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LGP 52 - Don Pepin Garcia E.R.H.
12 Plays4 days ago
This week, we're going back to where it all started for Don Pepin Garcia. Before My Father Cigars was created, Jose 'Pepin' Garcia started a small factory in Miami called El Red Del Los Habanos, making cigars of the same name.
In 2024, My Father Cigars released the E.R.H. as a tribute to their original Little Havana factory.
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Transcript
Introduction and Catching Up
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to let's get pairing. Uh, we've been off for a couple of weeks, but this is episode number 52 of let's get pairing, uh, with the Don Papin Garcia, ERH, also known as the red label.
00:00:14
Speaker
We'll tell you all about it. We get back, but for now, grab yourself cigar, grab yourself a drink. Let's get pairing.
00:00:43
Speaker
We got the end of that song. Anyway. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Tripp here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio ah for Let's Get Pairing episode 52 with the Don Pepin Garcia ERH, aka the Red Label.
00:01:00
Speaker
But with me, it's been a couple weeks since we've even seen each other, is my co-host Dennis. Dennis, how you doing, dude? hey man Hey, Ben, you smoke any cigars in the last couple weeks? I know that you've been under the weather.
00:01:11
Speaker
I've been so sick for the last like two weeks. What did I smoke? I smoked a little ah street tacos. Nice. old Baby taco.
00:01:23
Speaker
um man I felt horrible after. all i regreted sucks I regretted it so much. I was hacking up a lung. ah just my My lungs are still not quite there because I've been coughing and congested for for like two weeks now.
00:01:35
Speaker
Man, that's rough. ah Sorry to make you smoke tonight, but hopefully you're feeling at least a little bit better so that you're ready. um This is completely unrelated to our show tonight, but did you smoke a coffin nail yet?
00:01:48
Speaker
um I did. i did. Yes. yeah yeah so I was just curious. The coffin nail that you sent me. You sent me a handful of them. and but Sorry. i I smoked two of them.
00:02:00
Speaker
Fantastic. good I loved it. i I thought that thing would be right up your alley. It hit the spot. It was... Flavortown, if I dare say such a thing. Oh, sacrilege. Blasphemy, maybe. I know. um It might be.
00:02:12
Speaker
All right. Now, back to the topic at hand.
Don Pepin Garcia's Journey
00:02:14
Speaker
We're smoking the Don Pepin Garcia, ERH, the red label. Look at that. Nice-looking label. Beautiful-looking cigar. So, the ERH.
00:02:25
Speaker
I'm going to start with a little history. of Don Pepin Garcia. So ERH means the king of the king of Cuban cigars. um And we'll get to what that means or what the significance is if you don't already know it in a moment here.
00:02:40
Speaker
So we'll start with our background on Jose Pepin Garcia. ah He started working at a cigar factory. He says he was actually born in a cigar factory because they were rolling cigars in his house as a child.
00:02:51
Speaker
um But he started working in a cigar factory in Cuba at the age of 11. He was younger than my oldest kid who definitely could not roll a cigar ah when he rolled his first cigar. Started as a cigar roller. Quickly found that he really had a natural talent for it.
00:03:09
Speaker
um By the time he got to his 20s, he was entering rolling competitions. He kind of... ah and I believe it was in Hand Rolled about Pete.
00:03:20
Speaker
Um, the first kind of episode that they did last year, where talked about how he, he saw somebody rolling cigars fast and he was like, I can do that. And then started rolling cigars faster than them. Um, and it just kind of, and this was like, he was in his teens.
00:03:33
Speaker
He just kind of became the fastest guy at the factory. Um, because he, he just saw people do it fast and he was just just like, I'll just do that, but faster. Um, And he started entering rolling competitions. This is a thing that I've never heard of outside of Cuba.
00:03:49
Speaker
It's a very Cuban thing. They have national competitions where they get the best rollers from every factory, have them compete to roll. Usually it's, uh, they roll one specific size.
00:04:01
Speaker
and they see how many they can roll in four hours. I believe his number was 350 that he hit in four hours, which is just nuts if you're nuts. Dude, if you're hitting that number in a cigar factory, you are working half days, dude.
00:04:15
Speaker
ah Like you're going home at lunchtime every single day. And now the people that, of course, didn't make the cut in the competitions, they would take them out back and shoot them. Yeah, of course.
00:04:25
Speaker
As in the in Cuban tradition. Yes. No, they they would they would go back to their job, you know. um But he kind of became known as the guy. he was win like He would enter a competition, he would win. No matter what competition it was for cigars, if it was cigar rolling or blending, he would win.
00:04:40
Speaker
Um, so over the years he started focusing on blending as well. And he became a blender who was, uh, working with like some of the top brands, the Cohibas, the Partaguses, the Monte Cristos in Cuba.
00:04:53
Speaker
Um, and he also reached a level eight master roller, uh, after 40 years of working in Cuba, uh, in the cigar business, he, moved to Miami and,
00:05:09
Speaker
Decided to leave Miami as at this point he was known as Don Pepin, Boss Pepin, of course is what that means. um In 2001 is when he landed in Miami, started his own factory in Calle Ocho in 2002. And that factory was called El Rey de los Habanos.
00:05:28
Speaker
also known as E-R-H. Of course, in just the first couple of years, he started making cigars for Tet Vlahe, started making cigars with the Don Pepin brand. um And a lot of people don't know this, but he made a ton of house brands.
00:05:42
Speaker
So there were shops all over the country that found out about this guy making Cuban-style cigars in little Little Havana, Miami, and ah hired him to make a brand for them.
00:05:56
Speaker
ah So there were at the time in the early 2000s, there were a bunch of shops that had Don Papin exclusives that were. As far as I tasted, all fantastic. um Back then i was hunting them down um in 2005. They released their own kind of house cigar called El Rey de los Habanos, which was discontinued in 2011.
00:06:19
Speaker
um but it's resurrected in the form of this cigar, sort of. ah Just to finish up the history lesson, in 2006, they opened their first Nicaraguan factory. um In 2009, 2008, rather, My Father's Cigars was created.
00:06:34
Speaker
um There was, we can get into it at some point, but I know that most people don't like to talk about it, but they had a legal falling out with their partner at the time, which is now known as Aganorsa.
00:06:45
Speaker
little bit. um And... had some disputes and split ways. Um, that's kind of when they, their Nicaraguan factory became my father. My father became the umbrella under which all the other brands existed.
00:06:59
Speaker
Um, I know that the factory Rey de los Habanos was a partnership. between the two companies. um I do wonder if the reason they call this yeah ERH is not just for to keep the name concise, but also because they maybe don't have the license to use the full name.
00:07:20
Speaker
um But that's just me. That's a good point, actually, yeah. All right. Since then, my father has won... and i my notes In my notes, I put multiple, but it's really kind of a plethora of number one Cigar the Year rankings from a various number of publications, including Cigar Coop, and continues to be regarded as one of the best cigar companies out of Nicaragua.
00:07:44
Speaker
um Also of note, they just opened their first Honduras factory. I smoked this cigar the other day. um It didn't blow my socks off, but it's solid for... um an all Hondurans, you know, their first all Honduran cigar.
00:07:59
Speaker
Um, I'm curious to see once they start working with both Honduran and Nicaraguan leaf. Um, right.
Introduction to the Don Pepin Garcia ERH Cigar
00:08:06
Speaker
So to finish it up last year, El Rey de los Habanos ERH was resurrected, um, as the Don Pepin Garcia ERH, which is what we are smoking tonight.
00:08:17
Speaker
We have the Toro size, which is a six by 52, MSRP is 1095. There's not a whole lot of details on the blend of this. We know that the wrapper is Sumatra Rosado. um So that's kind of a Sumatra that's a little bit darker, a little bit of a reddish hue. um The filler and binder are all Nicaraguan from the the Garcia Farms.
00:08:38
Speaker
And that's ah that's all she wrote on my little history lesson. that was ah That was a lot faster. I was worried that was going to take up like 20 minutes, me talking about. That was good. Thank you. That was a good update. um What do you think of the cigar so far?
00:08:53
Speaker
Any flavors jumping out at you, anything like that? Sweet mother of Jesus. Red pepper. Off the light, the bomb of red pepper, I was not expecting. Certainly not to the degree that I got it.
00:09:07
Speaker
It was almost kind of tough to ah to to get through the light with the intensity of the spice. And it sat on the back of my tongue for quite a bit, actually, for a couple of minutes. um I think that was just a friendly reminder not to smoke this one too fast as I tend to do because it's going hurt if I do.
00:09:24
Speaker
But yeah, man, the spice was so intense. It was to me all leather and just really intense like a red pepper spice. Yeah, definitely a lot of heat on this one. um It really reminds me of those those classic days. Back in the early days of Don Papin, he was really known for his cigars having just a...
00:09:46
Speaker
a salt of black pepper, red pepper, like spiciness on your tongue right at the beginning. um And this certainly has that with a little bit of kind of a trying to figure out how to describe the sweetness.
00:09:59
Speaker
I guess for now I'll call it just a general sweetness. Reminds me of that this the sweetness of a, but you know, a cake or something like that, I guess. Just generalized sweetness. Not quite candy sweet, not quite like powdered sugar anything like that.
Flavor Notes and Social Interactions at PCA
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely bit of a sweetness, and i feel it I feel it kind of on my on my lips as well. That little tingle that, you know, that classic tingle. Oh, yeah. But from my experience with a lot of Don Pippin stuff, this is going to fade fairly quickly.
00:10:33
Speaker
i don't think it's going to, I suspect it's not going to last throughout the whole cigar. It'll start meshing into the into the actual fuller profile of the cigar, which is really nice. Yeah, for sure.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So I'm going to be on bear show later tonight. I'll also Fumar. I'll also Fumar takes rather. Um, if you want to watch that, we're going to be talking about our experience in new Orleans.
00:10:58
Speaker
Then on Tuesday, we we're doing our PCA recap. Um, But for now, I wanted to open it to Dennis if you have any questions about how how PCA went, since unfortunately you were unable to be there this year.
00:11:10
Speaker
i And we haven't got a chance to talk about it, because I was at PCA, I got home for 24 hours, and then I went on a family vacation. ah You were just buried under blankets and sick, and then had a couple excursions you went on too, right?
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, we did a little travel for to see some family, just a little bit of running around here and there, but Man, I and would have loved to make it out. Next year, of course, I will be there. but my thing for PCA that I always love is the it's what you don't see on the trade floor are the conversations that happen in the restaurants and the bars.
00:11:44
Speaker
It's the hey, what are you drinking? What's what are you going eat? Where's where's the hot spot to go and get something nice to eat? What have you been eating you know during during the show? And people get so lit up by it because finally, we're not talking about cigars.
00:11:57
Speaker
yeah You spend all day on the floor talking shop, which is great. But it's so nice to be able to then sit down and have a meal and talk about, oh, man, I found this really cool steakhouse. We're going to go check it out later.
00:12:09
Speaker
or yep, I'm going to set this crappy dive bar and drink some PBRs and and whatever else. and And it's so nice because these are not just the – you don't just get this from the retailers and other media.
00:12:22
Speaker
You get it from a lot of the manufacturing staff. the people that are there, it kind of opens them up in a more personal way. That's what I really love about it. And I think some of the stuff that we do with the pairing show is really fun because you may you may like one cigar or the other cigar, but you're always going to have something to say about what you like to eat, what you like to drink.
00:12:41
Speaker
Exactly. And it's always going to be a good time. So that being said, my question to you is what... What stood out to you? What did you try that was really cool? What did you drink that was really cool? What did Pete give you, perhaps, that might have been lusciously delicious?
00:12:56
Speaker
I'm hankering for that wine, dude. Well, so I was telling you before, in the green room, we ah we were we were beating our feet, man. we were Coop and I, Coop was my dentist this week, which a lot of people were shocked by. i got there's gonna be I'm have an entire thing of B-roll. I hope he was rolling for all of them.
00:13:14
Speaker
But entire section of the B-roll video is going to be people going, wait, Coop is on the camera? When I stand up next to them with the mic. um The one I remember up top of head is Rocky Patel was like, what the fuck?
00:13:28
Speaker
Coop, you're on the camera? Did you get demoted or something? ah It was great. That's fantastic. But our, so I didn't get to enjoy anything with Pete. I talked to him for a couple minutes.
00:13:41
Speaker
he was wearing a Fausto shirt. And I said, Pete, when are you going to sell more Fausto shirts? Cause I got too fat. And, uh, he said, let me go grab you one. And then we did our interview and I ran off. I forgot to get it. I came back later and was like, Pete dirt.
00:13:53
Speaker
And was like, Oh yeah. I went back and grabbed it. Um, there were a lot of booths where we forgot to get, uh, like samples from them and, and not booths that are stingy booths that we usually get like a sample pack of all their new releases.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. We can try everything once we get home. Um, And we we were too busy and we spaced on it. um So there was not a lot of time. I didn't like hang out with Pete like we normally do for 30, 45 minutes.
00:14:20
Speaker
um Actually, he was right he was came in late the day we went there because we went there first thing. I did end up getting to hang out Dan a little bit. That was fun. ah We talked about guitars and amps. I love Dan, man. He's he's so easygoing and fun that it's nice to at the end of the day just to sit down with him. and hes just yeah yeah and Yeah, he's a cool cat.
00:14:38
Speaker
And he loves beer. He loves cigars. And he's right up our alley, man. ah But he has a new release. ah I'm spacing on the name right now. But i'll you know you can check out CigarCoupe.com for that um once he puts up his Tatuaje booth visit.
00:14:53
Speaker
But he has a new cigar inspired by tube amps. um And so he's going to kind of, he was saying he might do a whole kind of series thing of different types of amps and what they would smoke like.
00:15:05
Speaker
That's cool. which i It's like, I was telling him like, that's how I taste cigars. I taste cigars with distortion, with highs and lows. and ah i think it's the language you're not familiar with. Yeah, exactly.
00:15:17
Speaker
But anyway. ah there was not too much hanging out in booths because we were very busy, but there was a little bit. um we were We were talking to Howard G, Howard Gums from Howard G Cigars, and ah
00:15:35
Speaker
crap. um I'm giving him the wrong name in my head. Willie Marante from La Aurora. came running over and he had a bottle of ah forward slash whiskey because forward slash was there with in the Bentley booth and he was just going around to different booths that he has friends at pouring a couple of shots Just to share the love.
00:15:55
Speaker
um So that was super cool. That's nice. ah We also got to, I didn't, I didn't even taste it while we were there since I'd already tasted it all, but we got to talk to Charlie from a bean of soda. um He's a super cool guy.
00:16:08
Speaker
um Very, very interesting ah background on that guy. i can't wait to talk about it again or to just, ah you know, put up the ah video, the interview that we did.
00:16:19
Speaker
But as far as food, the one thing, so one of my one for the road questions that you guys will see. You had gumbo every day for every meal. Just about. ah but One of my questions, my two questions that I asked every every single person I interviewed was, what's the best meal you've eaten this week and what's your song for the playlist?
00:16:37
Speaker
um Best meal you've eaten this week? uh, was a resounding commander's palace. We have to go to commander's palace next year. ah palace what is i it sounds like a very fancy restaurant. That's all I know about it.
00:16:50
Speaker
Um, But people were stoked on it, man. Like probably 10 different booths said. Wow. Okay. Okay. That's the spot. So we're going to hit it. Okay. Yeah. So we got to get there.
00:17:00
Speaker
ah There were a couple others that we ate at. So we had a lunch at Cushon, which Laura, Laurel Tilly said the best thing she had eaten was key lime pie from Cushon. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:17:11
Speaker
And so I was like, I got to try this key lime pie. And we ended we ended up there and figured what the hell let's, let's eat lunch. And I got some key lime pie. She was right. That was real good keyline pie, man. Oh, boy. also jump Back to the gumbo.
00:17:24
Speaker
ah Who kind of discovered gu gumbo on this trip? um The night before Bear and I got there, ah he had gone to dinner somewhere with Ben and got gumbo and fell in love.
00:17:40
Speaker
So when we got there, we went to lunch and had gumbo. Then we went to dinner and had gumbo. Then we, as as we're wont to do, skipped breakfast the next day, went to lunch, had gumbo, went to dinner, had gumbo.
Trade Show Challenges and Experiences
00:17:52
Speaker
ah And then the next day for lunch, I believe... Oh, no, the next day was was the trade show, and we ate one meal a day at the trade show, man. Like, that was our... That's how it goes, right? But that's the thing a lot of people don't realize is...
00:18:05
Speaker
ah it's It's just so chaotic that really you're getting in as much water as you can when you can. You only have that 20-minute break to to run off and eat something.
00:18:16
Speaker
Right, exactly. yes you You're running to the bathroom and filling up on water and then loading up on Strikeforce or whatever else you got but to just keep going. ah Nicotine, you know, sometimes you need a little extra nicotine. The cigars are what keeps me going, man. If I spend 10 minutes without a cigar at the trade show, I'll probably pass out.
00:18:37
Speaker
Just from sheer exhaustion. What's the... Okay, so I know sometime in the future we're going to talk a little bit more about the themes and the specific things for this year's show.
00:18:50
Speaker
I won't talk about that. But from your perspective, personal perspective, as a let's let's say you're let's pretend you're not a media person, you're at the trade show, you're doing stuff. What's the one thing that shocked you the most or surprised you the most?
00:19:03
Speaker
ah The width of the trade show. The what? The width. Of the the space? Oh, yeah. What do you mean? Normally, it's it's almost a square layout, right, in Vegas? Yeah, usually it's pretty squared off.
00:19:15
Speaker
This was maybe... um trying to think of how many rows.
00:19:24
Speaker
Four rows of booths. No, five rows of booths, so there were four lanes between booths from front to back.
00:19:33
Speaker
I mean, 50 booths wide. Jeez. ah It was a slog. There was one side of the trade show, like ah probably two or three rows.
00:19:44
Speaker
I did not make it. Coop and I did not end up back there at all. um Not because we didn't want to go there. There wasn't anybody we wanted to see there, but just ah we ran out of time. um So our plan for next year is to chill it out a little bit, try to spend more time just chatting with people.
00:20:01
Speaker
Just, you know, get stuff on camera when we can, but focus on relationships and stuff like that, you know?
Beverage Pairings with the Cigar
00:20:10
Speaker
ah So with that, I think it's time to get pairing.
00:20:15
Speaker
Let's get pairing, baby. Let's get pairing. ah So I had not planned this as a pairing, but I went to the grocery store this morning because I forgot to get dog food in my grocery order yesterday.
00:20:27
Speaker
um And I saw something on the shelf and I thought, I got to get that. Royal Canaan, obviously, is the best with cigars. My favorite dog food to have with cigars. No, this is just, I had to get butter also because my parents asked me to grab butter.
00:20:43
Speaker
um And walking back, I came through the beer aisle. Yeah. And I ran across some Andy Gator. Oh, dude. From Abita Brewing. This is the beer of New Orleans.
00:20:54
Speaker
Abita is everywhere down there. Yes. Yes. um So Abita Brewing, they were founded by Jim Patton and Rush Cumming in 1986. That is old school craft beer in Abita Springs, Louisiana.
00:21:08
Speaker
It's there about 40 miles north of ah New Orleans. um And they brewed 1500 barrels in their first year. That's not a whole lot of beer.
00:21:19
Speaker
I mean, that's a lot of beer for a small guy. um
00:21:23
Speaker
But I'll get to how much they make now. In a minute, which is a lot. According to them, the thing that makes their beer so special is they use artesian well water, um which if you've ever had artesian well water, it's real good water. So that that doesn't surprise me that they're touting that. It's fancy water. In 1994, so they had been there for eight years, they outgrew the original brewery, needed more space.
00:21:47
Speaker
um So they opened a larger production facility nearby and converted the original location into a brew pub and restaurant. um which is still open today. At the last count that they have on their website, at least, they were brewing approximately 175,000 barrels per year.
00:22:05
Speaker
So they have increased their production a little bit. Yeah, they're brewing a lot of beer, man. um Yeah, that's a lot of beer. I don't know how it compares to some of the other ah regional breweries, but this is Andy Gator. Actually, you'll see...
00:22:22
Speaker
some different versions of this pop-up because this was a, uh, one of those variety packs. So they had a couple different versions, but this is any Gator Helles Doppelbach, which is, ah an interesting name for a style because Helles means light.
00:22:39
Speaker
Doppel means double. So this is a light double buck, which is a ah weird, weird thing to call it. Um, it's brewed with German lager yeast, Pilsner malts, and imported German pearl hops.
00:22:51
Speaker
But the Hellas part comes from that color. This does not look at all like a Doppelbach. um No, I'm surprised. It's very light for a Doppelbach. Usually a Doppelbach is very dark brown, like think brown ale.
00:23:05
Speaker
um Not quite porter level of brown, but pretty dark. And this one's a little different, little on the lighter side. Clocks in at 8% ABV. um And I'm going to take couple sips and see how it pairs while you talk about ah your first pair.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, man. that's I'm so curious to hear what you have to say about that. I'm going to put my second pairing down because I've been waiting. My first pairing is the interactive portion of the show. going to bring you all on ah yeah on a journey with me.
00:23:35
Speaker
We're going experience something together from brewery ah that's kind of near and dear to my heart now, now that I've discovered them a couple of years ago, spending more time in Pennsylvania and really fell in love with the brewery and kind of what they do, their style.
00:23:50
Speaker
They're just so fun. It's Rotunda Brewing Company. They have two locations, one in Anvil and the other one Hershey, PA. So if you ever go out to Hershey, to the park, if you want to go check it out, they have a a brewery there and it's also a ah restaurant.
00:24:05
Speaker
so you can have a really nice meal they have great food and then get some of the cool beers and let me before i tell you more about the brewery let me show you the can so i can pour it because it is a nitro can very exciting nice love a nitro can all right baby check that out beer nerds beer nerds i gotta read this playing my camera is backwards i gotta read backwards hold on Nitro rainbow ice cream. All right. It's called Beer note Nerds.
00:24:33
Speaker
A nitro tart stout ale brewed with rainbow candy, soft serve ice cream, and lactose. Wow. All right. That is a wild, wild adjuice.
00:24:46
Speaker
little fun label there. It's a nitro can. There's some instructions, of course, for those of you that may not know how to deal with a nitro can. But what you do is you crack it open and you do it. Give a real good dump.
00:24:58
Speaker
You pour it hard. Like you do it in the morning, you know? Real nice, good tub. That is not the color I was expecting from that beer. Well, ah you know what?
00:25:09
Speaker
but but Neither was I. but I mean, it looks... Maybe it's different for you. It looks like milk. it No, it looks like milk for me, too. I'm concerned. I'm actually concerned.
00:25:21
Speaker
Now I'm actually a little concerned because the head is forming and nitrogen has done its thing. A bit of a quick cascade, but again, there's no widget in here, so this was canned with nitrogen in the can as well, probably some CO2 as well to to kind of kick it out, of course, but... um No, that's what it looks like. That's the... It looks like... ah It looks like a little bit of coffee.
00:25:47
Speaker
That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. Or that. Or that. Oh my God. ah Let me try this and see what it's. right. I'll talk. You try that. I'm going to talk about Andy Gator a little bit.
00:25:59
Speaker
This is not my first time having this. I had a couple of these at a couple different restaurants in New Orleans. It's delicious. It's delicious. ah You guys didn't see Dennis's reaction to that, but ah it was ah and was not great.
00:26:15
Speaker
It's so difficult. We're go to find out what he thinks in a second. um This very malty. It really has the flavor of a Doppelbach, but with ah without that kind of almost syrupy sweetness that you get a lot of times from a Doppelbach. It's a little brighter.
00:26:32
Speaker
um Got a little bit more citrus from those hops. um and it's working really well with the cigar. The spices calmed down on the cigar. Now more, ah that sweetness is picked up. There's some earth. There's some leather, a little bit of baking spice.
00:26:48
Speaker
ah All right, let's switch over to Dennis so that we can we can find out what he thinks of his beer ah that doesn't appear to be a beer. Oh, my good, good Lord. Hold
00:27:02
Speaker
on. You know that part where they said it's tart? It is beyond tart. It is so... It's puckeringly tart where you get that you know that the pain in your cheeks, like a little burn.
00:27:16
Speaker
um Sweet Mother of God, it it tastes like if you take Nerds, and you make an ice cream milkshake with seltzer water, throw Nerds in there, throw some ice cream in there, shake it up, and then for good measure, fill the rest of the to the top with pure lemon juice. It it tastes...
00:27:39
Speaker
And now the so the crazy thing is it looks disgusting. i was going to say, so what you're saying is it tastes the way looks. No, no. And so it's weird because it actually tastes fantastic from the perspective of, okay, nerds, right? They wanted to make a nerd's beer.
00:27:54
Speaker
Here it is. It does taste like nerds. it tastes exactly like nerds. But also, on the back end, it tastes like, well, shit, there's ice cream in there. It tastes like vanilla ice cream. But then also it's, oh, it's a sour beer, so it's fizzy.
00:28:09
Speaker
It's fizzy vanilla ice cream with... um I don't know. I think it's awful, but also great at the same time. ah Jesus, what a wild idea. It's a little chunky. The chunks are from...
00:28:25
Speaker
God knows what. probably I was going to say, I don't know if we can identify those chunks. Probably from the ice cream. But like, yeah, it looks like horse semen, basically, in a glass. And I know that doesn't sound appetizing, but if you get that out of your head, how it looks, if you close your eyes and you take a sip.
00:28:42
Speaker
Maybe that explains your reaction a little bit. It remarkably tastes like ice cream. It sincerely tastes like actual ice cream. Like melted ice cream. But sour. But sour.
00:28:52
Speaker
But sour. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds real funky, dude. It's super. i You know what? If I have a can left, I'm going to send it to you because you really need to experience this magic. um Let me give you a quick thing about that.
00:29:06
Speaker
Founded in 2014 by the Rotunda Brothers, Mike, Lou, and Dave, ah they, of course, have two locations.
Exploring Rotunda Brewing and Craft Beer
00:29:13
Speaker
Their main location is at the Batdorf Restaurant and Anvil, Pennsylvania, which actually is a pretty cool restaurant as well. It's certainly worth a shot to to check out if you're in the area.
00:29:23
Speaker
um We tend to stop in there every now and again. These cats started with a really small setup. They were only doing 10-gallon batches. As a professional brewery, they were doing 10-gallon batches. Wow.
00:29:35
Speaker
ah Eventually, they expanded to a seven-barrel brew house in 2018. So from 2014 to 2018, they were just making 10-gallon batches as often as they needed right to get to get people interested in the beer.
00:29:48
Speaker
ah which I think it's kind of reasonable at the same time, right? Because it gives you a chance to to kind of work out your recipes, to figure out what people want without really spending too much money at the front.
00:29:59
Speaker
Because really their focus has been a lot of sour stuff, fruited sours, really juicy IPAs. And I can tell you, even for a five-gallon batch, if you're going for like a hazy IPA, you're looking at probably...
00:30:14
Speaker
If you're not reusing your yeast, you're you're looking at probably like $75 to $100 per batch. Yeah. For five gallons. not Not exactly efficient.
00:30:25
Speaker
It's not exactly efficient, right. And good for them, I think. I kind of like that they start a little bit smaller. A seven-barrel system is completely, right, that that's exactly where it needs to be, I think, for their for their size and their size.
00:30:40
Speaker
their production. But the cool thing about them is they also ship anywhere in Pennsylvania. So you can go on their website, you can pick whatever beers you want, and then they'll ship it to your house within Pennsylvania.
00:30:54
Speaker
That's cool. but kind of you know I wish more places would do that here. Me too, man. i i god damn So many breweries, I wish they would do that. In Oregon, that was a big thing, which was really nice. But now that I've moved out of the state, I can't get a lot of that stuff anymore at all.
00:31:08
Speaker
Well, you need weasels back home to like help you out. That's true. that's That's how that works. ah They did receive a cease and desist, which was really fun, from the makers of Sweet Tarts. Nice. ah I think the beer that they made, it was called, like, they they changed the name to, like, Sweets or something like that.
00:31:28
Speaker
It was a sour series based on Sweet Tarts and using Sweet Tarts. Yeah. That sounds interesting. But, uh, with this beer, I, I kind of purposely changed my first pairing because I wanted, ah wanted the sourness to cut through the intensity of the first third of the cigar.
00:31:47
Speaker
And to your point, you mentioned some of those baking spices. That's absolutely coming out for me as well. I'm salivating heavily from the, from the acidity of this. And also it's a black can trip. You would appreciate that. That's nice.
00:32:01
Speaker
ah Black can, nice little label in the back. Um, But cute stuff, really nice. And technically, this is a really tiny brewery. All things considered in not a particularly popular area of Pennsylvania.
00:32:15
Speaker
Anvil is kind of there, but it's not there, but it is. but You kind of have to be a local to know where it is. Kind of weird places. It's not like a mecca for tourism. Yeah. So I say that to mean you're not really going to see a lot of people that don't know the area that know about this beer.
00:32:33
Speaker
Not yet, I don't think. But I think they do have the potential to really make it out of Pennsylvania at some point. But this is definitely a beer that you should keep in the can and never look at.
00:32:46
Speaker
You know those no-looker beers? that i Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. You just pop the can and drink it right out of that. Don't bother pouring it into a glass. um That's definitely one of those. and it's And I think I only like it because I love Gefir, which is...
00:33:00
Speaker
ah Like a a sour, pu well, it's a fermented milk. Fermented milk yogurt kind of thing. Cultured milk. It's kind of like a yogurt, but not exactly. It's a little more sour than a yogurt.
00:33:16
Speaker
um So I love that. I grew up on that, right? This Eastern European pin thing. And ah I like it because of that. But I think if you have an aversion to yogurt, this would absolutely make you gag and yak all over the place.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. But luckily, no octopus in this, so you can have it. No octopus, no eggs, no mushrooms. What else? Bananas? I got that cool El Pulpo lighter.
00:33:41
Speaker
Oh, wow. I'm going to show this off to you. ah This was a ah gift from the guys at Artesano del Tobacco. I called them artesano, I think, in the video, and I felt like such a moron.
00:33:56
Speaker
ah But look at this. little light. Oh, hey, that's cool. It tasers its way awake when you light it. Let me do that again so it's on camera. What happens? Look at that.
00:34:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You push a button and it's got like a little kind of taser that goes. That's super cool. and And sparks it up. Yeah, it's very neat. um Recharges with USB-C, which caught my eye.
00:34:21
Speaker
um I dig it, man. I dig it. right, I'm going to move on to my next pairing now. um My next pairing is a twist on something that I've had before, ah or rather a new expression.
Teeling Whiskey and Unique Beer Offerings
00:34:34
Speaker
Something I had before. This is from Teeling Whiskey. Teeling Whiskey. ah It was founded by... man i the way that I wrote my notes here don't make sense. It was founded by Jack Teeling. After working with his father at Cooley Distillery, ah which is mostly known for making Kilbegin and Connemara, two very famous Irish whiskeys,
00:34:58
Speaker
He worked there until it was sold to Beam Centauri in 2011. During the takeover by Beam Centauri, he negotiated the purchase, which I'm guessing he got a great deal, of 16,000 casks of aged whiskey as part of the sale.
00:35:14
Speaker
um So basically... My assumption is that they would they would take money off of what they were paying and give him whiskey instead, ah which is, ah you know, if you have the um opportunity to do that, I would jump at it.
00:35:30
Speaker
The following year, he used that this these 16,000 casks to launch Tealing Whiskey, ah starting with blends of that exact age whiskey, which was finished in various barrels.
00:35:44
Speaker
Um, that's kind of their, their bread and butter at Teeling is their barrel finishes. Um, which I think has been going really well for them. Oh, I definitely agree. People really dig it. And I think they've done a really good, good job with expressing kind of the vision.
00:35:59
Speaker
Sometimes it doesn't go over very well, but I think they've done a really well. Good job with that. Yeah, I totally agree. In 2015, they opened their own distillery in Dublin and began, again, producing their own spirits.
00:36:11
Speaker
I haven't been able to find out, um, how much of their releases these days are their spirits versus stuff that's still left over from those 16,000 casks or stuff they're buying from elsewhere.
00:36:23
Speaker
um But I know at least some of what they're using, if not all, is ah produced at their own distillery. All of their bottles so far, except for a couple of limiteds, are 46% ABV, which is, as we always talk about, a very nice touch.
00:36:39
Speaker
The one I'm drinking tonight is Teeling Single Malt. So this one is made of 100% malted barley, of course. It has to be for a single malt. um And it is matured and finished in five different casks.
00:36:54
Speaker
Virgin American Oak, Ruby Port, White Port, Madeira, and Bourbon casks. um So there should be a lot going on in this whiskey here.
00:37:06
Speaker
um Like I mentioned before, 46% ABV. um And man, just look at it. That's a nice looking bottle, right? like That's pretty. Very classy. It's a clean label. You're right. It's classy.
00:37:21
Speaker
It's clean. I think their branding has always been really on point. Yeah, I agree. um And ah a bottle of this, this is their single malt, which is kind of one of their higher end. It's about $60, which is not too bad.
00:37:34
Speaker
Which is a lovely price of entry for a single malt of any kind. Yeah, I definitely agree. um And to me, this is kind of their... It may not be their best whiskey, as some people would think, but um it's their most complex.
00:37:51
Speaker
There's the most going on in this whiskey with those five different casks on top of the spirit itself. um And those five different casks, they don't reveal exactly what they do. um
00:38:04
Speaker
I believe that some of it... Some of the whiskey is aged entirely in some of those barrels. Some of it is aged in one of those barrels and finished in another one.
00:38:16
Speaker
um So they're kind of doing some, some alchemy when it comes to mixing these barrels around and mixing the spirits within the barrels to get the flavors they want, which is part of the magic of But I think that's the, the mastery. I suspect, listen, if you get a half decent,
00:38:32
Speaker
distill it and you throw it into a barrel chances are you'll get something pretty decent but then i think the next level of that is to start playing with different types of barrels different uh you would start doing some blending doing well barrel blending not so much spirit blending if that makes sense yeah no i know what you mean it's um and that's kind of what's interesting about this is with this single malt it's all the same spirit and i believe that's how most of theirs work they're the same spirit the base spirit um And then they're doing all these different aging techniques on them in different barrels.
00:39:06
Speaker
They mix it all together at the end and you get something that's really complex and beautiful. But I'm going to take couple sips and try to wrap my brain around this. ah Why don't you tell us about your second pairing tonight?
00:39:18
Speaker
My second pairing, I promise you, does not look like horse semen. Thank God. It comes from brewery that I've also come to really love over the years.
00:39:31
Speaker
And I think, Tripp, you may have had some of this as well. This is from Fiddlehead. I don't believe I've had anything. Familiar with Fiddlehead at all? I don't think so. They're up Shelburne, Vermont, and they which is quite up there. It's basically right before Burlington, if you if you start making the drive up. So it's it pretty far up there.
00:39:52
Speaker
And they've really started to have a great presence down here, certainly in New Jersey, certainly in Pennsylvania. This I purchased in Pennsylvania. and And actually quite far within Pennsylvania. So it's nice to see their distribution has started to grow.
00:40:06
Speaker
They were founded back in 2011 by Matt Cohen and almost immediately expanded. they They really got so popular in the beginning that they expanded from a 3,000 square foot facility to a 35,000 square foot space.
00:40:22
Speaker
So they were brewing for Relatively short period of time in the 3000 square foot space. And then popularity. Certainly, if you think about back then, 2011, we're talking Heady Topper days.
00:40:35
Speaker
We're talking people were going to Vermont just to get beer. Vermont was the place to get beer. at you know One of the places to get beer at the time. ah Today, they're operating a 60-barrel brew house, which is pretty cool.
00:40:48
Speaker
they And they fill. I should say they fill their own cans. and they're capable of filling about 250 cans a minute. Wow. That's impressive. It is impressive.
00:40:59
Speaker
It is insane. That's actually really impressive because I talked about the size of a Beta. And I remember reading that they initially had 100 cans per minute. And then they increased their capacity up to 400 cans a minute.
00:41:13
Speaker
And they're they're a big regional brewery. Oh, would be just... it's they've They've been massive as long as I've been drinking beer. Yeah. So to be able to almost catch up with them is very impressive.
00:41:27
Speaker
think I've been drinking beer since I was... Oh, boy. I was 12. I'm just a wee man. been drinking since I was 7. Well, I started drinking beer when I was 12, but I didn't know anything about it.
00:41:39
Speaker
Not until I 13. Then I was getting into like... there you were Then you were getting real into like sours and IPAs and stuff. No, I got into sours when I was about 16 or 17.
00:41:50
Speaker
But yeah, back then it was like drinking a lot of Russian beer, a lot of Polish beer, Lithuanian beer. Just not great, like kind of malt licorice beers from over... Anyway, story for another time.
00:42:05
Speaker
Let me tell you more about Fiddlehead. In 2023, they produced over 91,000 barrels, which is you know it's impressive. It's sizable. it's The fact that you can make that much beer, no slouch at all, and the fact that people really dig your stuff to that degree, where now you have to keep up with the demand, I think it's certainly admirable.
00:42:27
Speaker
Their IPAs, So many of their IPAs have become their flagships. This is one of their flagships. This is called the Mastermind Double IPA. It comes in an 8.1 ABV.
00:42:38
Speaker
And the Mastermind is really cool because, let me see here now, it's called the, trying to remember what was called. ah So it's the Team Mastermind Fund. So 25% of all Mastermind Double like IPA sales ah are contributed to the Team Mastermind Fund, which provides grants to organizations dedicated to improving pediatric health and broad community wellness.
00:43:04
Speaker
So it's ah it's a really cool organization, and a lot of the proceeds from this beer go toward that, which is great. I love when breweries do that, and I think... Initially, ah was certainly when I just start started drinking beer, I thought, it's Hokey Pokey, right? It's marketing madness. People are just doing it to sound kind of cool.
00:43:24
Speaker
But yeah, if you look it up, it's actually kind of cool. And they're really doing this. And i love that more breweries are starting to do these kinds of things. I always love a company that gives back a little bit, you know?
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah. and it it could be to anything, right? It could it could even be to ah building a local dog park. And giving people with with dogs a chance to come and hang out. know, maybe that park just so happens to be at the brewery.
00:43:47
Speaker
Well, shit, I'm at the brewery. I got my dog here. What am going to Ah, I got a beer. Get a little puppy ice cream and and a little beer for for you, and why not?
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah. But quick fact fun facts for you before we go back to your appearance, because very curious how that's going. ah the Ranked as the 49th largest craft brewery in the U.S. by volume.
00:44:11
Speaker
in 2021. So that's kind of cool. It's kind of interesting. What number was it? 49th. Wow, that's... If you look at the state of New Jersey, I can tell you... I didn't check the last numbers recently, but we have...
00:44:27
Speaker
a Hopefully Matt Ross doesn't kill me for this one because I'm going to get it wrong. But we have like at least 300 breweries just within the state of New Jersey. Expand that out to all 50 states and all the breweries all across the U.S. To be picked out as 49th is crazy.
00:44:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's higher than I would expect for a brewery that's making 91,000 barrels a year. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, for them, they really, when they started, they were kind of focusing on draft beer. They weren't really doing cans.
00:44:55
Speaker
People love their stuff so much that they were, in a sense, sort of forced into, um you know, forced into starting to to use cans. Wow. Well, I didn't show you the beer. Double IPA, classic double IPA. There's not really not a whole lot to say about it other than if you like IPAs, I think you'd really dig this.
00:45:15
Speaker
Nice. ah That sounds right up my alley. What do you got going on with your pairing? Healing small tealing single malt. I almost called it small batch. That's the other one. um Small batch. Small batch.
00:45:26
Speaker
There's a lot going on in this whiskey. like It starts off with you you really get that um you know how when you drink a port I've only had a couple ports in my life but you know when you drink a port you can almost feel the grains of sugar
00:45:46
Speaker
Uh, yes. Yeah, I know exactly. So it's it's sort of, um, crystalline. Yeah. The textures as a crystalline texture. Yeah. You don't get the texture from this, but you taste that sweetness that makes me think of that.
00:45:57
Speaker
Um, and then there's, uh, there's like a little bit of a tannic quality, probably from again, the port and the Madeira. Um, there is almost, uh, almost a smokiness that's coming from those charred barrels.
00:46:14
Speaker
there's There's one more flavor note that I was thinking of.
00:46:20
Speaker
forgot what it was. Salt. There's little bit of saltiness. Salt. This is a very scotchy tasting Irish single malt.
00:46:30
Speaker
Maybe the scotchiest Irish single malt I've ever had. Wow. um have to get some of that. It's just got a lot going on. ah really nice but balanced sweetness. Yeah.
00:46:42
Speaker
And for me, like the the pairing side of it is bringing out so much chocolate and earth in the cigar, um which I wasn't tasting chocolate before at all.
00:46:54
Speaker
But now I really get kind of that chocolate vibe from it. You know, what about the IPA? How does this pair with an IPA? I'm curious. You know what? Surprisingly well. i'm I'm incredibly surprised, but I also think that, to be fair, my first pairing completely blew out my palate with with the lactose, with the acidity from the citric acid.
00:47:15
Speaker
We'll call it citric acid. But, um yeah, man, I think that it's working surprisingly and well in cutting through some of the ah sharpness of the cigar that's still... Well, I don't call it sharpness necessarily. It's the ah the intensity. We'll call it intensity.
00:47:32
Speaker
It's certainly still there. The only thing I would say is with this cigar and IPA, if you're not used to bitter things, I think that the IPA can make the cigar a little more bitter than it needs to be.
00:47:44
Speaker
Okay. Interesting. and that's And that's something that happens with with certain types of tobaccos that I've noticed with IPAs in particular. It brings out the sort of the qualities that you don't necessarily notice unless you have something to pull them out.
00:47:59
Speaker
And the the hop quality from the from the beer pulls out and holds on to all of those bittering elements.
00:48:11
Speaker
All right. Which is, I mean, it's not bad, but it's certainly something to keep in mind. Yeah. um Yeah, I know you and me don't mind bitterness. We actually, we like bitterness. Bitterness is a good way to offset other flavors.
00:48:24
Speaker
You had what for lunch? I had Frenet for lunch. There you go. I had Frenet and I had a Chimay Blue. Uh, bear was very excited to show me that. So, uh, we'll talk about this later in, in bear show. Cause we're going talking about some food.
00:48:38
Speaker
Uh, but we had muffled out of sandwiches from central grocery, which is, uh, an Italian grocery store. And you go in, it's not really an Italian grocery store. They have some wine, couple of, uh, like cordial kind of spirits, um, some beers and,
00:48:56
Speaker
various snacky things and ingredients that they make there, like the, uh, the olive salad and don't know. There's something else. Some other pickled stuff, pickles, oh pickled stuff, man. I drive the nail deeper into my chest about this trip.
00:49:12
Speaker
But one of the things that, uh, bear pointed out is that they had for net Branca and for net Menta there. My man in the grocery store, you could just grab a bottle and go drink it on bourbon street.
00:49:24
Speaker
This is why we're all in the same crew, you know, because we all we all get it. we We're all with the program. To be honest, I'm not certain that Bear has ever had Furnette. So maybe I should have bought it. Actually, no, I think he did have it last year when you brought it. think he, I'm pretty sure, yeah, he had Furnette. I'm pretty sure we subjected it to him.
00:49:40
Speaker
I don't think he enjoyed it. I don't, I don't, not many people enjoy the things that I bring on these trips. That's half the fun. But it is, it is half the fun.
00:49:51
Speaker
That's, that's absolutely right. ah All right. My last pairing tonight comes from great notion brewing. I've had this on the show before, but this was on an episode with, uh, John McTavish, the cigar surgeon.
00:50:05
Speaker
Uh, so you didn't get to see it. Um, I'll, I'll talk about a little bit. Great notion, of course, founded in 2016 by three friends, um, who were neighbors, became friends and, uh, started talking about starting brewery and we're like, Hey, why don't we, why don't we do the thing?
00:50:20
Speaker
Uh, so they started a brewery and tap room in Northeast Alberta street in Portland. Um, initially they sold all their beer on the, on-premises. Um, after about three years, they started small scale distribution after opening a production facility,
00:50:35
Speaker
um and since then they've kind of slowly expanded more and more um they are crazy creative they are all over the map they really focused initially on uh and part of what got them the notoriety was their northeast style ipas they're one of the only or rather one of the first uh companies to focus on northeast style ipas in the pacific northwest um they were also focusing on barrel aged sour stouts very heavily fruited beers from all of those styles, especially sours, but including stouts, IPAs.
00:51:10
Speaker
um They quickly gained a very good reputation and their beers became highly sought after. You can think of them kind of as the, you know, the treehouse of the Northwest um for a while there.
00:51:23
Speaker
and deal They kind of still are, um you know, people would come just to buy their beer. And it was one of those ones where if you were doing trading online, which I never did, Uh, if you had some of their beer, it could be as good as gold, man. You could get whatever you want for that.
00:51:38
Speaker
Well, I mean, you and I technically did some trades, but that was just a little bit, but I didn't do like the beer market trading. It wasn't a money trade. I have, I have this stuff. I want to trade it for that stuff. And you find somebody who's willing to do that.
00:51:50
Speaker
Um, these days they ship their beer to a couple different States. Um, Most of their distribution is in the Northwest. They have eight tap rooms total across Portland, California, and Seattle.
00:52:04
Speaker
um And they're they're still pumping out great beers that are not for the faint of heart. um You said how that beer that you had was not for people who don't like hops. These are not for people who don't like adjuncts.
00:52:16
Speaker
um They go pretty crazy with the fruit flavors. the um I mean, you'll you'll find out what this one is, but their barrel-aged stuff is crazy barrel forward.
00:52:27
Speaker
um Their sours are crazy sour. um They don't do anything half-assed. What I have tonight is Mr. French. ah As you can tell, it's ah at least sort of a reference to Reservoir Dogs.
00:52:42
Speaker
ah This is a pastry milk stout brewed with coconut cacao nibs, natural and artificial flavors. um And it says caramel as well on the website and toasted coconut, but it doesn't actually say that.
00:52:55
Speaker
No, it did say coconut, but it doesn't say caramel um on the can. It's only 5.8% ABV, which is out of i'm surprised the norm for them. They usually are Imperial boys, right? Like they usually like to get 10%. Looks like stout.
00:53:09
Speaker
um looks like a stout Not much else to say about how it looks. So I'm going to take a couple sips, see how it smells, see how it tastes. A little stouty stout.
00:53:20
Speaker
See how pairs with the the cigar of the evening. What you got up next? I realized that my, let me apologize in advance because my video was not in HD mode, if you will.
00:53:32
Speaker
And so and when I did my HD mode video, now it expanded all the junk and garbage that's in my palace of despair. ah So don't mind all the shit in the back. I don't even know what it is, to be honest.
00:53:44
Speaker
um Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Looks like, yeah, it looks like a box and a bunch of other shit. and Could be a case of guns. Could not be a case guns. see a human or down there.
00:53:56
Speaker
There, yeah, there's a little human or. Anyway, it's a long story. That's, that's for the After Dark segment. There you go. Um, dude, I, so thinking about this brewery, I was in PA and I went to a beer shop that had lot of cool stuff, of course. And none of the themes, right? I got all these beers in Pennsylvania at a beer shop and there was one beer that I was super jazzed about and I, I got it.
00:54:21
Speaker
I drank a can of it. I loved it. It was awful. It was great. It was weird. It was everything, uh, that I love. And looking through my notes, i I finally remembered that this is a place that you and i actually visited.
00:54:39
Speaker
Together? Together, baby. Okay, what is it? With the one one Mr. Famous on fun. Tripping Animals Brewing Company. Of course. Oh, my.
00:54:50
Speaker
So I was like, dude, I'm so I was so jazzed about this beer because I thought I've what is this tripping animals thing? I don't know what this is. It looks crazy. I'm going open it real quick. and And then you started researching them and you're like, oh they're in Miami. That's cool And then you saw a picture and we were like, oh, I've been there.
00:55:07
Speaker
And I had seven different beers from them. well Oh, my God. Tripping animal. Yeah, exactly. So it was one of those things. So before I get into kind of what what they're about and where they're they're at, you mentioned Miami. I think it's, is it Doral?
00:55:20
Speaker
It's Doral, Florida. Yeah, it's Doral. Doral? Doral. Doral. Not Doral. Doral. Listen. Let me let me speak speechify to you for a second here now. We get an area where I live.
00:55:34
Speaker
I'm in Vineland, New Jersey. Just outside of Vineland, New Jersey. We get a place called, on paper, Buena Vista. Oh, you've told me about this one. and These cats down here, them locals be calling it Buena.
00:55:49
Speaker
Buena. It ain't no Buena, man. It's okay. um We will agree to disagree. Buena Vista. It's Buena Vista and Buena Vista for a very specific reason.
00:56:01
Speaker
For the history of the people that came here and settled and called it Buena Vista. It was never called Buena, so getting off my soapbox. I don't want people knocking on my door.
00:56:14
Speaker
That's exactly what it is. um All right. Check it out. I fixed my camera. i think you should be able see Let's see. Year six floating.
00:56:26
Speaker
From Trippin' Animals. Let me tell you what it is, because this text is super, super tiny. It is a sour ale with peanut butter and jelly. In collaboration with Mortalis and Kings.
00:56:37
Speaker
I am almost certain I had that when we were at the brewery. ah Yes, you did. You and I did, and I remember it when I realized that we were there together. ah We both had it. We both loved it because it was weird and sour and tart and just funky and such a great representation of...
00:56:56
Speaker
I think a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a beer, because for me, I think it what it really brings out is the bready quality. What a lot of breweries tend to miss out is the the the flavor of the bread, that little like, how would you describe it? That like bready finish, the toasted bread finish. That weediness.
00:57:17
Speaker
I don't even know how to describe bread. Yeah, there's something there's something that breadiness that's been missing in a lot of these peanut butter beers that just taste like peanut butter, that just taste like jelly. This is really cool because it's actually made with, if I'm not mistaken, it's made with three different berries. made with strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries.
00:57:33
Speaker
Oh. And it's conditioned, so it's it's soured. I suspect what they do is like a kettle sour and then... After for primary fermentation, they throw it onto peanut butter. Of course, it's not going to be full peanut butter. It's going have to be powdered peanut butter or some sort of extractive of peanut butter because the fats in peanut butter, unfortunately, are impossible to work with.
00:57:56
Speaker
Yeah. It gunks everything. It screws with your head retention. It's just a mess. And then fruits, of course. but it's such a lovely beer.
00:58:07
Speaker
And now that I remember that we were there, it's even even more special. And they were founded in 2018, so a fairly young brewery by Daniel Chakron, Ignacio Montenegro, and Iker Elo... I can't say this name.
00:58:22
Speaker
Hold on. Iker? Iker? Iker Iker. Eloriaga. I don't know why that was so hard. You made it. You did it?
00:58:35
Speaker
congrats And Juan Manuel Torres. That was the easy one somehow. yeah but the ah Doral, Florida, as you mentioned, thank you for the correction trip. They are in a 15,000 square facility with a 15 barrel brew house, meaning they make a lot of beer.
00:58:52
Speaker
And now for somebody who makes a lot of sour beer, fruited sour specifically, that's a lot of beer because think of the demographic of people that drink this style of beer. Very small. And we when we were there, that place was pretty packed.
00:59:04
Speaker
That place was poppin' when we were there. It was poppin'. You had people coming in with friends, with dogs, with their kids. That was where we met furries, right? Yes, yeah. There was a whole furry party. was There was like a whole group of furries there. My my daughter, FaceTimed her so that she could see it. and She was so excited. She just thinks people dressed up as animals are so cool.
00:59:28
Speaker
And now, Drippin' Animals, the origin for the name... Interestingly enough, came from... it it's not tasting very good right now. I think it's the cigar. Uh-oh. The origin for the name came from... Remember those posters back in in the day? Like there those UV posters with the little felt?
00:59:45
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And it'd usually be like a frog smoking a pipe on a ton of on a toadstool or something like that. remember those. Sorry, a toad on a toadstool for those that, you the P-dance out there. I'm going to correct myself before we get angry emails about it.
01:00:00
Speaker
ah Yeah, so they they kind of went off of that like, hey, that's cool. It's kind of psychedelic and fun. Tripping animals, it's called that. And they are quite active in the artistic community in the area, which is pretty cool.
01:00:13
Speaker
Nice. That's very cool. I'm just so jazzed. It's such a weird beer. Well, at least I don't have to send you this one since you've already had it. That's true. um I'm going to let you take a couple sips and see if you can do some more research on how it pairs with a cigar while
Pairing Mr. French Stout with Cigars
01:00:30
Speaker
I talk about Mr. French.
01:00:33
Speaker
um Great label, by the way, Mr. French. Yeah, I love the label. it's It's nice because it's like, it's got their signature cartoon style, but it's very understated. Just the ah straight up orange.
01:00:44
Speaker
It's John Wick as a Frenchie. Well, I think it's supposed to be Mr. Orange, kind of but Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. But I'm not, I'm not sure. That's a fair point. um It's...
01:00:58
Speaker
it's a lot tamer than I expect from great notion. Um, I kind of wondered last time if the cigar we were having when I paired with it, um, overpowered a little bit, but no, it's, it's not as aggressive as most great notion beers. It's not as in your face, sweet as in your face, flavorful.
01:01:17
Speaker
Um, it's just a little more, little more relaxed, I guess, than most of their beers. Um, I definitely get a little chocolate, little coconut, um, that There was one more flavor that I'm trying to remember.
01:01:34
Speaker
Caramel. Caramel I don't get as much. um There's a surprising lack of sweetness to it. It's kind of a... It's a little sweeter than, say, like ah Guinness, but not by a ton, um which is kind of nice. This is ah an an almost dry stout.
01:01:54
Speaker
And it's working really well with the cigar. um Man, the chocolate on my palate is the one thing that sticks around from this beer.
01:02:08
Speaker
Sorry, I had to take another puff. How's going with the cigar That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm still getting a ton of earthiness and leather from the cigar. um This brings out a little bit more baking spice, a little bit more of that like black pepper spice that's coming back a little.
01:02:24
Speaker
um I think it's pairing really well with the cigar, actually. um i'm just kind of thrown that it's not as even though it's the second time i've had it that it's not as crazy intense as most great notion beers how's that uh that peanut butter and jelly working i'll tell you what man if at all i'm not getting any of the peanut flavor um a little bit of the the fruit sure is coming through mostly is just the sourness and and i think that's fine i
01:02:56
Speaker
I enjoy sour beers, so it's it's not an offensive beer, I think. Certainly one that should be enjoyed by itself, not with a cigar. All right. But it's not taking away from the cigar, at least, so that's good.
01:03:13
Speaker
All right. I got to do some thinking about my pairing of the night here.
01:03:18
Speaker
yeah I have to go back through my pairings.
01:03:22
Speaker
I'm going go back to the horse semen. I was going to say, I may recommend for you just to just to pick your middle pairing. i me let me Let me clear my palate out for a second with this. All right. Good luck. Tell how it smells worse.
01:03:42
Speaker
Tripp, you have kids. I do. I have kids.
01:03:47
Speaker
Oh, my. this This is like... Let me give you an image here. Oh, God. This is like if I had, you know when you have young kids and kids young kids go like, oh, I'm going to put this in here, to put that in there, I'm going to put the weird ingredient into this thing and eat it or drink it or whatever, right? Yep.
01:04:06
Speaker
The concoction. This is like if one of my children had a milkshake in Nerds. but It's like when um when a kid says they they want to make their own dinner and they make spaghetti with maple syrup or some something like that.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, like in Drop Dead Fred. These don't go together at all. Do you remember the movie Drop Dead Fred? I remember the movie. what Did they do... It's a favorite of mine. They had weird stuff there. Or... ah
01:04:35
Speaker
What was the movie with Robin Williams where he aged quickly? Bicentennial Man? No. He was a robot in that one, right?
01:04:47
Speaker
Yeah. it was like a single name It was like his name of the character. I think it was the name of the movie. I don't remember. But anyway, there was a scene where they were like mixing spaghetti with toothpaste and ketchup and all this kind of... He had to eat it. That kind of thing.
01:05:01
Speaker
but it It's like a beer that Buddy the Elf would make. Oh, Jesus, that's a great way to put it. Yes, yes, exactly. So it's like, I feel like kids are asleep. I'm cleaning up in the kitchen. I see this concoction. I go, you know what? Let me see what these kids are all about, what they're getting down on, what the new hotness is on the street for these three-year-olds.
01:05:19
Speaker
And then it's just, oh, it's not bad. And that's the thing that makes me feel more vile, that I think it's not bad. But, ah yeah. Yeah.
01:05:33
Speaker
Not knocking on the brewery, I think, hey, man, probably not the best pairing for a cigar. So I'm going to go with Fiddlehead, Mastermind, Double IPA. That's going be my pairing for the night.
01:05:44
Speaker
All right. What about you? For me, it is the Teeling Single Malt. It's just working really well with this particular cigar. I think there are cigars that we'll work better with. Maybe something...
01:05:56
Speaker
in the Habano wrapper range. ah yeah I don't know exactly, but you know, I'll bring it back. We'll try it again sometime soon. Um, and, and see how it pairs. I also have, i have a new another bottle that I got today that I'm really excited to pair with something, but wanted to save it and have, have only one brand new spirit this week.
01:06:18
Speaker
Um, yeah. Teeling single malt, uh, works with not only this cigar, but I could see it working with a lot of different cigars. All right. And with that, it is time for one for the road. This is the part where I've said this part so many times in the last two weeks.
01:06:34
Speaker
This is a segment where we talk about some media. We've been consuming a movie, a song, a album, a TV show. um I'll start because I have, i mean, I've, I've gotten makeup ones for the weeks that we miss. So I'm going to talk about a couple of things here.
01:06:51
Speaker
TV shows, just quick shout outs for the new TV shows that are on some of the best TV, not of the year, but of the decade is on right now, which is The Last of Us and Andor.
01:07:03
Speaker
um Both are incredible in very different ways. um Last of Us had the most unfun episode of TV since Negan was introduced on Walking Dead. Oh, you mean since Ned Stark was killed?
01:07:16
Speaker
ah Yeah, about like that. Like and a very unfun episode of TV, but it was incredible. um Just like when Ned Stark was killed. like you're You're mad about the character dying, but like the show is so good, you you want to keep watching. You keep going, yeah. um Andor is just as good in a different way.
01:07:34
Speaker
um I think it is possibly the best Star Wars ever produced, and we are now on season two. Wow. Brand new stuff. All right, my my two real one for the rugs.
01:07:45
Speaker
That was just my one for... one for the roads we we missed a couple weeks ago. This is my my real ones. ah I'm a fan. Skeleta.
01:07:58
Speaker
The new album from Ghost came out this week. um Came out on Friday, so it's only been out for a couple days. I've only listened to it all the way through once. um But my favorite song so far is Lachrama, which is one of their singles that came out a couple weeks ago. Lachrama Negra.
01:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, check that song out. That song rules, man. It's like i know it's got some like...
01:08:21
Speaker
It's got a really interesting kind of like, uh, when I listen to ghost, I hear all the references, all the, like the music they're imitating. And this one is like, if iron maiden covered a mashup of a Judas priest and a Metallica song.
01:08:41
Speaker
Like, it's it's kind of got all those mixed together, some 80s vibes, but then... I call it Swamp Disco. Some metal riffs. It's good. It's definitely Swamp Disco. Swamp Disco's a good name for it.
01:08:52
Speaker
All right. My final one for the road this week. Yeah. And this is because this would have been my one for the road weeks ago, but ah we didn't have a show.
01:09:04
Speaker
The last time we were on, our one for the roads were both... Hong Kong, Kung Fu movies. Yours was Rumble in the Bronx. Yes, sir.
01:09:15
Speaker
I watched a movie that really reminded me of Jackie Chan, and it'll be right up your alley called Love Hurts.
01:09:24
Speaker
Have you heard of this movie? for eyes Maybe. Let me look it up. It stars K. K. Hey, hey, Kwan. um The kid from... Oh, i yes. I haven't seen it. I wanted to watch it. Yes, I know the movie. It has very serious Jackie Chan vibes. This is a movie... Yeah, man. Short round from Indiana Jones.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yes. Sorry. ah In the vein of movies like ah John Wick, Frank... There's a couple others that I can't think of off the top of my head, but movies that are made by stunt men.
01:09:56
Speaker
They're made by people who have been doing stunts their whole life. And they basically built a whole movie around doing stunts. And it really harkens back to that, like early Jackie Chan kind of choreography, um, where he's in these fight scenes and, and just the use of the environment is so inventive and so much fun.
01:10:16
Speaker
I think you would really dig this movie Um, it happens to also
Movie Fight Choreography and Comedy
01:10:20
Speaker
be a love story. That's kind of lackluster, but the, the fight choreography more than makes up for that. It has some of the most fun fights I've seen in a new movie in years.
01:10:29
Speaker
Wow. That's, that's a tall order. If you're saying that, that's a big deal. It's like if John wick was a comedy and had less guns, it's not a comedy. I mean, it kind of is, but it's,
01:10:43
Speaker
it's in, it's in the same style ish as John wick. but really with a Rumble in the Bronx kind of style where, you know, it's it's goofy. You're laughing during the fight scene. I love the goofy scene so much. There's a fight scene where he got this award work And there's a fight scene where they're they're in his... I think it's his apartment or condo. And it's just getting demolished.
01:11:06
Speaker
Like, he's getting thrown through walls. He gets thrown out a window and then jumps in but from a different window kind of stuff. um he's He's getting his head slammed in the refrigerator and then opening... Popping the microwave door open into the guy's face kind of stuff.
01:11:21
Speaker
ah But he keeps dropping this award and going back for it. So the whole time, he's like...
TV Show Discussions
01:11:27
Speaker
uh getting punched in the face and stuff so that he can grab the award and then keep fighting and going uh it's it's great you'll you'll have a lot of fun with it it really watch it and let me know how how deep the jackie tan vibes go because i think they go pretty yeah i'm so i'm so jazzed to watch that and i i also just recently watched uh a recommendation from you which was uh uh ah Bondsman.
01:11:53
Speaker
Ah, yes. I watched Bondsman. I was so upset. and The final episode was so pissed off. There's nothing left. That was the whole thing. Six episodes and we're done. i didn't know. I should have looked.
01:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of a bummer that it was as short as it was. Hopefully they'll they'll make another season, but who knows? I hope so. I can't leave it where it is but So for us, show-wise, we've been watching a lot of You is back now with the last season.
01:12:22
Speaker
Mushu has been really fun. Handmaid's Tale as well. The final season of Handmaid's Tale is back. I watched the first two seasons of You and I think it was season three where we were kind of like, okay, this is... I'm over it.
01:12:39
Speaker
ah
01:12:41
Speaker
It's got a recipe. You gotta ah you gotta to be okay eating Mushu pork every week. That's a great way to put it. um Handmaid's Tale, I haven't watched at all. I need to watch it, but I just haven't gotten around to it ever.
01:12:54
Speaker
There's some gnarly stuff in there. I think the progression, the and i my understanding is that there's a really big removal from the content of the books to to kind of the series. The series really does its own thing in a lot of different ways.
01:13:09
Speaker
They take a lot of, what's the word? Artistic freedom. Yeah, artistic license. Thank you, artistic license. They take quite a bit of license on certain things, but still, I think, great show.
01:13:22
Speaker
so Certainly enjoyable, but my one for the road for today is going to be talking about disco.
Blues Music and Its Influencers
01:13:30
Speaker
Let's talk about disco blues. You anything about disco blues?
01:13:33
Speaker
Nothing. So there was a cat back in the day that put together his particular flavor of blues and soul that he kind of considered. He coined it himself.
01:13:44
Speaker
He said, yeah, I kind of play disco blues band. That's my thing. That's what I do. And ah this was a guy named named Buster Benton. Does that sound familiar at all to you? No, I don't think I've ever heard of him.
01:13:57
Speaker
Oh boy, Buster Benton, man. like If you like blues and if you haven't really had a chance to get down in the weeds, Buster Benton was such a cool cat that really, I want to say he was really popular back in the... Well, in the 50s, he was running his band in Chicago. And I think 1978 was when wow when the album Spider and My Stew came out.
01:14:24
Speaker
And that, like, everyone went nuts. it was It was one of those things that people, Chicago Blues, it was considered one of the standout Chicago Blues albums of its time.
01:14:36
Speaker
And it's a funny song because it's like, oh, you know, I found out there was a spider in my stew. Something, something, you know, not not quite unlike you. kind of sad, but also endearing in some interesting way. But if you dig blues, it's such a really cool perspective.
01:14:55
Speaker
It's so different. you know and And he was somebody who really looked up to guys like B.B. King. Sam Cooke and BB King, I should say. They were major influences for him.
01:15:08
Speaker
So if you're into the blues scene, if you don't know who this is, definitely check it out. Certainly check out Spider and My Stew. was the album, I believe, 1978. All right, I will check. Yeah, 1978.
01:15:21
Speaker
But, yeah, man. It's cool stuff. And, you know, to a certain point when he was in the band and producing albums and they were selling, he, at some point, ended up going back to just being a mechanic. and just left the business for a little bit and then came back to it.
01:15:35
Speaker
And he was playing music until about 1996 when he passed away. Wow, that's wild. but ah some There's some cool stuff out there and some real fun stuff. I feel bad because I always talk about the latest metal album.
01:15:47
Speaker
I don't give enough love to the other genres, and so that's that's my one. I think it's overdue.
Musical Transformations and Episode Conclusion
01:15:53
Speaker
I think that's the perfect one for the road for this week for you. Well, one of the greatest blues bands of all time, Black Sap.
01:16:01
Speaker
I mean... No, no, no. Black Sabbath... I'm not joking. like Black Sabbath, when they started, they were just a blues group. like they Were they really? That was their whole thing. They were just playing... They're like, alright, we got this this blues thing going on, but we're feeling kind of dark. Let's make it a little darker. added a little more distortion, added a little more attitude to and suddenly...
01:16:22
Speaker
Exactly. he was born It was in so many ways just how Led Zeppelin found their sound. When Zeppelin came out and they were playing stuff and they couldn't really figure out what they wanted to do and they kind of tuned into things couple little things differently and ended up with this classic Zeppelin sound that now we know is classic.
01:16:38
Speaker
Yeah. Which is pretty cool. Man, I never knew that. I'm to have to look at look into some of that real old Black Sabbath stuff. I want to hear what they sounded like in the very, very beginning.
01:16:50
Speaker
yeah Well, they didn't they didn't really sound like koi, like classic blues. They didn't sound like that, but that was their intention when they were starting to play together. Oh, okay. And then they discovered, which so by the time they had their first album, they were already starting to develop the Black Sabbath sound.
01:17:05
Speaker
um But they're sort of their origins, just like, what's his name, from ACDC, ah Singer from ACDC. What's his name? Brian ah bri Johnson. bri johnson ah yeah Google Brian Johnson before ACDC and watch one of his music videos.
01:17:26
Speaker
I will. He was Disco Man 5000 back in the 70s doing all this like, I love you, I miss you, come back to me baby. And then you see ACDC screaming complete removal from from his origins which is really cool.
01:17:43
Speaker
All right. I'm going to check that out too, man. You're giving me all the music to check out. Good job. It's music day today. I love it. All right, guys. Thank you everyone for watching and listening.
01:17:54
Speaker
Uh, we will catch you next week. We haven't decided what we'll be smoking yet. We'll talk about that in the, the after green room, um, and figured out. Yeah. yeah Yeah. It's the green room after the show ends the Brown room.
01:18:10
Speaker
Oh boy. I'm going to go to the Brown room after drinking this horse semen. but yeah yeah All right, guys with that, um, check me out later on L. Oh, so fumar takes tonight.
01:18:22
Speaker
Uh, we're going talking about the food of new Orleans and, uh, check us out later on, uh, our cigar coupe PCA a recap show on, think it's Tuesday, but I'm not hundred percent.
01:18:35
Speaker
So hopefully it's Tuesday. Um, Anyway, thank you everybody for hanging out, for listening, for watching. ah Dennis, hit him with that little catchphrase and we will see you guys next time.
01:18:47
Speaker
Ooh, I gotta catch my breath now. After drinking, i was chugging that beer. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.