
Speaker
I always forget the name of his shop.
00:20:06
Speaker
Blue Smoke of Dallas.
00:20:09
Speaker
Having a bit of a day, folks.
00:20:10
Speaker
It's measured in PPM.
00:20:12
Speaker
PPM is phenol parts per million.
00:20:15
Speaker
And that's supposed to give you a scientific measure of just how peated the whiskey is.
00:20:18
Speaker
There's a few different ways you can get phenols in there.
00:20:21
Speaker
Sometimes the water source goes through peat bogs, so it naturally occurs in the water.
00:20:26
Speaker
Most of the time, what you do is you actually incorporate peat into the drying process of the barley.
00:20:32
Speaker
So essentially, you're burning peat, and that peat smoke incorporates into the barley.
00:20:37
Speaker
And then when you're making your grist or the mash, that phenol, those PPMs essentially don't resolve out of the mash, and then they...
00:20:48
Speaker
come through in the final distillate.
00:20:50
Speaker
And presumably, depending on how high the PPM is, it's supposed to educate you and inform you as to how heavily peated that is.
00:20:59
Speaker
Now, the funny thing about that is that we've talked about this endlessly, but
00:21:03
Speaker
I think Lagavulin typically is around the 40 PPMs.
00:21:07
Speaker
And I think Laphroaig is actually less PPMs than Lagavulin.
00:21:12
Speaker
And then Ardbeg typically is a bit higher depending on the offerings.
00:21:17
Speaker
And then you can get it to Bacladi Octomores, which are 200, 180, 160.
00:21:19
Speaker
And yet...
00:21:26
Speaker
I would not say one profile based on the PPM level is overwhelmingly peaty versus another.
00:21:33
Speaker
It seems that it tells you that the whiskey is peated, but it doesn't really inform me at all what the finalized flavor profile is going to be at all.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:42
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of like IBUs in beer, right?
00:21:47
Speaker
It gives you an idea of...
00:21:49
Speaker
how much bitterness there will be.
00:21:53
Speaker
But, I mean, you could have 100 IBU beer that's an absolute malt bomb.
00:21:59
Speaker
And so you barely taste the hops.
00:22:00
Speaker
All you're tasting is sweet.
00:22:03
Speaker
And it's kind of just that balancing act.
00:22:05
Speaker
PPM has nothing to do with.
00:22:07
Speaker
So you can't tell how that's going to be balanced.
00:22:10
Speaker
So I've taken a few sips.
00:22:12
Speaker
Have you had a couple sips of your delicious pernicious?
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm noticing that like, first of all, it's a very classic IPA.
00:22:24
Speaker
Like I said before, it's got a little bit of sweetness, but not too much.
00:22:28
Speaker
It's still got that citrusy crispness.
00:22:32
Speaker
And then it has a bitterness, but it's not like that West Coast IPA cloying sticky bitterness that sticks to your palate.
00:22:39
Speaker
So I'm finding it works really well with the cigar.
00:22:41
Speaker
It kind of brings out a, maybe it was all the talk about Pete, but it reminds me of like a barbecue smoky kind of flavor in the cigar.
00:22:51
Speaker
So that could be highlighting the burly that's in there because I think burly is that sort of,
00:22:57
Speaker
barbecue smoke and I'm getting a little bit of that in the retro as it settled in and I think I'm catching up to you because I started to get that more oaky quality that heavy wood on the palate from the cigar for me what's really interesting is I've certainly had my fair share of this Lagavulin 11 Guinness
00:23:16
Speaker
the profile is radically different for both the Lagavulin and the cigar.
00:23:21
Speaker
The Lagavulin has that nice creaminess up front, but then it gives way to, I'd almost describe it as a barbecue rub seasoning.
00:23:32
Speaker
So you've got like a little bit of pepper, you've got a little bit of like Cajun seasoning, and then there's this undefined sort of salty, smoky character.
00:23:42
Speaker
And it's going really well with the cigar because...
00:23:45
Speaker
I was worried, you know, I followed the advice of pairing, but I was worried it was going to overwhelm the cigar, but it doesn't.
00:23:51
Speaker
It actually brings out a lot more of that burly out of the cigar for me in the retrohale.
00:23:56
Speaker
And then I do get a lot more pronounced woodiness through the center of the profile.
00:24:01
Speaker
And I would say the only downside of this pairing
00:24:05
Speaker
is the creaminess, that sweetness from the Lagavulin is overwhelming the sweetness of the tobacco.
00:24:10
Speaker
So that sweetness from the Ecuador and presumably the Ecuador and Habano wrapper is lost a little bit.
00:24:15
Speaker
But I think together as a sum of the whole, it's an interesting pairing.
00:24:20
Speaker
I think it works pretty well.
00:24:23
Speaker
I'll be interested to sort of progress this evening and move into the next pairings and kind of see how they contrast and compare as well.
00:24:30
Speaker
I mean, that's always the most interesting part, right?
00:24:32
Speaker
So I'm going to move on to my second purple can of the evening, which I hadn't noticed that connection until we were sitting here a few minutes ago.
00:24:40
Speaker
Unibrew.
00:24:41
Speaker
Unibrew.
00:24:42
Speaker
Unibrew.
00:24:43
Speaker
Man, Unibrew has an interesting history.
00:24:45
Speaker
So they were founded in 1993 in Quebec.
00:24:48
Speaker
Originally, it was kind of started by two business partners as a beer distributor.
00:24:53
Speaker
They had already invested in a brewery called Masawipi Brewery.
00:24:59
Speaker
Don't know them at all.
00:25:00
Speaker
I've never heard of them either.
00:25:01
Speaker
Well, there's a reason you don't know about them because they're not around anymore, which I'll get to.
00:25:06
Speaker
So at some point, they had gotten into this business relationship where they had bought a stake in the brewery.
00:25:13
Speaker
That kind of got them into the beer world.
00:25:15
Speaker
And they they had this kind of thought that we could be helping both the brewery that we're invested in and other breweries.
00:25:24
Speaker
in the Quebec area to have wider distribution.
00:25:26
Speaker
So they started a distribution company.
00:25:29
Speaker
I couldn't figure out whether it was called Unibrew at the time, but it eventually did turn in.
00:25:37
Speaker
Unfortunately for them, well, actually, I guess fortunately, because things had gone pretty well, some of the breweries they had started working with left the deal.
00:25:44
Speaker
I couldn't find any information on whether it was business-related or breweries that weren't doing well or just... Boy, those French are contentious people.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:25:53
Speaker
Who knows?
00:25:54
Speaker
It could have been somebody made the wrong kind of butter sauce, used salted butter on something.
00:26:01
Speaker
French Canadians are ruthless.
00:26:04
Speaker
But they basically, after a couple years, their distribution business kind of fell apart.
00:26:10
Speaker
So they thought, let's just turn it into a brewery.
Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout
00:26:14
Speaker
Oh, and I forgot to mention when they started the Unibrew project, they divested from Masaweepi.
00:26:21
Speaker
But when they, when the other breweries left the project and they decided to shift to brewing, they partnered with Masa Weepi and had them brew their beer.
00:26:33
Speaker
In 1993, they merged with Masa Weepi and it became, you
00:26:38
Speaker
Nice.
00:26:39
Speaker
They've pretty much always focused on Belgian styles.
00:26:41
Speaker
They're very heavily Belgian-influenced.
00:26:44
Speaker
But this, as most people probably know, because this is the one you can find in random supermarkets around the world.
00:26:52
Speaker
Like, I've seen it all over the place.
00:26:54
Speaker
And sometimes it's in, like, sometimes you can find this stuff in, like, it gets bizarre how they're distributed.
00:27:00
Speaker
But I've never seen it in cans until today.
00:27:02
Speaker
Usually it's those kind of bottles.
00:27:04
Speaker
Big bottles.
00:27:07
Speaker
They're like, I don't know.
00:27:08
Speaker
Big tall ones.
00:27:08
Speaker
Tall boys.
00:27:09
Speaker
I'm guessing 500 millimeters, 23.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah, something like that.
00:27:13
Speaker
It's an odd size.
00:27:16
Speaker
Which is a lot.
00:27:17
Speaker
I mean, their beers are big.
00:27:19
Speaker
Not necessarily an ABV, but they're big in flavor.
00:27:22
Speaker
And that style is not really something that I want to be drinking.
00:27:27
Speaker
It really is the equivalent of beer and a half.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's a little heavy.
00:27:31
Speaker
So I'm glad that they've decided to adopt a can.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, and these are 16-ounce cans, which I think is an appropriate size for this.
00:27:38
Speaker
It is, like you said, a big beer.
00:27:39
Speaker
So Le Fin du Monde, as I said, is their flagship.
00:27:42
Speaker
It means the end of the world.
00:27:45
Speaker
And it kind of has that Quebec?
00:27:48
Speaker
Or is that an upside down below?
00:27:49
Speaker
I assume that's the province of Quebec.
00:27:50
Speaker
That must be Quebec.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:53
Speaker
But it's named after the belief...
00:27:58
Speaker
hundreds of years ago that Europeans arrived at the Americas and thought they were arriving at the end of the world because they thought this is the edge.
00:28:06
Speaker
There's no way it goes further.
00:28:08
Speaker
It is a Belgian triple inspired beer.
00:28:14
Speaker
From what I've read, it's pretty far from a traditional Belgian triple, which I haven't tasted them side by side.
00:28:20
Speaker
And I always think of this as, but apparently it's hoppier and it's less hoppy, but more
00:28:26
Speaker
with more of that coriander and orange to give it kind of a unique flavor compared to the actual Belgian beers.
00:28:33
Speaker
One thing I didn't know, this is the most awarded beer in Canada.
00:28:37
Speaker
No beer in Canada has won more, which is pretty incredible.
00:28:41
Speaker
And as you said, these are not light beers.
00:28:44
Speaker
So this is a 9% Belgian triple brewed with spices, it says.
00:28:49
Speaker
And we know those spices include dried orange peel and coriander.
00:28:52
Speaker
They include some.
00:28:53
Speaker
Nice lunchtime beer for Quebec.
00:28:56
Speaker
I'm going to take a couple sips, see how it pairs, because I'm very curious.
00:29:00
Speaker
But, you know, I told you earlier, I saw this on the shelf and I thought, every time I see this beer, I think of you because we've shared it a couple of times on the show and in person.
00:29:12
Speaker
And it's just a great Canadian beer.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker
And...
00:29:19
Speaker
For Quebec, probably one of my two favorite breweries, the other being Due to Ciel.
00:29:26
Speaker
I doubt that you can get Due to Ciel down in the States.
00:29:28
Speaker
Their distribution network is not as diverse.
00:29:32
Speaker
But Due to Ciel also... I have not seen it once here.
00:29:36
Speaker
I have gotten it in Oregon before.
00:29:40
Speaker
But Oregon has crazy, insane beer distribution.
00:29:43
Speaker
We get beers from Japan that nowhere else in the U.S. gets.
00:29:47
Speaker
Nice.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, I would say the only brewery that really compares to me is Dudiciel, just because Dudiciel, the master brewer there is also, he's got like three or four PhDs in different sciences, biology, molecular biology, a number of different things, chemical engineering, I think.
00:30:11
Speaker
And so he's just an absolute mad scientist.
00:30:13
Speaker
And so he has also come up with just a wide range of really interesting,
00:30:20
Speaker
takes on a typical standard of beer, whether it's a Belgian or whatever.
00:30:25
Speaker
And so those two beers are readily available for me, obviously in Canada, but also because Calgary gets really good distribution from the East.
00:30:34
Speaker
So those are beers that I can pick up off the shelf.
00:30:36
Speaker
And those typically are mainstays, especially Unibrow.
00:30:41
Speaker
I can't think of a single release that Unibrow does that
00:30:46
Speaker
I don't love and they do these awesome sample packs as well so you can get like six or eight different styles in one in one pack which is you know right up my right up my alley but I don't know about Unibrow I'll let you take a sip and hair moving right along to my second pairing keeping up with the theme and I didn't mention it but
00:31:06
Speaker
Part of the reason I went with Lagaboo in here is because Steve Saka is an absolute Lagaboo in Fiend, perhaps as much or more than Nick Offerman.
00:31:15
Speaker
And this is the third release.
00:31:18
Speaker
I was going to say second, but this is the third release.
00:31:21
Speaker
This is the charred oak, like the Guinness cask before it, aged for 11 years.
00:31:27
Speaker
This one is originally aged in ex-bourbon casks and then also aged in ex-red wine casks.
00:31:34
Speaker
Comes in at...
00:31:37
Speaker
46% as well.
00:31:38
Speaker
And I haven't had this in a little while, but I can tell you right off the nose, it's a radically different whiskey than the Offerman.
00:31:47
Speaker
A lot more of that wine coming through on the nose for sure.
00:31:50
Speaker
Unmistakable.
00:31:51
Speaker
But...
00:31:52
Speaker
when you know something, especially for whiskey, it doesn't like PPM, it doesn't necessarily inform you what the flavor profile is going to be.
00:31:58
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips before I do that.
00:32:01
Speaker
I'll just mention, I don't really talk about liable anymore.
00:32:04
Speaker
Cause I feel like we've talked a little about the distillery, but it's one of the first two distilleries to open in Isla.
00:32:09
Speaker
Isla is a series of islands.
00:32:11
Speaker
The biggest one is called Isla, but it's the, I think officially called the Hebrides islands.
00:32:16
Speaker
And there's,
00:32:18
Speaker
The distillery itself is located on the south end of Isla, owned by Diageo, which I have mixed feelings about.
00:32:25
Speaker
Dennis and I talk about Diageo a lot, and our feeling is that we generally don't like big corporations, of course, for the obvious reasons.
00:32:36
Speaker
They ruin everything.
00:32:37
Speaker
There's a million other reasons.
00:32:39
Speaker
But I think Diageo does a pretty good job of acquiring you and just sitting back to collect the checks.
00:32:48
Speaker
Like, they don't seem to take too much control over the distilleries they buy at.
00:32:52
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:32:53
Speaker
One of the interesting factoids about the Islay region is they believe that Irish monks could have been distilling there back in the early 1300s.
00:33:01
Speaker
So it goes long, long history of distillation.
00:33:06
Speaker
There's obviously a very large number of distilleries on the island now.
00:33:11
Speaker
New one just opened up the reopened Port Charlotte, which is going to be interesting.
00:33:16
Speaker
And Bermore presumably predates Lagavulin to 1779, but Ardbeg officially opened right around the same time in 1815.
00:33:26
Speaker
I'll get into Ardbeg in a bit.
00:33:27
Speaker
Ardbeg is located on the northwest side of the island.
00:33:30
Speaker
Not a big island, but just big enough that when you're hammered after a tasting session, you can...
00:33:38
Speaker
So responsibly walk between a couple of distilleries, but some of the distilleries you'd need a ride and obviously a place to sleep because once you go to the island, you're probably going to be there for a night.
00:33:48
Speaker
You're probably not going to want to hop back on the ferry and head back to the mainland.
00:33:53
Speaker
Which ones, I know there's like a, there's an kind of accidental whiskey row there, right?
00:33:58
Speaker
That's like three that are right next to each other.
00:34:01
Speaker
Is that Ardbeg?
00:34:03
Speaker
I think it's Ardbeg, Laphroaig, and Lagavulin.
00:34:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:07
Speaker
I believe so.
00:34:08
Speaker
I'd have to double check my map.
00:34:11
Speaker
I haven't looked at it in a while.
00:34:12
Speaker
But I think the reason they're on the south end is I think it's just... I think it's for shipping ease because I think that's where the main port always was.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:21
Speaker
Back in the day... Yeah.
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, until fairly recently...
00:34:27
Speaker
you know, and speaking in whiskey terms, like, within the last hundred years, you could ship over land.
00:34:34
Speaker
Like, they were shipping enough whiskey back then that everything was by boat, and so you built on the edge of the water so that a boat could just come right up to your dock and you could load it up with whiskey.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yep.
00:34:47
Speaker
Man, this Unibrew is going great with this cigar.
00:34:50
Speaker
It's bringing, like, that coriander, that orange peel brings out this...
00:34:57
Speaker
It's almost like, I'm trying to put my finger on the fruitiness, but it's like a very intense.
00:35:04
Speaker
I think it's really the mesh of the flavors.
00:35:07
Speaker
When the beer is still on your palate a little bit and you take a draw on the cigar, that's kind of when I think that flavor is getting created.
00:35:14
Speaker
I think it's partially from the sweetness from the beer, partially from the sweetness of the cigar, but they're just working really well.
00:35:20
Speaker
So my pairing, I mentioned these are radically different whiskeys and they are radically different whiskeys.
00:35:25
Speaker
If you're not a fan of red wine casks, and I'm not generally a fan of red wine casks, I find that red wine for me imparts a lot of dryness.
00:35:34
Speaker
I find that red wine casks can overwhelm a whiskey very easily.
00:35:39
Speaker
Red wine in general is a very full flavored, full bodied component.
00:35:45
Speaker
But this works very well in the whiskey.
00:35:47
Speaker
It has that laggable sweetness.
00:35:49
Speaker
The interesting thing is the red wine finish on it is almost so intense that it largely eliminates the peat smoke, which is kind of funny.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, and it's got a lot of dryness in the palate, which is changing the cigar quite a bit.
00:36:05
Speaker
I'm actually getting a lot of chocolate through the retrohale off the cigar and a lot more woodiness.
00:36:09
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:36:11
Speaker
Overall, it's a lot more drawing in the palette than the first pairing.
00:36:14
Speaker
And I'm trying to wrap my head around whether I enjoy that or not.
00:36:17
Speaker
I do find myself wanting to reach for water here.
00:36:19
Speaker
I'm going to take a couple more sips and let you talk a little bit more about your pairing and see if I can wrap my head around this pairing first.
00:36:25
Speaker
That's really interesting because I was just thinking that I'm having the complete opposite experience.
00:36:28
Speaker
Right before you said that, I was thinking about how...
00:36:32
Speaker
The Unibrew La Fin du Mal with this cigar, it brings out so much sweetness in the cigar that my mouth is salivating more as far as this cigar is concerned.
00:36:47
Speaker
There were some dry tobacco flavors that I think are coming from the Virginia tobacco, I think, that have kind of gotten less dry.
00:36:55
Speaker
There's no dryness to the cigar now to speak of.
00:37:00
Speaker
It's really interesting that we're having such opposite experiences, but our pairings are pretty far apart.
00:37:06
Speaker
Now, I have a question about that one.
00:37:08
Speaker
So it's called the charred oak edition.
00:37:10
Speaker
That's right.
00:37:10
Speaker
But they're aging it in red wine barrels.
00:37:13
Speaker
That's right.
00:37:14
Speaker
Are they charred oak red wine barrels?
00:37:16
Speaker
No, the ex-bourbon is the charred oak.
00:37:20
Speaker
So I think what they're doing is they're doing a rechar of that.
00:37:22
Speaker
I assume... That would make sense that they're doing a rechar of those barrels and that's why they're calling it that.
00:37:30
Speaker
I'm wondering if maybe it's just their marketing people didn't think red wine barrel aged would sell well.
00:37:39
Speaker
So they decided to just go call it charred.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even know what the rules would be around labeling.
00:37:47
Speaker
You probably can't incorporate red wine into the name, I would think.
00:37:52
Speaker
They're very strict.
00:37:53
Speaker
That could be why.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, they're super.
00:37:56
Speaker
So it's an interesting pairing.
00:37:59
Speaker
I'm not sure it's my favorite.
00:38:01
Speaker
I think what it does do is it isolates the Virginia tobacco quite a bit.
00:38:05
Speaker
So I'm getting, like I mentioned, a lot of wood off the cigar.
00:38:09
Speaker
Getting the Virginia tobacco is really dominant on the retrohale, which is nice because I can really identify it.
Pairing Reflections and Future Ideas
00:38:15
Speaker
It's just got this wonderful, complex tobacco note.
00:38:20
Speaker
And then as it finishes, I actually get a little bit of hay.
00:38:24
Speaker
Which is odd because normally in a Habano wrapper, I wouldn't really say I get a lot of hay.
00:38:30
Speaker
The dryness isn't as intense as when I started, so I think my palate's getting a little acclimated now.
00:38:35
Speaker
I don't think this is my favorite pairing, but it is an interesting combination just to sort of wrap my head around the various components as they match up or try to match up.
00:38:45
Speaker
Good.
00:38:45
Speaker
I'm glad it's getting a little better for you.
00:38:47
Speaker
Before we move on to our last pairing, how are you enjoying this cigar?
00:38:50
Speaker
This is nice.
00:38:51
Speaker
This is, I'm glad that we chose this for the pairing tonight.
00:38:57
Speaker
This is my first time smoking this.
00:38:58
Speaker
Me too.
00:38:59
Speaker
Well, since the sweetened version.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah, since the sweetened version.
00:39:03
Speaker
This to me is superior because I want to taste tobacco.
00:39:07
Speaker
That's what I want to taste.
00:39:08
Speaker
I want tobacco to be the driver of the flavor.
00:39:11
Speaker
I'm really struggling to get the Habano notes out of the cigar, which is kind of interesting.
00:39:16
Speaker
I think that San Andreas coming through with this pairing, I mentioned I'm getting a lot of the chocolate, where with the first pairing, I think because of the sweetness of the Guinness cask, that note from the cigar was getting run over.
00:39:27
Speaker
So I am, like I said, I am really isolating that pipe tobacco, which I do want highlighted on a cigar like this.
00:39:34
Speaker
I want to be able to retrohale and pick up a lot of that complex tobacco note.
00:39:39
Speaker
I think on the first pairing, the Burley was coming through more on the retrohale.
00:39:45
Speaker
And on the second pairing, the Virginia is coming a lot more through on the retrohale.
00:39:49
Speaker
Neither one of them has allowed both notes to come through on the retrohale.
00:39:53
Speaker
So as we progress, maybe the third pairing will be the Magic.
00:39:57
Speaker
pairing, but it's interesting.
00:39:59
Speaker
This is something I would smoke.
00:40:01
Speaker
This is definitely something I would smoke.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah, me too.
00:40:04
Speaker
I'm going to have to pick up some more of these because I'm very happy with... And with that, I'm going to move on to my last pairing.
00:40:12
Speaker
So as I was telling John in the green room, I see this beer on the shelf all the time and I have a hard time walking.
00:40:17
Speaker
And especially when I see a variant, I got to if it's a variant I've never had, I got to try it.
00:40:21
Speaker
Right.
00:40:22
Speaker
This is Bourbon County Stout from Goose Island.
00:40:26
Speaker
I'll show you the label kind of.
00:40:27
Speaker
But.
00:40:28
Speaker
Their label isn't really... I've always been kind of confused by their labeling.
00:40:32
Speaker
They have just the front label.
00:40:35
Speaker
I guess this is debossed, but you can't really even see that.
00:40:41
Speaker
It's a strange choice that the back label... Anyway...
00:40:47
Speaker
So Goose Island, let's start with that.
00:40:49
Speaker
They were opened in 1988 in the Chicago area, an area called Lincoln Park.
Media Recommendations and Reviews
00:40:54
Speaker
You may have heard of that area through a certain band who's from nearby there.
00:41:00
Speaker
And they were named after an island nearby.
00:41:03
Speaker
Originally, the owner was, but things kind of evolved from there.
00:41:08
Speaker
As most people probably know, they were acquired by AB InBev in 2011.
00:41:12
Speaker
The great people over at AB InBev.
00:41:14
Speaker
Stop buying a brewery.
00:41:17
Speaker
Stop it.
00:41:20
Speaker
At least the one thing I have to say for Goose Island is it kind of annoys me seeing like Goose Island IPA.
00:41:26
Speaker
Bourbon County, still pretty good.
00:41:30
Speaker
Still worth buying.
00:41:31
Speaker
As long as they don't take that away, I'll be happy.
00:41:34
Speaker
But I don't usually go for Goose Island stuff, right?
00:41:36
Speaker
Because all I see around here is the IPA and the stout.
00:41:41
Speaker
So Bourbon County Stout, everybody is familiar with it, but you may not be familiar with the backstory.
00:41:47
Speaker
Everybody's heard of it.
00:41:48
Speaker
It was actually one of the first bourbon barrel-aged beers, possibly the first,
00:41:54
Speaker
but I don't think anybody really knows exactly, partially because Greg Hall, the head brewer who created it, doesn't know exactly when he made it.
00:42:04
Speaker
He kind of like, you know, they were kind of making it for years just as a...
00:42:10
Speaker
They made the first batch to celebrate their thousandth batch of beer.
00:42:14
Speaker
And then, you know, they kept making it on an annual basis.
00:42:20
Speaker
And then after a few years, somebody said, when was the first time you made it?
00:42:24
Speaker
And he was like, I don't know.
00:42:26
Speaker
So he's kind of narrowed it down to sometime between 92 and 95.
00:42:30
Speaker
And since then, he's kind of said, I think it's 1994.
00:42:33
Speaker
There was some information out there saying it was 92, but now he's like, I'm pretty sure it was 1994, but we don't have any log books.
00:42:41
Speaker
Take that with a grain of salt, I guess.
00:42:43
Speaker
The idea came really interestingly from none other than Booker Noe of Jim Beam and Booker's fame.
00:42:51
Speaker
Interesting.
00:42:52
Speaker
In a connection to what we're doing here tonight, they were having, they had at the
00:42:59
Speaker
At the brew pub, they had a cigar, bourbon, and beer night.
00:43:06
Speaker
And Booker Noe was there to represent the bourbon part.
00:43:09
Speaker
And Booker Noe was telling Greg this story about how after they empty a barrel of beer, sometimes they will fill that barrel just a little bit with a couple gallons of spring water, then plug it up and roll it around in the yard.
00:43:27
Speaker
And after they roll it around, they dump the spring water out into some kind of container, and they pour it over ice, and they enjoy what they called brewer's tea at the time, which I thought was really interesting.
00:43:39
Speaker
That kind of got his wheels turning.
00:43:40
Speaker
So at some point after that is when he decided, why don't I try that with beer?
00:43:45
Speaker
So he got in touch with Booker, got a couple of Jim Beam barrels, and decided to try it out.
00:43:51
Speaker
And it was a hit.
00:43:54
Speaker
And the rest is history.
00:43:55
Speaker
They've now been making it for about 30 years, almost 30 years.
00:44:02
Speaker
And as I have here tonight, they have about 3,000 variants of it.
00:44:08
Speaker
They've done a lot of experimenting.
00:44:10
Speaker
The coffee variant is pretty kind of a staple.
00:44:14
Speaker
And they've done, I had one that was cola with like cola nuts and some spices to make it taste cola-y.
00:44:21
Speaker
They've done some, a mocha one that had coffee and chocolate.
00:44:24
Speaker
They've done some that have spicy peppers in them.
00:44:28
Speaker
This one is called Kentucky Fog.
00:44:31
Speaker
And it is a London fog inspired.
00:44:36
Speaker
The current head brewer was inspired by his girlfriend who, and so he, huh?
00:44:43
Speaker
I mean, enjoy what you like, but she's a Philistine.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a coffee guy all the way.
00:44:49
Speaker
But he decided to, you know, that sounds like an interesting idea.
00:44:53
Speaker
So he made a London fog inspired Bourbon County stout.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's aged in the barrel with Earl Grey tea, black tea from some particular tea company, kilogram tea.
00:45:04
Speaker
I'm not a tea guy.
00:45:05
Speaker
And a little bit of clover honey to give a little bit of sweet.
00:45:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:11
Speaker
I'm very curious about trying it.
00:45:12
Speaker
I haven't even tasted it yet.
00:45:13
Speaker
Nice.
00:45:15
Speaker
This comes in at 14.1% ABV.
00:45:16
Speaker
Woo!
00:45:19
Speaker
You may have noticed that this is a bottle from...
00:45:23
Speaker
2020 when i held it up there uh like i said to john in the again in the green room um bourbon county stout is typically very hard to find uh it's only released on black friday which is the day after thanksgiving in america for any american thanksgiving yeah
00:45:47
Speaker
But Black Friday, they do a big release.
00:45:49
Speaker
They do it all over the country.
00:45:50
Speaker
You can buy it all over the place.
00:45:52
Speaker
Apparently, in South Florida, it doesn't sell like hotcakes like it does in the colder parts of the country.
00:45:58
Speaker
So it is shockingly easy to find these...
00:46:02
Speaker
variants that people kill for in chicago just sitting on the shelf in a random um from four years ago which is awesome um unfortunately um the bottle pricing is right in line with the msrp and not like discounted because no 20 to 20 which is not cheap when you're talking about one bottle of beer right
00:46:23
Speaker
But this is pretty special stuff.
00:46:26
Speaker
This variant was released for only two or three years.
00:46:30
Speaker
It's now gone because they tend to kind of go in two or three year chunks with the variants.
00:46:35
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips of this and find out how it pairs.
00:46:37
Speaker
Why don't you talk about your final...
00:46:39
Speaker
Yeah, so my final pairing is apropos for the time of the year, we just passed Ardbeg Days.
00:46:45
Speaker
Unfortunately, I was not able to participate in Ardbeg Days this year.
00:46:49
Speaker
I really wish I would have been able to.
00:46:51
Speaker
The Ardbeg Day release this year was the Spectacular, which is Aged in Port Cask.
00:46:56
Speaker
I did not pick that up.
00:46:58
Speaker
I don't know whether I will pick that up.
00:46:59
Speaker
We'll see.
00:47:00
Speaker
I do have quite a number of different Arbeg Day variants.
00:47:03
Speaker
Arbeg Day goes back a long ways, and they've put out some pretty interesting and spectacular releases, some of which have become mainstay, like the Cory of Reckon and the Oogadel.
00:47:12
Speaker
I've got a, I think I've tried an alligator.
00:47:16
Speaker
I still have a partially open bottle of, gosh, I've forgotten the name now.
00:47:24
Speaker
But I've got a lot of... I believe you have a Scorch, right?
00:47:26
Speaker
I've got a Scorch.
00:47:27
Speaker
I've got a... I'm trying to remember.
00:47:29
Speaker
It's an older Ardbeg.
00:47:30
Speaker
I'd have to look at my... I'd have to look at my whiskey list to identify it, but...
00:47:35
Speaker
There are big day releases.
00:47:37
Speaker
Some of the really good ones go really, really quick.
00:47:40
Speaker
They typically release two different versions.
00:47:42
Speaker
They release their sort of standard version, and then they have what they call their committee release.
00:47:47
Speaker
And the committee release is cask strength.
00:47:50
Speaker
Most people prefer the committee release, but unfortunately it does come with a price tag being a cask release.
00:47:56
Speaker
I decided to crack one from a couple of years ago.
00:48:00
Speaker
still sealed before i open it so i did taste it but uh it's been a while so this is the ardbeg 5 wee beastie this guy was opened uh we bc was released in 2020 all the notes i have is that it's non-chill filtered no information about whether it's colored i don't think it is if you look at it it's it's fairly light fairly straw colored
00:48:23
Speaker
Ardbeck colors a couple of theirs.
00:48:27
Speaker
I believe they color Oogdol and Anoa and maybe Kovekian.
00:48:33
Speaker
But most of their offerings have that typical very light, I always call it Chardonnay color.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good color scheme.
00:48:42
Speaker
So the Wee Beastie is 47.4% ABV.
00:48:46
Speaker
It's coming slightly hotter, but really around the same palette level to me.
00:48:53
Speaker
Agent X bourbon and then Olorosa sherry casks.
00:48:56
Speaker
I believe the Olorosa sherry casks, they must be a... They got to be a second or third fill because it's a very light influence.
00:49:04
Speaker
No, it's good.
00:49:04
Speaker
I think it's very balanced because Olorosa can really take the headliner on a whiskey, especially... I love a sherry bomb, but I could do well back.
00:49:15
Speaker
The spirit is a lot more...
00:49:17
Speaker
core Ardbeg for me.
00:49:19
Speaker
A lot more of that sort of smoke up front, a little bit of sweetness in the middle, and then a lot of saltiness to finish, which I don't get on a lot of Ardbegs.
00:49:26
Speaker
Maybe the Ardbeg 8, I get a lot of Ardbeg 10, I should say.
00:49:31
Speaker
The spirit itself is good.
00:49:32
Speaker
It's not great, which is...
00:49:35
Speaker
What I remember of the tasting, I picked it up because I'm just a huge Ardbeck fan and I like buying whiskey.
00:49:41
Speaker
Now, what's fantastic about this and what I was hoping for is it absolutely does isolate the pipe tobacco in the blend.
00:49:49
Speaker
And that's what I was really hoping one of these pairings would do tonight.
00:49:53
Speaker
So I'm getting both the Cavendish and the Virginia.
00:49:55
Speaker
And they're actually at the forefront of the profile for me.
00:49:57
Speaker
So the regular, the remaining...
00:50:00
Speaker
cigar tobacco notes are kind of pushed to the middle and it's really leading off with this really nice rich i don't want to say palette coating but it's very identifiable on the palette very identifiable on the retro hill that you get this wonderful pipe tobacco component and then it gives way to the cigar tobacco and that's kind of what i want on this cigar and that's kind of what i was hoping for one of these pairings so i'm glad that this last one has worked out i think i think it might be the saltiness
00:50:28
Speaker
The saltiness is cutting the sweetness from the whiskey and it's allowing the pipe tobacco to kind of go forward.
00:50:35
Speaker
I'm going to take a couple more puffs and a couple more sip.
00:50:37
Speaker
You talk about that delicious Bourbon County stout.
00:50:41
Speaker
It really is delicious.
00:50:43
Speaker
Jared Grillett seems pretty surprised that it's... I think the amount of flavor in it really works.
00:50:51
Speaker
And just kind of the flavor profile of this beer lends itself really well to tea.
00:50:57
Speaker
It adds flavor without covering up or taking away any flavor.
00:51:01
Speaker
So it's like, it's just turning up the complexity.
00:51:04
Speaker
Like the tea is very light, but there enough that it's...
00:51:09
Speaker
that it's not completely overpowered by this.
00:51:11
Speaker
The sweetness is a little high.
00:51:13
Speaker
I think that is why I'm having a complete opposite pairing experience to you, where this beer magically turned the cigar into... On the palate, there's no pipe tobacco.
00:51:27
Speaker
None.
00:51:28
Speaker
It's all gone.
00:51:29
Speaker
I still get it on the retrohale, but I think the super intense sweet is kind of coating the palate and covering up...
00:51:38
Speaker
those subtle kind of, I mean, not super subtle, but those more subtle flavors of.
00:51:43
Speaker
So it's interesting for me.
00:51:46
Speaker
Sometimes a pairing will work both for the, whatever you're pairing with and the cigar.
00:51:51
Speaker
Sometimes it'll be more on the beverage component or the food component.
00:51:58
Speaker
And sometimes it'll be more better.
00:52:00
Speaker
Sometimes you're making the cigar.
00:52:02
Speaker
In this case, I think I'm definitely, it's like a 70, 30, 65, 35 split.
00:52:07
Speaker
in favor of the cigar, which I'm totally okay with and kind of what I wanted.
00:52:12
Speaker
The spirit itself, I would just describe as it's a fine whiskey.
00:52:17
Speaker
There's nothing that this pairing is doing for the whiskey.
00:52:22
Speaker
It's definitely a peated whiskey.
00:52:23
Speaker
It's definitely an Islay whiskey.
00:52:25
Speaker
And the whiskey is fine.
00:52:27
Speaker
but it is 100% supercharging this cigar all the right ways.
00:52:31
Speaker
I was mentioning that it's getting a lot more of the pipe component on the retrohale.
00:52:35
Speaker
As it progressed and my palate acclimates, it's got a brilliant Virginia finish that is sitting on my palate between the draws and just exactly the way that I would want a cigar like this to do to highlight that pipe tobacco.
00:52:50
Speaker
The saltiness is definitely wiping out a little bit of the sweetness of the Ecuadorian wrapper.
00:52:55
Speaker
I'm not getting any spiciness off the cigar itself.
00:52:58
Speaker
And so I think the pipe flavors are really carrying the front of the profile and the finish of the profile
00:53:05
Speaker
in just all the right ways.
00:53:08
Speaker
I do wonder if a Lagavulin 16 Distillers Edition or a Lagavulin 12 would be just one of their core offerings might be a more appropriate pairing with this cigar.
00:53:21
Speaker
Or even, you know, I do wonder if maybe as a misstep not going with a Lafroix quarter cast because they didn't have a quarter cast queued up.
00:53:28
Speaker
But I was worried that that sort of iodine-y band-aid flavor would just mismatch with the cigar.
00:53:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:35
Speaker
I think that saltiness is... Laphroaig can be very overpowering to a cigar.
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:40
Speaker
That was the first scotch I ever loved was Laphroaig 10.
00:53:44
Speaker
Wow.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah, shocking, right?
00:53:47
Speaker
That doesn't happen for a lot of people.
00:53:50
Speaker
I had tasted a couple scotches, a couple Johnny Walkers, a couple McAllens and stuff like that, and I was like...
00:53:56
Speaker
I think I'm going to stick with bourbon.
00:53:58
Speaker
And then about 15 years ago, I tried a Lafroigue 10 and was like, that's the one.
00:54:06
Speaker
That's the one.
00:54:07
Speaker
And then I fell in love with scotch.
00:54:09
Speaker
I think that's called being a natural because my wife, who is a big whiskey fan and a big Scotch fan, I remember when we were talking early on, she couldn't even be in the same room when I opened up a peated whiskey.
00:54:22
Speaker
The aromas, the aromatics, that peated aromatic would drive her from the room.
00:54:26
Speaker
And now she's kind of drinking.
00:54:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, the Lagavulin bottles are technically hers.
00:54:33
Speaker
So Lagavulin is kind of her peated whiskey.
00:54:36
Speaker
I hope she doesn't watch the show.
00:54:38
Speaker
So you're drinking them.
00:54:39
Speaker
No, she doesn't have any interest in cigar stuff.
00:54:42
Speaker
She loves me.
00:54:42
Speaker
She doesn't love cigars, as she says.
00:54:44
Speaker
And she's a very patient woman, so it works well for me.
00:54:47
Speaker
And she doesn't mind when you drink a scotch.
00:54:52
Speaker
That's right.
00:54:53
Speaker
Well, as long as we share.
00:54:54
Speaker
You got to pour one for each.
00:54:55
Speaker
That's the trick.
00:54:56
Speaker
But she's really gotten into pita whiskey.
00:54:59
Speaker
And I think that happens sometimes if you drink whiskey long enough, you'll get a taste for it.
00:55:04
Speaker
And then you'll sort of come to really appreciate pita whiskey.
00:55:07
Speaker
I mean, I have to be in the mood for a pita whiskey just like I have to be in the mood for...
00:55:11
Speaker
a space side or a highland eye it's not necessarily what i'm craving i don't necessarily have a favorite all that to say this art bag is working really really well for the cigar i'm going to probably go back through my rotation here but i would say so far the art bag is is winning the winning the competition i i mentioned that i wasn't getting a lot of spiciness of the ecuador and habano wrapper but i think as my pairing goes
00:55:39
Speaker
There is a bit of a delayed Ecuador and Habano spice.
00:55:43
Speaker
It's very, very delayed.
00:55:44
Speaker
So you get that kind of Virginia sweet tobacco, just a wonderful depth and complexity on the palate.
00:55:50
Speaker
And then as the palate kind of clears, there's almost like that, you know how if you smoke a broadleaf, you get that spiciness at the back of your throat.
00:55:58
Speaker
So I'm getting a little bit of spiciness at the back of my throat, but it's a very light, light plus level.
00:56:03
Speaker
And so I think, yeah, I wasn't really getting that on the first two drams, but I'm going to take another sip and then I'm going to kind of work my way through again and see if I'm being honest about these pairings.
00:56:13
Speaker
I've been working my way through, and it was kind of incredible how when I went back to the IPA, like the cigar just woke right back up.
00:56:22
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:56:24
Speaker
All of those pipe tobacco flavors just came right back and were nice and intense.
00:56:29
Speaker
I started getting that sweetness you're talking about from the Virginia, that kind of like funky.
00:56:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:56:37
Speaker
And then I'm just going back to the, you know, I got to give it another shot too.
00:56:41
Speaker
But so far that was my favorite one.
00:56:44
Speaker
So going back to the Guinness cask, hasn't really changed.
00:56:50
Speaker
Definitely get the, still getting that spiciness off the whiskey.
00:56:54
Speaker
It does mute the pipe tobacco quite a bit, I think.
00:57:00
Speaker
It's an okay pairing, but it doesn't do much to highlight the cigar at all, I don't think.
00:57:06
Speaker
Really?
00:57:06
Speaker
I thought that one worked pretty well for you the first time around, right?
00:57:10
Speaker
Yeah, it could be that the yard bag has kind of taken over my palate at this point.
00:57:13
Speaker
It's tough to say.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's very possible.
00:57:16
Speaker
That happens with, you know, your more intense whisking.
00:57:19
Speaker
Yeah, I always recommend finishing.
00:57:22
Speaker
In fact, that's not a bad idea.
00:57:26
Speaker
Not good for radio.
00:57:28
Speaker
I'm going to take a little bit of water here and see if I can reawake my palate.
00:57:32
Speaker
That's why we have Audacity.
00:57:36
Speaker
We can, you know, take a second.
00:57:40
Speaker
Take it back a notch.
00:57:42
Speaker
And podcast listeners, it's like we just ramble on incessantly.
00:57:46
Speaker
I'm trying to decide, like, both the IPA and the Belgian are working.
00:57:53
Speaker
And I'm trying to decide which one I think is better.
00:57:56
Speaker
I think the spice level on the Belgian, not like spicy spice, but that coriander and the baking spice is very intense.
00:58:06
Speaker
So I'm kind of leaning towards the IPA, which is kind of shocking.
00:58:11
Speaker
That is shocking.
00:58:12
Speaker
A cigar that works with an IPA is shocking on its own.
00:58:16
Speaker
Don't let that pairing go.
00:58:19
Speaker
Now that I've taken a sip of water, it is back to where the Burley is the forefront of the retrohale.
00:58:26
Speaker
So it's not where the cigar position is because I'm about halfway through the cigar, just over halfway.
00:58:32
Speaker
The Burley is definitely coming out again as it was originally.
00:58:36
Speaker
Virginia is almost completely wiped out.
00:58:38
Speaker
Uh, I,
00:58:39
Speaker
I really struggle to get the San André tobacco note in there.
00:58:43
Speaker
I think that Pete is kind of running it over.
00:58:46
Speaker
So I'm going to move on to the charred oak here, take a couple sips and take a couple puffs and see how that stands up.
00:58:52
Speaker
Man, most of the time I am a very slow, like I can smoke a Robusto for two hours without a relay.
00:59:02
Speaker
For some reason, when I'm on a show, I smoke like Dennis.
00:59:06
Speaker
Maybe Dennis rubbed off on me.
00:59:09
Speaker
But I have this compulsion to make sure my cigar doesn't go out.
00:59:16
Speaker
So I feel like I'm puffing on it more than usual.
00:59:19
Speaker
And I'm almost done with this thing, man.
00:59:22
Speaker
It's like two inches left.
00:59:24
Speaker
I mean, I guess technically I'm in the middle of the final third, but it feels like the end.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yep.
00:59:31
Speaker
So this is definitely a repeat of the experience.
00:59:34
Speaker
The charred oak edition of the Lagabula and Offerman
00:59:39
Speaker
Virginia's back, Wood is back.
00:59:41
Speaker
It's very drawing in the palate.
00:59:43
Speaker
I think that's the whiskey that's doing that, that red wine cask.
00:59:47
Speaker
I do find red wine casks are very drawing in the palate.
00:59:48
Speaker
Yeah, the tannins in red wine can really help, right?
00:59:52
Speaker
So that's for sure my least favorite pairing of the night.
00:59:56
Speaker
I mean, it is interesting from the perspective of
01:00:00
Speaker
It's curious that the first pairing highlights the Burley, the second pairing highlights the Virginia, the last pairing highlights both.
01:00:07
Speaker
But the dryness of the palate is an unpleasant experience, I think.
01:00:12
Speaker
That's one of the things when you're blending cigars, you've got to be really careful about.
01:00:15
Speaker
You don't want to be too dry in the palate.
01:00:17
Speaker
And so I think when you're pairing, it's kind of the same thing.
01:00:21
Speaker
Unless you're really in the business of selling whiskey or selling beer, you really don't want to have a dry palate and...
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's not a... It's not a... Yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
Because if you have a dry palate, you drink them.
01:00:37
Speaker
Get it?
01:00:38
Speaker
Get it, everybody?
01:00:41
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead.
01:00:42
Speaker
So, I mean, it's all right, but it's not great.
01:00:48
Speaker
It doesn't do the cigar any service.
01:00:49
Speaker
It doesn't do the whiskey any service.
01:00:50
Speaker
I'm going to take another sip of water, and I'm going to try that Arbeg again, because I think that Arbeg is going to be the belle of the ball tonight.
01:00:58
Speaker
Nice.
01:00:59
Speaker
Man, going back through it, the Le Fendou Mon really worked really well, but I'm just, I'm a little overpowered by the spices along with this cigar.
01:01:08
Speaker
Normally, I love the intensity of this beer, but I think it's just the... I'm going to try the Bourbon County Stout again, but I don't have high hopes that it'll work with the cigar.
01:01:17
Speaker
The beer is incredible.
01:01:18
Speaker
It's creamy.
01:01:20
Speaker
It has those layers of tea on top of the already very intense and complex flavors, which is fantastic.
01:01:27
Speaker
But it just hasn't been working with the cigar so far, but I'm going to try it out one more time.
01:01:32
Speaker
I do wonder if something like a Pilsner would have been an interesting pairing because Pilsner is being so light.
01:01:38
Speaker
I wonder if a Pilsner would have been one of the magical combos with pipe tobacco just because Pilsner is so clean on the palate.
01:01:46
Speaker
They've got that really nice...
01:01:48
Speaker
body finish that maybe that would have done a good job of highlighting the pipe tobacco.
01:01:52
Speaker
But like I said, I kind of went through some pipe sites to get a sense of what they recommend for pairing.
01:01:59
Speaker
And, you know, they really recommended something on the smokier side.
01:02:03
Speaker
I think there's no question after going through the run again that that Ardbeg Wee Beastie is the right pairing here.
01:02:10
Speaker
So, yeah, it does make me wonder if a Oban 14 or a Talisker Darkstorm or a Talisker 12...
01:02:19
Speaker
Maybe it would have been a better pairing choice because I think the Talisker specifically has got a lot of nice saltiness with light peat.
01:02:26
Speaker
And so I wonder if that might be a more even bodied spirit to go with this cigar.
01:02:31
Speaker
But at the expense of the Ardbeg, it's doing a great job of highlighting the cigar, which is kind of where I wanted to be.
01:02:40
Speaker
But if I were to do it over again, I think I might try that Talisker again and maybe do the run with even a Beaumont.
01:02:48
Speaker
Maybe do a Beaumont, Talisker, Oban with this cigar might be an interesting combination.
01:02:52
Speaker
I think the Beaumont might be too sweet.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, I love a Beaumont, man.
01:02:58
Speaker
Great, great distiller.
01:03:00
Speaker
It's funny that as you're saying that, I'm thinking of the images that I have in my head for the flavor profiles.
01:03:08
Speaker
Laphroaig is a campfire on the beach.
01:03:14
Speaker
In the wet sand, you're having a campfire.
01:03:17
Speaker
You got a little bit of that salt spray.
01:03:19
Speaker
Right by the ocean.
01:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, right by the ocean.
01:03:21
Speaker
Talisker is more like you're up to your knees in the water.
01:03:26
Speaker
That's right.
01:03:27
Speaker
Because I get a lot more of that salinity from Talisker.
01:03:32
Speaker
But no Band-Aid.
01:03:33
Speaker
That's the nice thing about Talisker.
01:03:34
Speaker
You don't get that I-Dunny.
01:03:37
Speaker
Which, again, I love it.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, me too.
01:03:40
Speaker
I have a weird flavor profile.
01:03:43
Speaker
A weird palate, I guess.
01:03:45
Speaker
Lagavulin makes me think of a, like, you know that cigar lounge you go in that has, like, those old leather chairs?
01:03:52
Speaker
Everything is very dark brown.
01:03:55
Speaker
Yep.
01:03:55
Speaker
It's, like, Winston Churchill smoked there.
01:03:58
Speaker
Out the window, you see the ocean.
01:04:00
Speaker
That's hard bag, or Lagavulin.
01:04:03
Speaker
And Beaumont is, like, a candy shop by the ocean.
01:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:06
Speaker
That's what I think of.
01:04:07
Speaker
Now, I do have the Beaumont cigar malt, but...
01:04:12
Speaker
Believe it or not, it's one of those whiskeys that I actually don't think goes particularly well with a lot of cigars.
01:04:17
Speaker
I do pair it often with Cubans.
01:04:19
Speaker
Delmore, sorry.
01:04:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:21
Speaker
I said Bomore.
01:04:23
Speaker
Whiskey's starting to get to me.
01:04:25
Speaker
The Delmore cigar malt doesn't tend to pair well with cigars.
01:04:29
Speaker
I do have some single-cask Bomores that are interesting, and I'm trying to wrap around the profile, but again, I just don't think it's the right pairing with the cigar.
01:04:41
Speaker
I think the Bomore, especially a cast strength, would be too much.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:45
Speaker
I wonder if...
01:04:47
Speaker
I wonder if a weeded whiskey might be an interesting combo.
01:04:52
Speaker
I think bourbon would probably be too spicy.
01:04:55
Speaker
Like a weeded bourbon could definitely work.
01:04:57
Speaker
It kind of... Wheat rounds out those sharp edges of bourbon a little bit.
01:05:02
Speaker
Because I was trying to get my head in like, you know, would a rye work?
01:05:05
Speaker
I think a rye would be too spicy.
01:05:08
Speaker
I think a rum is too sweet.
01:05:10
Speaker
I think the rum and the cigar would both just be lost.
01:05:14
Speaker
You know, the weird thing is, and I'm not a gin guy, but I do wonder if a gin might be an interesting combo with his cigar.
01:05:22
Speaker
I am going to have to get more of these cigars and try with a gin.
01:05:26
Speaker
I am an absolute gin guy.
01:05:27
Speaker
But I find that gin doesn't pair generally well with a cigar.
01:05:34
Speaker
No.
01:05:35
Speaker
Very contrasty kind of pairing.
01:05:37
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:05:39
Speaker
A gin and tonic works sometimes, but it's really more about the refreshing nature of a gin and tonic.
01:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a palate refresher.
01:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, you're refreshing your palate, you're not pairing.
01:05:51
Speaker
But I'm going to have to try that because obviously this cigar pairs a lot differently than a normal cigar.
01:05:58
Speaker
We have, our pairing of the night is an IPA.
01:06:02
Speaker
and an art bank.
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:04
Speaker
Which is like, I don't know if that's ever happened with any cigar breath, right?
01:06:08
Speaker
That's a very opposite spectrum.
01:06:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:13
Speaker
And I think the thing in my head is I'm trying to match up those flavors.
01:06:18
Speaker
I feel like it's the juniper in the gin that would be an interesting combo because that juniper would be a little sharp
01:06:25
Speaker
but it's not super intense.
01:06:27
Speaker
And so, you know, I think this cigar needs something in this sort of just under medium category body for if you're pairing it with a spirit or a beer.
01:06:37
Speaker
So, you know, originally I said Pilsner might be an interesting experiment, but I think a Pilsner might be a little too soft.
01:06:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:44
Speaker
I was going to mention that, that like,
01:06:47
Speaker
Unlike some of Saka's stuff, the Sober Mesa, the one with the cross on it, that I can't remember.
01:06:53
Speaker
Sin Compromiso.
01:06:57
Speaker
Sin Compromiso might be good with the Pilsner.
01:07:00
Speaker
The Mica Rita.
01:07:02
Speaker
Those are all like pretty strong cigars.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:06
Speaker
This is way more on the like...
01:07:09
Speaker
light side of medium.
01:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like... Which makes it a little more difficult to pair with.
01:07:13
Speaker
It's like an oofy brulee, really.
01:07:16
Speaker
It's like a brulee with some guts.
01:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it.
01:07:22
Speaker
A brulee with more complexity, which is unfair to the brulee because the brulee is a nice cigar.
01:07:27
Speaker
But the pipe tobacco is just such a...
01:07:30
Speaker
It's both delicate and complex at the same time.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:34
Speaker
Absolutely.
01:07:35
Speaker
It's easy to trample with flavors, as we both learned tonight.
01:07:40
Speaker
But it's also got these very intense flavors that you can't just pair something very light.
01:07:49
Speaker
I don't think a Speyside or a Highland would work well with it.
01:07:53
Speaker
Not at all.
01:07:53
Speaker
Too sweet.
01:07:55
Speaker
So now you've got me thinking...
01:07:58
Speaker
that bourbon County, I almost wonder if a couple of different variants of tea might be an interesting combination with this, with this cigar, like a Pico or see, I think like, I think, um, can't remember what the blend of tea is with the London fogs based off of, but I think that the Berge, Berge, yeah, the Berge, I think it would be too much, um,
01:08:24
Speaker
But I think a Pico might be interesting because you're finding the IPA is hypercharging the cigar, and Pico has got that really nice orangey, citrusy character.
01:08:33
Speaker
So I wonder if a Bergemont might be an interesting pairing with a cigar.
01:08:37
Speaker
I can see that.
01:08:39
Speaker
I barely know what words you're saying, but saying orange made me like, okay, that tea with the dried oranges in it.
01:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, I got it.
01:08:47
Speaker
I do do a little bit because my wife is a really big tea fan.
01:08:52
Speaker
So she's kind of dragged me along for the tea experiment.
01:08:54
Speaker
So I've tried a variety of different teas.
01:08:58
Speaker
I do not like bergamot at all.
01:09:03
Speaker
It's one of those very, very strong flavor components.
01:09:08
Speaker
I tend not to gravitate to it.
01:09:09
Speaker
And yet every once in a while, I find I really want one.
01:09:13
Speaker
I've tried Lapsang Souchong, which is a black tea that's essentially like peat.
01:09:19
Speaker
I'm very familiar with that one because it's like a family joke with my in-law.
01:09:26
Speaker
You know how you do the thing where you shake the Christmas gift and you guess what it is?
01:09:32
Speaker
He has had a bit that he's done for decades where he shakes it and he goes...
01:09:37
Speaker
I think he got it from his dad, actually.
01:09:39
Speaker
But he guesses Lapsang Suchong lampshades and golf clubs, no matter what size.
01:09:45
Speaker
And I've always thought Lapsang Suchong.
01:09:48
Speaker
But yeah, it's like a super intense.
01:09:49
Speaker
It's like the Latakia of teas, right?
01:09:51
Speaker
Right, exactly.
01:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very heavy, heavy profile.
01:09:56
Speaker
That would be the wrong way to go with this cigar.
01:09:58
Speaker
I think black tea would be the wrong way to go with the cigar because they could be too astringent.
01:10:04
Speaker
But I think Pico for tea, again, because that citrusy component, something along those lines might be an interesting pairing.
01:10:13
Speaker
Coffee would be almost too easy because coffee's so... Coffee's always a no-brainer, right?
01:10:18
Speaker
Coffee's just a no-brainer.
01:10:21
Speaker
I think if I were to go coffee, I'd be thinking like a Kenyan or an Ethiopian coffee because it's got a lot of that fruity component.
01:10:29
Speaker
And so that's the element that's missing from the pipe tobacco.
01:10:34
Speaker
And maybe that would be an interesting pairing to go with some sort of Ethiopian or Kenyan coffee with a cigar would be an interesting revisit.
01:10:43
Speaker
I don't think Irish whiskey would go.
01:10:46
Speaker
I mean, it's an interesting cigar.
01:10:49
Speaker
I think I want to revisit this cigar with a couple different unusual bearings.
01:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
01:10:54
Speaker
And as we both talked about at length, it's a very good cigar.
01:11:00
Speaker
I really enjoy the blend of this cigar.
01:11:02
Speaker
Those pipe tobaccos really shine.
01:11:05
Speaker
It really kind of gives you the experience of pipe with the form factor of a cigar, which is exactly what I'm hoping for with it.
01:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think I need to get a lot more into the Stillwell stars because I think he said the English one was the one that's the toughest for people to wrap their heads around.
01:11:25
Speaker
I think is what he said.
01:11:27
Speaker
If I remember the conversations.
01:11:29
Speaker
I would think it would be the Bayou, but I'm not.
01:11:32
Speaker
Oh, the Bayou.
01:11:35
Speaker
But I would like to go back through the portfolio of the Stillwell Stars with pairings and kind of see where they'd land.
01:11:41
Speaker
Again, I said I wasn't going to mention it again, but to me, this is much, much better without that sweet cap.
01:11:49
Speaker
I like that the tobaccos are carrying the cigar.
01:11:53
Speaker
To me, that's kind of where I want to be at.
01:11:55
Speaker
I know that it's a very popular thing, but...
01:11:58
Speaker
I like that there's enough body here for the tobaccos to carry that cigar without that sweet cap.
01:12:04
Speaker
I really hope it does well in the market for them.
01:12:07
Speaker
I think I could definitely see people who are really into pipe tobacco digging this cigar.
01:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:12:13
Speaker
Especially with the cigar smokers.
01:12:15
Speaker
For the sweet cap, man, if you could make the sweet cap last 15 minutes, the problem is it lasts the whole cigar.
01:12:23
Speaker
It never goes away.
01:12:24
Speaker
I never stop tasting it.
01:12:25
Speaker
I taste it when I wake up the next day.
01:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, I just, I don't know.
01:12:28
Speaker
I just find that it just takes, again, it's, you know, it's not adding to the profile for me when you have a sweet cap.
01:12:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:36
Speaker
So, and I can remember when I smoked through the various infused categories of Drew Estate, and I think the one that I enjoyed the most was the, no, I think it's called the La Rutan.
01:12:49
Speaker
It used to be called the natural, but the La Rutan Dirt, which was the natural, but without a sweet cap.
01:12:55
Speaker
Yep.
01:12:56
Speaker
And that was my favorite because I could really get the tobaccos and that pipe tobacco out of it without getting the sweet cap.
01:13:03
Speaker
And so that's been a pretty consistent thing for me is it just, you know, sweet cap's not my thing.
01:13:08
Speaker
So, yeah, this is nice.
01:13:10
Speaker
This is a nice cigar.
01:13:12
Speaker
It's, I think, solidly medium in body and strength.
01:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what I would call it.
01:13:19
Speaker
The pipe flavors are a little more subdued, I think, than medium.
01:13:23
Speaker
But like strength and body for the most solid medium.
01:13:27
Speaker
All right.
01:13:27
Speaker
And that brings us to right before we wrap it up.
01:13:31
Speaker
Once again, I forgot to warn you, but hopefully you're prepared.
01:13:35
Speaker
OK, good.
01:13:36
Speaker
This is one for the road.
01:13:37
Speaker
We talk about some kind of media we've been consuming in the last couple of weeks, couple of months.
01:13:43
Speaker
And, you know, just kind of give you a recommendation of what to go spend your time watching.
01:13:47
Speaker
John, what do you got for us?
01:13:49
Speaker
Two things I'm prepared for.
01:13:51
Speaker
One is, of course, the new Star Wars series is out.
01:13:55
Speaker
If you're a Star Wars fan, you probably want to check it out.
01:13:58
Speaker
It's the Acolyte series.
01:13:59
Speaker
Man, I wish that I had a chance to check it out so far.
01:14:03
Speaker
I'll tell you why in a second, but I'll let you tell us.
01:14:04
Speaker
All right.
01:14:05
Speaker
I'm not going to spoil anything about it because I hate spoilers.
01:14:10
Speaker
It's fun.
01:14:11
Speaker
I think there's some contentious components of it.
01:14:15
Speaker
But you kind of have to move past your fan base a little bit and just kind of enjoy the ride for what it is.
01:14:22
Speaker
It's got Carrie Ann Moss, a huge fan of Carrie Ann Moss, not just because she's a complete smoke show, but because I think she's a great actress.
01:14:31
Speaker
She's kind of one of the lead characters, lead actress in the show.
01:14:36
Speaker
The production value is very good.
01:14:39
Speaker
I like that it's outside of the canon of, or outside of the timeframe of what they've been doing the last few years for Star Wars.
01:14:45
Speaker
So it's, it's set.
01:14:46
Speaker
It's kind of nice to get like a little break from that, right?
01:14:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:49
Speaker
So they're kind of, they're kind of delving more into the history of the Jedi.
01:14:53
Speaker
And I think they're, they're leaning into that Jedi component a lot more in terms of their, their history and the ethos, which is upsetting some people perhaps because, you know, super fans or whatever, but,
01:15:05
Speaker
I think it's worth checking out.
01:15:06
Speaker
There's two episodes out so far.
01:15:08
Speaker
And then I'm doing a rewatch of a series that I discovered was canceled, which makes me very upset.
01:15:14
Speaker
It's called The Time Traveler's Wife.
01:15:16
Speaker
I don't know if you've watched that or not.
01:15:18
Speaker
I did not know that was a show.
01:15:21
Speaker
I read the book and I saw the movie.
01:15:23
Speaker
The movie's terrible, even though I love Rachel...
01:15:29
Speaker
Rachel, Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams.
01:15:32
Speaker
It's a bad movie.
01:15:34
Speaker
I think it was Eric.
01:15:35
Speaker
It's a bad movie.
01:15:36
Speaker
I think it was Eric Bana.
01:15:38
Speaker
Okay.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, even the two of them couldn't save that movie.
01:15:42
Speaker
It was terrible.
01:15:44
Speaker
My wife was not wanting to watch this series, but after spending so many years together, I was like, you have to watch this series.
01:15:51
Speaker
I know you're going to love it.
01:15:52
Speaker
And so we watched the first episode, and now she's hooked, and so now we're watching it.
01:15:55
Speaker
I've already watched through the entire series.
01:15:58
Speaker
It's been canceled, which makes me so upset.
01:16:00
Speaker
I hope that Netflix or somebody picks it up, but...
01:16:03
Speaker
The acting in it is fantastic.
01:16:06
Speaker
It's got the actress from Game of Thrones, Rose something.
01:16:13
Speaker
And the lead actor who I can't think of the name of because I've had three whiskeys, but I didn't think much of his acting in the different things that I've seen him in.
01:16:22
Speaker
But...
01:16:23
Speaker
Rose Leslie and Theo James.
01:16:25
Speaker
Rose Leslie, yes.
01:16:27
Speaker
She's fantastic.
01:16:28
Speaker
The dynamic range of the sort of emotional component that she brings to the show is excellent.
01:16:34
Speaker
She has to carry like basically 25 years of life, which is a very hard thing to do for an actor.
01:16:40
Speaker
The male lead, I've seen him in other things, and I think it was just a...
01:16:47
Speaker
measure of what he was given for a script that I haven't enjoyed his work, but he is outstanding in this, in the series.
01:16:55
Speaker
And I like that they, they, they,
01:17:00
Speaker
real hot water and a lot of the tropes that are around time travel.
01:17:04
Speaker
But the writing is excellent.
01:17:07
Speaker
You should definitely watch through
TV Show Adaptations and Anticipations
01:17:08
Speaker
the series if you haven't.
01:17:08
Speaker
If you enjoy sort of time travel, sci-fi, whatever, it's really, really well done.
01:17:14
Speaker
I hope that it gets picked up again by Netflix or somebody and they get extra seasons.
01:17:19
Speaker
They probably won't.
01:17:20
Speaker
But it's a fairly, at least you're not left hanging per se on the last episode of the season.
01:17:26
Speaker
You can kind of walk away from that and go, okay, well, you know, it's still a good viewing experience.
01:17:31
Speaker
But those are the kind of two media that I've been consuming lately that are standing up for me.
01:17:36
Speaker
What about you, Trippie?
01:17:37
Speaker
What have you been consuming?
01:17:39
Speaker
First, I got to say I love it.
01:17:40
Speaker
I'm going to check out Time Traveler's Wife because I really enjoyed the book.
01:17:44
Speaker
I didn't realize they made a TV show.
01:17:46
Speaker
Theo James, if you enjoy him, check him out in The Gentleman.
01:17:52
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
01:17:53
Speaker
I have not watched The Gentleman.
01:17:55
Speaker
It is.
01:17:55
Speaker
I mean, I did it as my one for the road months ago when it first came out.
01:18:02
Speaker
But I'll just give it a little plug here.
01:18:04
Speaker
It's classic Guy Ritchie in a TV show format.
01:18:07
Speaker
All of the ridiculous characters and crazy circumstances that you always see in Guy Ritchie movies, especially the old Guy Ritchie, the lock stocks and the snatches.
01:18:22
Speaker
And then you have like it's classic Guy Ritchie.
01:18:25
Speaker
It's running around London meeting all these crazy interesting characters.
01:18:29
Speaker
And at the end, everything comes together into a giant pile of shit that the main character has just fantastic.
01:18:36
Speaker
He's the lead in that.
01:18:37
Speaker
So it's called The Gentleman.
01:18:39
Speaker
The Gentleman.
01:18:40
Speaker
It's on Netflix in the US.
01:18:42
Speaker
Hopefully it is in Canada, too.
01:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure.
01:18:45
Speaker
Well, I sailed high seas.
01:18:46
Speaker
So if it's not available on Netflix, I'm sure I can get my hands on it.
01:18:49
Speaker
No problem.
01:18:49
Speaker
But yeah, no, I really didn't enjoy Theo James and a lot of the stuff I've seen.
01:18:54
Speaker
And like I said, I really appreciate his acting range in The Time Traveler's Wife.
01:18:59
Speaker
He kind of starts off
01:19:01
Speaker
a little shaky maybe, or maybe it's just the script in the first episode, but by the end of the first episode and then carrying on for the rest of the show, his range is excellent.
01:19:10
Speaker
The supporting cast is excellent.
01:19:13
Speaker
My wife has read the book, and so I think there's a lot of stuff they did in the show that they didn't do the book, but it's one of those things where they've got a strong core story to work on
01:19:24
Speaker
And the things I think they've added for the TV show have really, really done a great job of making it approachable and a lot more complex and interesting as a TV show versus a book.
01:19:38
Speaker
Nice.
01:19:39
Speaker
All right, I'll get to mine now.
01:19:41
Speaker
But I also have another TV recommendation for you.
01:19:44
Speaker
Nice.
01:19:44
Speaker
I think you'll love.
01:19:45
Speaker
Nice.
01:19:46
Speaker
Mine is called Under Paris.
01:19:49
Speaker
It's... Oh, I've heard of this.
01:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:19:51
Speaker
It just hit Netflix last week.
01:19:52
Speaker
Right.
01:19:53
Speaker
It's the shark thing, right?
01:19:54
Speaker
It's a shark movie.
01:19:56
Speaker
I love shark movies.
01:19:57
Speaker
Dude, I think this movie comes the closest to being Jaws.
01:20:02
Speaker
since maybe jaws um well this is the best i mean not this doesn't say a lot this statement um i talk about every week i'm a horror movie fiend i watch pretty much everything in the horror genre you you and my good buddy charles uh and maybe robbie are the sort of three guys who are huge huge uh i love horror horror fiends yes i'm i'm all about it uh
01:20:30
Speaker
And this is the best shark movie in decades.
01:20:33
Speaker
That is not a big statement because I think the last great shark movie was like Deep Blue Sea.
01:20:38
Speaker
With LL Cool J. It was a pretty bad movie.
01:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, the one with L.L.
01:20:42
Speaker
Cole J. Yeah, that was fantastic.
01:20:46
Speaker
But that's not a great movie, right?
01:20:48
Speaker
No, no.
01:20:48
Speaker
It's very fun, but it's not a great movie.
01:20:51
Speaker
This is the closest to come to that since that, right?
01:20:57
Speaker
That's what I'll say.
01:20:58
Speaker
It's the closest to Jaws since Deep Blue Sea.
01:21:01
Speaker
It is an actually interesting shark movie that has wider implications and stuff.
01:21:09
Speaker
And man, the ending was awesome.
01:21:12
Speaker
I loved the ending of this movie.
01:21:15
Speaker
Nice.
01:21:15
Speaker
And I hope to make another one.
01:21:17
Speaker
But check it out.
01:21:18
Speaker
It's on Netflix if you have a Netflix subscription.
01:21:21
Speaker
The other thing that I wanted to recommend to John, because I think you'll love this movie because I know you, I'm not a hardcore sci-fi guy, but I love sci-fi.
01:21:30
Speaker
I'm a hardcore sci-fi guy.
01:21:32
Speaker
Have you heard of Dark Matter?
01:21:34
Speaker
Of course.
01:21:35
Speaker
Have you watched it yet?
01:21:37
Speaker
So, okay.
01:21:38
Speaker
So, this is a continuation of the original Canadian Dark Matter TV show, which was phenomenal.
01:21:46
Speaker
And this is... Sorry?
01:21:48
Speaker
It's not.
01:21:50
Speaker
But it is.
01:21:51
Speaker
It's in the... It's the TV show, right?
01:21:55
Speaker
It's a TV show.
01:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's within that universe.
01:21:58
Speaker
But it's based on a book from like 2016.
01:22:01
Speaker
Who's the lead actress?
01:22:02
Speaker
It's... Well, in this show, it's Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly.
01:22:11
Speaker
Oh.
01:22:12
Speaker
Okay, maybe it's not what I'm thinking of.
01:22:14
Speaker
This is not connected to the dark matter you're thinking of.
01:22:16
Speaker
So this is a book by Blake Crouch, who's a great sci-fi horror writer.
01:22:22
Speaker
Listen, I don't know if you know this one about me, but I love Jennifer Connelly.
01:22:26
Speaker
She was kind of one of my first crushes.
01:22:30
Speaker
And so all you have to say is Jennifer Connelly's in it, and I'm going to watch it.
01:22:33
Speaker
And it's been on my sort of, do I want to invest the cycle?
01:22:37
Speaker
Because I've been watching a lot of TV shows lately.
01:22:40
Speaker
So I'm like, do I want to queue this up and start watching it?
01:22:42
Speaker
I'm going to watch it.
01:22:43
Speaker
The only reason I watched the Snowpiercer TV show was because Jennifer Connelly was in it.
01:22:49
Speaker
Well, you're going to like this because it's actually a good show.
01:22:53
Speaker
Nice.
01:22:53
Speaker
Well, that certainly helps.
01:22:55
Speaker
I appreciate when the show doesn't suck.
01:22:57
Speaker
So this show is about a guy.
01:23:01
Speaker
I'm going to spoil the first episode for you because there's no setup for this that doesn't include spoiling anything other than it's really good.
01:23:11
Speaker
That's like the setup if I'm not spoiling anything.
01:23:14
Speaker
If I'm spoiling a little bit, a guy...
01:23:18
Speaker
is a teacher, he used to be really smart, he was a scientist, and at some point he decided, actually at a very specific point, he decided, I'm gonna choose family, and he becomes a teacher at a, or a professor, I guess, at a university.
01:23:34
Speaker
And he kind of lives his life knowing that he could have done some things.
01:23:40
Speaker
But he chose family and he's very happy with that.
01:23:42
Speaker
One day, he gets kidnapped, thrown into a box, and wakes up in a reality where he made different choices.
01:23:49
Speaker
Right.
01:23:50
Speaker
And he has to try to figure out what the hell's going on.
01:23:54
Speaker
Yep.
01:23:56
Speaker
And it's Apple, right?
01:23:57
Speaker
Apple TV?
01:23:57
Speaker
It's on Apple TV.
01:24:00
Speaker
I've been kind of saying to myself for years, they had said at some point they were going to make a movie out of it.
01:24:06
Speaker
And it's too big.
01:24:08
Speaker
It's one of the stories that's like too expansive to tell in a movie.
01:24:13
Speaker
And it hasn't gotten to the crazy part yet because we're still watching it week to week.
01:24:17
Speaker
It's still coming out.
01:24:19
Speaker
But the end of this is going to be insanity.
01:24:23
Speaker
And also, the other huge thing about this is the TV show, the head writer is the writer of the book, the author of the book.
01:24:31
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome.
01:24:32
Speaker
Which is like, I don't know if that's ever happened before, other than maybe Game of Thrones, where he was actually involved with the TV show.
01:24:40
Speaker
But like, the fact that he's the head writer of the long way
01:24:44
Speaker
in like when they diverge from the story of the book, they're not doing it the way, you know, TV shows where you're like, all right, well, now it's not.
01:24:53
Speaker
This is just kind of expanding the story.
01:24:54
Speaker
The last thing I'll say, it's not out yet, but we've kind of briefly talked about it, which is Alien Romulus.
01:25:02
Speaker
Yes.
01:25:02
Speaker
And I cannot wait.
01:25:06
Speaker
Ridley Scott is producing.
01:25:08
Speaker
I've been following the project because...
01:25:13
Speaker
To say that I'm an alien super fan would be probably underselling it.
01:25:17
Speaker
At one point I had various bootleg copies of the various aliens TV show.
01:25:23
Speaker
There was like the aliens VHS, the aliens cinematic aliens directors.
01:25:27
Speaker
There's an aliens laser disc.
01:25:29
Speaker
And at one point I must've owned 10 or 11 different copies of aliens because they're all various cuts and,
01:25:36
Speaker
And I'm a huge fan of the series, even though the extended movies, the Prometheus and whatever covenant was not great.
01:25:45
Speaker
I still watched it and I've watched it multiple times.
01:25:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:48
Speaker
That's the thing.
01:25:48
Speaker
It's like when you're that big of a fan, it's kind of like Star Wars.
01:25:51
Speaker
Like when you're a fan of Star Wars, it's like, I mean, yeah, the prequels are bad, but I saw the first one seven times in the movie theater.
01:25:57
Speaker
Right.
01:25:58
Speaker
That's how it is with Alien for me too.
01:26:01
Speaker
So Alien Romulus, they're really leaning into the roots where they're going back to the sort of Aliens sort of style, but they're, I think, going to be more in the Alien ethos where it's a lot more horror-based, which I think is what really makes Alien a great show, a great movie, is that you've got this great horror component.
01:26:22
Speaker
It's terrifying.
01:26:23
Speaker
I mean, truly, Alien at its core is a horror movie,
01:26:26
Speaker
And they're going to make it a TV series.
01:26:27
Speaker
It's literally a slasher movie.
01:26:29
Speaker
Like it's the same formula as a slasher movie.
01:26:31
Speaker
That's right.
01:26:32
Speaker
But in space.
01:26:33
Speaker
And it's incredible.
01:26:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:36
Speaker
And so they've gone to these great lengths to make the facehuggers...
01:26:42
Speaker
I have robots.
01:26:43
Speaker
So they've got these robotic facehuggers.
01:26:45
Speaker
And I'll tell you, just watching the behind the scenes video that they released, they've released some clips about the facehuggers and how they move.
01:26:53
Speaker
Just watching it, even watching the clip, knowing that this is just a robot, it was absolutely terrifying to see this thing crawl along the floor and crawling the wall.
01:27:04
Speaker
Like it just, every part of you is like, oh no, that's not good.
01:27:08
Speaker
So I think they're going to have a huge hit on their hands.
01:27:11
Speaker
I think it's going to be, you know, horror fans are going to be huge fans.
01:27:13
Speaker
Sci-fi fans are going to be huge fans.
01:27:17
Speaker
Unfortunately, it doesn't release until 2025.
01:27:19
Speaker
But with Ridley Scott at the helm, I think it's going to be a blockbuster.
01:27:23
Speaker
It's going to be fantastic.
01:27:24
Speaker
I think the thing that goes the furthest for me is that Ridley Scott is, but not doing all the writing and directing.
01:27:33
Speaker
Right.
01:27:33
Speaker
Which he did for Covenant and Prometheus.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:38
Speaker
And that's where I think it took a big... He's like George Lucas.
01:27:43
Speaker
George Lucas's best work is when George is... He's an idea man, right?
01:27:46
Speaker
He's an idea man.
01:27:47
Speaker
He's a producer.
01:27:48
Speaker
But when he gets someone else to direct, someone else to handle the sound, someone else to handle the casting and the scripting,
01:27:55
Speaker
then it becomes something super special.
01:27:57
Speaker
And I think this is where that's going to end.
01:28:00
Speaker
Unfortunately, we won't be talking about it until sometime late next year.
01:28:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's a bummer, but I'm still very looking at wait.
01:28:09
Speaker
In the meantime, I'm going to queue up Dark Matter.
01:28:12
Speaker
I'm going to queue up Under Paris, and I'm going to check it out.
01:28:16
Speaker
All right, now I'm going to watch Time Traveler's Wife with my wife eventually.
01:28:21
Speaker
I meant to mention this earlier.
01:28:22
Speaker
I haven't been able to watch The Acolyte yet, or Star Wars Acolyte, I guess is the title, because a pipe exploded in my son's room, so my son is sleeping in our room.
01:28:33
Speaker
while the construction goes on.
01:28:35
Speaker
So we don't have TV time at night like we're used to.
01:28:40
Speaker
So all TV is on hold until sometime this week when we get a book back together.
01:28:46
Speaker
And the Acolyte came out the day after that happened.
01:28:50
Speaker
It's not the 1980s and 1990s anymore.
01:28:52
Speaker
So the great thing about that is that it'll keep and you can still watch it after.
01:28:56
Speaker
You know, you miss the broadcast.
01:28:58
Speaker
You're not going to have to wait 10 years for it to be released on VHS, which is really nice.
01:29:02
Speaker
So we've we've started.
01:29:04
Speaker
My son has gotten into like watching adult shows with us.
01:29:07
Speaker
He's 11.
01:29:09
Speaker
But there's a couple shows, like, not super adult.
01:29:12
Speaker
We're not letting him watch Game of Thrones with us.
01:29:15
Speaker
But we watched, I don't know, some missed thriller kind of show.
01:29:18
Speaker
And he got really into watching it with us.
01:29:21
Speaker
And so he was like, you can't watch the last episode without me.
01:29:23
Speaker
And I was telling him, like, when I was a kid, my mom loved X-Files.
01:29:28
Speaker
But she was too afraid to be alone, so it was a family show.
01:29:31
Speaker
Nice.
01:29:32
Speaker
And my brother and I loved it.
01:29:35
Speaker
But it was like at 9 p.m.
01:29:38
Speaker
on Sunday night.
01:29:39
Speaker
You are on the couch.
01:29:41
Speaker
You're watching TV.
01:29:42
Speaker
You're not talking.
01:29:44
Speaker
You're not writing things down.
01:29:45
Speaker
You're not reading a book.
01:29:47
Speaker
You're not playing your Game Boy.
01:29:48
Speaker
Because if we miss five minutes of this...
01:29:51
Speaker
We have to wait for it to come out on VHS in three years.
01:29:55
Speaker
So it's not happening.
01:29:58
Speaker
He was kind of in shock that, wait, you couldn't pause it?
01:30:02
Speaker
Why wouldn't you just pause it?
01:30:04
Speaker
No bathroom breaks.
01:30:06
Speaker
It's like, yeah, no, that didn't happen.
01:30:07
Speaker
You had to run to the bathroom.
01:30:08
Speaker
You had two and a half minutes at a commercial break when they would tell you about the latest cheerio.
Podcast Conclusion
01:30:13
Speaker
And then one of your family members will yell at you while you're in the bathroom.
01:30:17
Speaker
It's back on!
01:30:18
Speaker
Get back here!
01:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:30:21
Speaker
And it's just so foreign to kids today because now you can just pause anything.
01:30:26
Speaker
Anyway, we went on a tangent for the last 30 minutes or so.
01:30:30
Speaker
We did.
01:30:31
Speaker
But it's been fun.
01:30:33
Speaker
Thank you, everybody, for watching, for listening, for checking out the podcast.
01:30:37
Speaker
We appreciate you guys out there.
01:30:39
Speaker
Thank you, John, for joining me.
01:30:42
Speaker
Appreciate you, brother.
01:30:43
Speaker
I know it's a tough ask to tell you to drink whiskey and smoke cigars on a Sunday night.
01:30:48
Speaker
Drinking pair of cigars, I hate it.
01:30:50
Speaker
I know, it's tough.
01:30:52
Speaker
Um, someday we'll get you back on in the guest spot with Dennis on too, but.
01:30:57
Speaker
Oh, that'd be a lot of fun for now.
01:30:59
Speaker
That'll be a three hour show though.
01:31:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:00
Speaker
Well, for now you're my, my go-to guest co-host.
01:31:04
Speaker
Some people may or may not know you were my co-host for a long time in the early days.
01:31:08
Speaker
Long time.
01:31:10
Speaker
In my early days, you weren't near early, but thank you for joining us.
01:31:13
Speaker
Thank you for hanging out with us for filling in.
01:31:16
Speaker
I enjoy getting pairing always.
01:31:20
Speaker
And before we close it out, we always have our catchphrase.
01:31:23
Speaker
John, if you want to say the catchphrase, I'll let you.
01:31:26
Speaker
If not, I'll say it myself.
01:31:28
Speaker
I'm happy to do it.
01:31:30
Speaker
All right, go for it.
01:31:30
Speaker
Here, let's get pairing.
01:31:32
Speaker
Here, let's get pairing.
01:31:33
Speaker
We want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.