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LGP 33 - Southern Draw Rose of Sharon
9 Plays8 days ago
This week we're smoking the Southern Draw Rose of Sharon Salomon from Casa De Montecristo!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. ah I'm your host, Tripp. This is Let's Get Pairing. And today we're going smoking the Southern Draw. Rose of Sharon Salamone from Casa de Monte Cristo.
00:00:31
Speaker
Reviews of these have been all over the place. We'll talk a little bit about that. I haven't read many reviews because I try not to read reviews on something I'm planning to to smoke on the show. um But we're going smoke this. We're going pair it with some stuff.
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm going to talk to Dennis. going to have fun. um So grab your yourself a cigar. Grab yourself a drink. Let's get pairing. Let's pairing.
00:00:55
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:08
Speaker
And we're back.
Meet the Hosts: Tripp and Dennis
00:01:09
Speaker
Welcome, everybody. This is episode number 33 of Let's Get Pairing. Rose of Sharon by Southern Draw. The Casa de Monte Cristo exclusive Salamone size. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit.
00:01:21
Speaker
ah For now, I'm your host, Tripp, here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio, actually. um And with me, as always, is my hetero broadcast partner ah from the Overlook Hotel once again. Dennis, Dennis, how are you doing this week?
00:01:38
Speaker
From the true castle of mustache twisters, I come at you live. Multinational. ah Good man. i'm I'm excited to see. i say that i I say that every week, but I really truly- It's always nice.
00:01:53
Speaker
Listening, truly, we don't often get to interact a whole lot during the week. It's always very quick. We both have very busy lives with with work and kids and just stuff going on all the time.
00:02:05
Speaker
This is like the treat at the end of the week where we can actually bullshit around a little bit, see each other. Exactly. like Even though we're we're a little closer now. Yeah, exactly. coast but great It's just great. It's like hanging out with your buddies.
00:02:19
Speaker
Listen, after kids and in your 30s and 40s and you get into your 40s and stuff, like these are the moments that... is true your body is so You don't speak at all. You just sit in front of your garage or his garage or whatever.
00:02:31
Speaker
Drink 17 beers. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. You just kind of like grunt at each other and make like little noises. Yeah, you just stare off into the distance and go, yep. Yep.
00:02:42
Speaker
King of the Hill style. ah Yeah, man. I'm excited to smoke this again.
The Allure of Rose of Sharon Salamone
00:02:50
Speaker
I've smoked this is like, I think my fourth one.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, I've smoked a handful of these as well. um I was lucky enough to go to the Doble Diamante launch at the Tampa store ah near me.
00:03:05
Speaker
um Met up with Joe Groh. He passed me a couple of these so I could try them out a little early ah because they weren't hitting the shelves yet. But now they've gone out to reviewers. As I was talking about before, I've seen a bunch of people post reviews of these and people are loving them.
00:03:17
Speaker
um I'm a big fan of the Rosa Sharon in general. So i'm looking forward to this, this bigger, beefier size. It is a big cigar, man.
00:03:28
Speaker
um it Let me check something here. I swear I just put in my notes that this is a box press. This is a, this, they call this a box press Salamone.
00:03:42
Speaker
Is yours box pressed? No. Mine is round as the Dickens. ah well but like it's just we it's just round i don't know maybe maybe they were going to be box press maybe somebody just made a typo who knows uh but this is the rose of sharon uh this size is exclusive to casa de monte cristo as you can see from that secondary band there which normally says rose of sharon man i love the band on this uh the pink just really looks nice on a cigar with the gold
00:04:16
Speaker
um Well, it's wrapper, no less. I think it's very pretty. it it it it um What's the word? Meshes with the wrapper. Very nice. Yeah, it has a it has a really nice ah contrast with the wrapper. That's what it is.
00:04:28
Speaker
um All right, so Rose of Sharon
Southern Draw's Legacy and Inspiration
00:04:30
Speaker
from Southern Draw Cigars. Southern Draw has been around ah since, don't know, 2014-ish, somewhere in there. I should have put it in my notes, but we're kind of doing this on the fly because we had a...
00:04:41
Speaker
We have a missing cigar, so we couldn't do the cigar we were planning on doing. There was a nipple slip in the green room, and one of the cigars had to be sacrificed, and unfortunately, here we are. Yeah, sometimes sometimes a cigar gets into an orifice, and you can't get it out.
00:04:55
Speaker
So, you know, you know how that goes. Everybody knows how that goes. Um, anyway, Southern draw, one of their later releases in the, um, they kind of had this, a few years of core releases where they were expanding constantly. They've slowed down on that, um, but are still, know, moving cigars.
00:05:14
Speaker
Um, This is, I think, one of their later, one of their last few core releases um or core lines that they added. ah The Rose of Sharon. It's their Connecticut.
00:05:25
Speaker
Sharon, of course, is the name of Robert Holt, the founder's wife. um She's a wonderful lady. so it's a grace lady It's pretty nice that he named a cigar after her to kind of honor her.
00:05:37
Speaker
um He's big on... um family on family on honoring people on uh he's just he's just a great guy man um price on these 12 17 which is a weird price 12 17 cents um pick them up at casa de monte cristo you can pick them up at any of the casa de monte cristo websites there's 25 casa de monte cristo stores across the u.s so if you're looking for this go check it out um Any first...
Cigar Composition and First Impressions
00:06:09
Speaker
I think there's significance 1217, isn't there or not?
00:06:13
Speaker
Is there? Is that a year something happened? ah i don't I don't know. i um i'm checking it out now, but i I'll get back to you and see what my research does, tells me. All right.
00:06:28
Speaker
Well, I'll get into the details of the cigar while you do that. So, wrapper is, of course, Ecuadorian Connecticut, as we already talked a little bit about. Nicaraguan binder, filler from Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, and it's made, as with all Southern Draw cigars, at the A.J. Fernandez factory um in Esteli.
00:06:50
Speaker
So far, I'm enjoying this cigar. i'm I'm enjoying it in the size, man. um I feel like it's got a little more power than most of the... Rose of Sharon's. um Not that Rose of Sharon is a super mild Connecticut.
00:07:03
Speaker
It's just, you know, Connecticut's a Connecticut. You can't, ah Connecticut can't get too strong. The ceiling is there, right? Initially, I was a little bit reluctant to smoke this.
00:07:14
Speaker
Generally, this is not a size that I gravitate toward. but I also, um i think it was just kind of curious to try Rose of Sharon that I've enjoyed and I've had a bunch of, and just wanted to try it in different size and see how the blend held up. And actually I agree with you. I think for me, for my palette as well, I prefer this size to ah the OG size.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm liking this more than the other sizes. Sam Fennel says, I thought all their cigars were flowers. um There, all the all of the core lines are. um Rose of Sharon is named after Sharon Holt, but ah the you know the the name originally comes, the reason he chose Rose of Sharon was because his wife's name is Sharon.
00:07:58
Speaker
And she helps him run the company, we should mention. Desert Rose? Yeah, Desert Rose is kind of the amped up version of this cigar that's a little bit stronger than this one. Not to be confused with that lady that killed her mom, right?
00:08:11
Speaker
What's her name? That's Gypsy Rose. Gypsy Rose. Different kind of rose. See, you don't want to get to the Gypsy Roses. You want to stick to like... Stick to the Desert Roses. Stick to the... Elegance.
00:08:23
Speaker
Elegance. um What do you think of this cigar so far? Flavors? Notes? I really dig the breadiness of it. Bready,
Pairing with Florida Konya 12
00:08:32
Speaker
kind of yeasty, sort of like you when you get fresh baked bread, it's got that, the you know, the bready smell to it. It's hard to describe, but you we've all smelled it.
00:08:41
Speaker
um Like an Italian, an Italian, what's that called? No, I don't remember the name.
00:08:49
Speaker
I live in Jersey. Everyone says hoagies, and I hate that they say hoagies. Roll? Roll? Sub, grinder? Nope. The long thing. Torpedo.
00:09:00
Speaker
ah turkey Torpedo? No, and na italian so and and just a dry... Sub sandwich? A a crispy Italian bread. Let's leave it at that. Okay. An Italian loaf.
00:09:12
Speaker
Italian loaf. There you go Are you talking about breadsticks? No. but Okay. I was like, is that the word you can't remember? Breadsticks? No. I, I, I, uh, what's that place? I hate that place with all the unlimited breadsticks. I can't stand it. Oh, Olive Garden. Yeah, awful. hate Olive Garden. It's garbage.
00:09:29
Speaker
they got They got good soup and good breadsticks, man. That's the only thing that's edible there.
00:09:35
Speaker
um That being said, ah really like the way that the cigar starts off. It's not too intense. The flavor, the intensity of the cigar ramps up very slowly, especially in this size.
00:09:46
Speaker
I think that does it justice. It does the blend justice. It does the the tobacco. doesn't The way I smoke super fast, it doesn't give the tobacco a chance to really heat up too much. Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
Enjoy. Yeah, I'm very curious how long this cigar is going to last for you because it's a it's a big cigar. 58 by, what was it? 46 minutes or so. 7 and an 8. 7 and an 8 by 58. Yeah, you'll be done before the show's over.
00:10:13
Speaker
yeah Yeah. You might have to light a second one. um I'm getting... ah As you mentioned, some, uh, what was it that you said? I'm brain farting on that now.
00:10:25
Speaker
Uh, readiness. ready readiness Yeah. Um, I also get some nice, uh, baking spice, a little bit of baking spice, a little bit of, uh, like a nice amount of black pepper, surprising amount of black pepper, I would say.
00:10:38
Speaker
Um, and a little coffee, a little mineral. It's got a really, this cigar has a really great kind of texture and layering of flavors where there's a lot going on.
00:10:49
Speaker
um You got to pay attention to it a little bit and um I'm enjoying it so far. We'll see how it holds up to some pairing here in a minute.
00:11:00
Speaker
right, I guess we'll get to the pairing now because I don't have anything else to say about the cigar because I new usually have more copious notes, but like we said, ah we had a last-minute change up here. ah But this is the cigar i was going to announce that we were smoking next week, so glad to get it going.
00:11:17
Speaker
All right. I should also say, i don't know how my pairings are going to go with this because I was planning to pair with a medium to full cigar, and this is kind of a mild medium, medium plus.
00:11:29
Speaker
um Just something in a different wheelhouse. So we'll see how this goes. But first up, I think I should be good with some Florida Konya 12. Always a great choice. I absolutely love Florida Konya 12. It's so approachable and accessible for everybody.
00:11:44
Speaker
It's the sweet spot, man. is. It is. this
Exploring Liquid Death Tea
00:11:48
Speaker
The sweet spot to me between the 7, which is just kind of the... If you're not familiar with Florida Konya, you've never experienced it.
00:11:57
Speaker
7 is your your kind of standard. the you know They're going to have that most liquor stores. um And it's a little bit rough. It's mostly made as a mixer.
00:12:09
Speaker
It is barrel-aged, so it does have... you know You can sip on it, but it's just a little rough around the edges. 12 keeps that... um I should also say it's it's very, ah very bourbon.
00:12:23
Speaker
It's rough around the edges, but it's very bourbon tasting. The 12 cuts the bourbon flavor a little bit um and kind of smooths out those edges. It's just richer, more ah more elegant version of the same thing.
00:12:38
Speaker
The 18, to me, is where, like, you really start to lose that bourbon influence a little bit, and it's covered up by kind of those classic rum flavors, the, you know, the...
00:12:49
Speaker
the syrup, the honey, the maple, and sugar, molasses kind of flavors. We had a really nice experience with the, was 21? think it was yeah.
00:13:02
Speaker
It was either 21 or had some strange number to it. It was like 21 or 22. It might have been 23. I remember it was somewhere between 21 and 23. think it was 21. We were confused initially. It was a little confusing. Yeah, because I was like, are you trying to say 25? Because I've had that one, and it's great.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really liked whatever that expression was. I really enjoyed it. I think it was the 21. And that was a very fancy bottle. The guy from at PCA pulled that out and was like, you want to try something fancy? They're like, sure.
00:13:35
Speaker
And it was good. PCA is one of those places, man, where you're always going to end up in a room or an area with somebody that goes, hey, you want to try some stuff? I got some stuff for you. Want to try some? And somebody hands you some unbanded cigar monstrosity thing that ends up becoming this unobtainium that you absolutely fall in love with and you never see again.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely true. um That's part of the magic. you just You just take whatever somebody sticks in your hand and experience it for better for worse.
00:14:04
Speaker
ah All right, so Florida Konya back to them. ah They're founded 1890 as a originally a sugar mill um by an Italian immigrant named Alfredo Francisco Pace And they kind of immediately as soon like he basically started a sugar mill and then was like Well, not gonna sell all this sugar might as well make rum So he started making rum kind of on the side ah and Eventually, it you know, it started off as kind of he was selling it to the locals. He was selling it to the the farmhand kind of people and stuff like that.
00:14:42
Speaker
um In 1937, so about 40 years later, ah they created La Compania Licorera de Nicaragua, the liquor company of Nicaragua.
00:14:54
Speaker
ah and started kind of distilling at full scale and and stopped doing the sugar mill thing. um These days, they're one of the largest producers of single estate rum in Central America. They are still,
The Bunahabin Experience
00:15:06
Speaker
everything is single estate.
00:15:08
Speaker
um And there something else I was going to say. Oh, yeah, green energy. That's one of the other interesting things about them. They 100% green clean energy. green ah clean energy A lot of people don't know that about them and and really don't expect that about them.
00:15:24
Speaker
I mean, it is to be fair, it is hard to set hard to ah determine whether they're actually using clean energy or whether they're just buying clean energy credits because that's a thing now.
00:15:36
Speaker
ah but What? It's a thing? Yeah, so basically a lot of companies you don't ah you don't actually use clean energy but you...
00:15:49
Speaker
pay for extra you pay extra to support clean energy so that you can say you're using all clean energy that's amazing i mean man companies will find any way in the world they can to throw money around and make more money spirit saying that they're not an alcoholic because they support people that don't drink amazing well hey loophole get an idea we're gonna jot that one down ai is gonna record this for us there you go um it right, so currently they're run by CEO and President Carlos Paz, five-generation grandson of the original founder, which I think is pretty neat.
00:16:28
Speaker
ah So they're still family-run company. I believe there's some kind of ownership with... the they I think they have a bunch of investors, but I don't know details about that. um They distill five times in a five-column still, um which is powered only by steam, which I think is pretty interesting.
00:16:46
Speaker
um Using a common so a column still means that most of the flavor of the rum really comes from the barrel aging. So this is an agricultural, no, this is an industrial rum rather than an agricultural rum.
00:16:57
Speaker
You're really getting more flavor from the barrels than you are from the spirit itself. especially with that five times distilling in a column still. um As with ah all rums, there's no there this is even though it says 12 years old, technically, if we're speaking legally, that is not legally and age statement, so they are not bound to it.
00:17:24
Speaker
Um, it's just a number they think goes with the way the rum tastes, but we like to go on the hopeful side and say, hopefully it's what's in there is at least 12 years old or at least mostly 12 years old.
00:17:37
Speaker
Um,
00:17:45
Speaker
I lost my spot in my notes, and I'm like reading stuff that I don't know if it even goes with Florida Cognac. Florida Cognac is the bourbon of rum. That's very true. um I don't see... ah That's
Gosling's Ginger Beer
00:17:59
Speaker
what I was looking for, and I was like, this has to be in my notes somewhere.
00:18:02
Speaker
It is. It's at the end. um Their master blender said that ah
00:18:09
Speaker
when he barrels the spirit, which is all aged in bourbon barrels, 100% everything at Florida Kanye is aged in bourbon barrels. Actually, that's a lie. There's some like they have some coffee infused version and stuff like that.
00:18:23
Speaker
And they have a couple of Blancos that are aged in steel barrels. Anything that's wood barrel aged is aged in bourbon barrels. um And their master blender has said that when he barrels it, he knows exactly what spirit it's going to be.
00:18:37
Speaker
When he tastes that that raw alcohol coming off of the still, he's like, this is going to be 12. This is going to be 18. This is going to be 25. This is going to be 21 or whatever it's called. um And so, which i I thought was like kind of a, ah that's different from the way I think most people do it.
00:18:53
Speaker
ah You just kind of see what happens and blend it together and hope it turns yeah right. Yeah, at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um Since 1913, the company has had a school for children of the employees, which currently has about 600 children from elementary school to high school, um which is a huge deal because, of course, being in Nicaragua, um you don't have access to the same...
00:19:18
Speaker
public services that we have in the U S that we're used to things like schools, things like hospitals, um, which on that note in 1958, they opened a hospital on site, um, to offer free medical care to employees and their families. Again, that's, those are both really important things in Nicaragua because,
00:19:36
Speaker
Um, if you're working at a place like a cigar factory, you're probably not making a lot of money. You're probably making enough to survive. Um, and so having things like that available to you is hugely helpful to the, Oh,
00:19:55
Speaker
Healthcare services in general from an employer and and additional public services via an employer are not very common at all. Not just in Nicaragua, but obviously we know in in outside of the U.S. yeah Things like having a set time to have a lunch break that's decent enough where you can have a break and eat your food and doesn't have really happen in a lot of places. And certain certain took people in um Nicaragua but have been really awesome and in supporting and providing those public services.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah,
Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic
00:20:27
Speaker
it's something we see a lot at cigar factories. um yeah Drew Estate has done it. Fuente has done it, where they have they either build a school or sponsor, you know help invest in in building a school um to help out their employees' children.
00:20:43
Speaker
Most of the bigger cigar factories, like those two I mentioned, have... healthcare care on site so that, you know, if you go to work and you're sick, or yeah even if you're, if you stay home, you can go into work and get checked out so you can get the medicine you need to get better. Um, which is not something a lot of people have access to there.
00:21:02
Speaker
So Sam says, i don't know if this is true or not. He says that those carbon credits, a lot of times they're buying algae to help clean the environment. That could be completely made up and I wouldn't know the difference.
00:21:14
Speaker
All right. So i'm going to take a couple sips of Florida Konya, which, by the way, is 40% ABV. This bottle will run you about $30, $30, $35. Yeah. great Great rum, especially if I always say this, and I feel like I've probably said it a thousand times on this show.
00:21:33
Speaker
ah If you're not a rum guy, if you're a whiskey guy, and you've never really tried a rum that you like, I definitely recommend Florida Konya. Pick up a bottle of Florida Konya, either 7 or 12, depending on your budget, um and just give it a try because it really it drinks unlike any other rum to me.
00:21:56
Speaker
Other rums have caught up. There are other rums that are almost as good now, but still none of them have that that magic that Florida Konya has. there's some There's something there, and certainly if you are somebody traditionally likes a a darker spirit, let's say, if you're drinking whiskeys.
00:22:13
Speaker
I think it's a really great transition to get into rums if you don't really drink a whole lot of rum. Yeah, absolutely. right, I'm going to take a couple sips. Tell us about your ah first pairing this night. Oh, my man.
00:22:27
Speaker
Let me show you what I got.
Maker's Mark 46 and Final Pairing
00:22:28
Speaker
Uh-oh. Oh, I got to fight this green screen. Oh, there you go. Wait.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh, bollocks. It's coming. Jeez, this is like the Tower of Terror with the flickering lights. Put it in front of my face, maybe. me Ah, there you go There you go Liquid death.
00:22:48
Speaker
but Liquid death. and This one is the T, and this this particular T is called Dead Billionaire. Dead Billionaire, I'll get into that in a second. going to tell you a little bit more about them. You know, they they actually, I don't I'll let you get into it, and then I'll tell you.
00:23:04
Speaker
Well, we may be talking about the same thing. That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Liquid Death, is ah is ah it's crazy that they started. It seems like only recently they got very popular, but they started in 2017. It was founded by Mike Cesario, and they came out with this idea of way they wanted to make cans that looked very much like beer cans or or energy drink cans.
00:23:30
Speaker
And that was their whole marketing thing. And I don't know if this is true, but supposedly the story is he and his wife they just filmed like a commercial for it.
00:23:42
Speaker
and sent it to whoever, they sent it out to a bunch of different people to see if they can get um anyone to bite on it. Basically, what they said is, hey, we got this brand, we're doing this cool stuff, come support us. Really, what they were saying is, they have no money to actually produce. So this didn't exist until someone said, that's a great idea, here's some seed money.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yep. and ran with it, which is amazing. So they took water. Initially, they started with water, just plain water. It's like two kinds of water, still water and sparkling water.
00:24:14
Speaker
And that was it. And from that, they've built this entire, i don't want say empire, not not to malign them in that way, but they've built this really cool following yeah they've gained a huge following so much so that like and when i first heard of them it was probably near the beginning they were doing those but ah pledge us your soul and we'll give you a free case of water if you if you buy one um so i tried that early on i may i may or may not have signed that contract yeah which was great it was fun it's cute it's okay
00:24:49
Speaker
sorry i forgot about my point was which was that they've gone from that kind of marketing to being sold in walmart every walmart now carries them walmart target amazon uh you'll see them in wegmans and and whole foods and trader joe's i think soon i don't know maybe um
00:25:12
Speaker
You see them also a lot at bars and sporting events, concerts, stuff like that. Huge. So I'm going to get a little bit into that in just a second. All right. You do your thing. I'm going to stop interrupting and drink rum now.
00:25:25
Speaker
Let me tell you about this. I've been a huge fan since day one, and they transitioned to doing not just water, to doing sparkling. um Well, so they had sparkling water, but it was unflavored. So they moved to flavored sparkling water, which is really cool.
00:25:39
Speaker
Recently, they started doing tea. which i'm ah I'm a huge fan of. So this is an iced tea. This used to be called the Armless Palmer. They have great names for stuff if you like that kind of humor.
00:25:51
Speaker
This was called the Armless Palmer. They got sued by the Arnold Palmer Foundation for stealing that's basically tea and and lemonade, right? So now they called it the dead billionaire.
00:26:03
Speaker
That's a nice little nod to, you know, screw you guys. Yeah, a nice little middle finger to the Arnold Palmer Foundation. They came out, and they came out, and they they took something that was kind of boring, and nobody was really touching, water, and they turned it into the ultimate marketing, kind of genius marketing ploy of,
00:26:23
Speaker
This looks like beer. I'm sitting in my car and their videos, you can send them a video if you get stopped by a cop. They'll send you a case. Really? That's so funny. Well, I don't know if they do it anymore, but but the if you get stopped by a cop drinking a liquid death and film it, because it looks right. It looks like it looks like a beer can. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of that was kind of the point, like you said. like So you could be at a bar and all your buddies are slamming you know tall boys and you can have a tall boy of something that's not alcohol just so you don't feel left out.
00:26:53
Speaker
Now I say, you know, yes, the branding, the marketing, everything's a little bit edgy, um but there is some some quality to this stuff. So the water really does come from um the Austrian Alps. So it's actually so fairly fairly good water. the The materials, everything that goes into all the drinks that they make are pretty good quality stuff.
00:27:13
Speaker
um Some of the profits are donated to help reduce plastic pollution. So that's, they have the tag phrase on the can, death to plastic, it's a hashtag. Death to Plastic, um which is really great.
Favorite Pairings Recap and Recommendations
00:27:28
Speaker
And they even have a, it's interestingly enough, they are ah vegan certified. So it's water. it's just water, so.
00:27:38
Speaker
But they they purposely got the the certification to to kind of as another nod to the fact that they really support meaningful kind of things, reducing impact in different ways.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's not just them doing stupid things. Now, Let me tell you a little bit more about the celebrities. You mentioned concert venues and all these different places that have Liquid Death. They have so many fans that are celebrities that they've had a couple of really cool collaborations. you I'm sure you remember a couple of them. Yeah, I've definitely seen a couple of All right. So in 2021, I love this one. I didn't get my hands on it.
00:28:11
Speaker
I wish I did. So Liquid Death and Tony Hawk came together and they made a limited edition skateboard that was painted with some of Hawk's actual blood.
00:28:22
Speaker
Now... You may feel however on the fence on that, that's fine. ah But Steve-O, I also missed this. I ive i was like, i hit the buy button and it was sold out the second that the buy button. these kind of things sell out really fast.
00:28:36
Speaker
Well, yeah, they became it they became kind of like a big deal following thing. Steve-O shaved a bunch of his, well, let's say he shaved his hair and donated it and they turned it into um voodoo dolls with Steve-O's hair.
00:28:52
Speaker
Wow. And a little box, like a cute... So, fund the fun marketing, the commercials were really great. When they released the tea, it was a bunch of old ladies sipping tea. And then a metal band comes in and does some gnarly stuff. And the old ladies are now like badass drinking this cool tea.
00:29:09
Speaker
So, you understand. You know me well. Did you see the recent collaboration that they did with the Yeti? Oh, yes. It was a coffin. So, was it a full-size...
00:29:21
Speaker
human-sized coffin, but it was a Yeti cooler. Yeah. They had yeti cool Yeti custom make them a coffin that was a cooler. Their marketing is just way over the top. They're basically a marketing company.
00:29:36
Speaker
But it's it's great marketing. I love watching. It's great marketing, and I tell you what, at any given point, I have at least several cases of water, several cases of tea, several cases of seltzer,
00:29:50
Speaker
I love their stuff and it's great to hydrate and always i enjoy that sort of like, what the fuck? What were you drinking? What is that? Yeah. Let me talk to you about this as I turn on my giant neon sign of liquid death that I have in my office.
00:30:05
Speaker
I forgot you had that. Point is, I'm pairing this with cigars because I find it's a really great, I often drink liquid death in between pairings when we do our show or even when I'm just on my own smoking and sipping on some rum or something else, I'll have just the regular water.
00:30:22
Speaker
So like just the the sparkling water to help the bubbles. We talk about the cleansing of the palate a little bit, the brushing of the palate, the scrubbing, I should say. That's what I keep liquid death around for sometimes as well when I smoke. And I love...
00:30:37
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of sugar in the tea, so the tannins of the tea really pop. And with a cigar like this, I think it does a good job of of bringing out some of those more subtle flavors. I wish that the tea had a little more ah a little more of that, like, tannic tea flavor, but I like that it's um it's like a half-sweet tea, which I really like.
00:30:56
Speaker
Like, whenever I get tea, I'm usually getting half-sweet tea because I love the flavor of sweet tea, but it's so much sugar that, like, it kills my teeth and my tongue. It's bismuth. can't use it. So I do half and half or third and ah two thirds to cut the sweetness.
00:31:11
Speaker
And their tea is just made like that. And it's like it's the perfect amount of sweetness. i think You know what you need? You need to get down on the green tea that they make. If you never had the green tea. I haven't had that one, actually. Get that one. It will make it so tannic. It will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth. Hell yeah.
00:31:26
Speaker
It is excellent. It's so good. I'm in for a For a long time, um ah when I was at work, this was 10 years ago when I worked in an office, I would have matcha at my desk. So I was always making matcha and just drinking straight matcha, no sugar.
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah. it was that guy that I sat at my desk with a hand grinder and grinded my coffee beans in an open ah in an open office environment where we're super quiet. And I just start like...
00:31:55
Speaker
Two minutes of just... Do you feel like John McTavish at PCA? Yes, basically. Basically. all right. Well, you take couple sips of that so you can tell us how it pairs.
00:32:06
Speaker
um My Florida Cognia is working really well with this. um I was finding it really brings out kind of the the really subtle sweetness in this cigar um by pairing it with that sweetness of the Florida Cognia.
00:32:21
Speaker
um The cigar...
00:32:26
Speaker
I was having trouble placing it. I was going to call it an earthiness. It brings out like the tannic qualities in the Florida Kanye. I think saying that word got it stuck in my head so that it made more sense to say it that way.
00:32:39
Speaker
um I'm also noticing that spice in the cigar is ramping up for sure. It's definitely getting a little more intense, a little spicier, especially in the retrohale.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, I really enjoy the retrohale on this.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I kind of like how on the palate, it's got a dry smoke to it, but it doesn't dry out your palate at all. Do you know what I mean?
00:33:09
Speaker
Does that make any sense? Yeah, it does, actually. It's an interesting point. i I know exactly what you mean. I never really thought about it when I was smoking a cigar, but it doesn't have that that parched effect.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of Connecticut's do that to me, where I feel like they the smoke sucks all the moisture out of my tongue. And that happens very often as well for for me ah with a lot of, I don't dislike Connecticut's, but I tend to not really smoke them unless I'm in a particular mood or if I know that I'm, let's say in this case, right, I'm drinking the tea.
00:33:42
Speaker
I find that that works for me really well. Iced tea with Connecticut's works very well. I can see that working really well. All right, going to move on to my next pairing, see how it pairs.
00:33:53
Speaker
The Florida Konya I'm really enjoying. is That like tannic bitterness, barrel bitter. char be yeah um it really works so i'm gonna see how this next one pairs this is bunahabin oh great great stuff man just good luck looking at that word and knowing how to say it that's all i gotta say about it like look how many n's and h's and a's are in that word god that's your name if i ever saw one so bunahabin
00:34:25
Speaker
That is, I think ah perex the correct pronunciation. Um, they're founded as the label up here says in 1881 on Isla, but this is not your, your typical Isla whiskey.
00:34:40
Speaker
Um, so they're on the Northeast corner of Isla on the facing kind of the, the shoreline that goes towards the Isle of Jura. Um, Even today, they are the most remote distillery in Islay with their closest neighbor being Cowilo, which is about four miles away.
00:34:59
Speaker
Islay is not a gigantic place. um I think the Lagavulin and Laphroaig are like, I think it's 12 miles away, which is the entire other side of the island.
00:35:11
Speaker
um But there it's a very remote and it was way more remote in 1881. um I can't even imagine how they were getting supplies there in the 1800s. Well, I do know how, and I'll get to that in a minute, but it must have been hell.
00:35:29
Speaker
Um, the village of Buna Haban was founded as a home for the distilleries, um, for the distillery workers, rather, uh, And because they kind of built the distillery out in the middle of nowhere because it was near a so a so natural spring.
00:35:46
Speaker
um And once people worked there, they didn't want to, you know, walk all the way home four miles or more ah to get home. So they kind of started a little village there and it turned into a town ah for decades, many decades.
00:36:03
Speaker
ah over almost 100 years, it was only supplied by ship. They would have boats come in from the mainland to drop off supplies, and that was the only way they did any kind of trading because you couldn't get ah cart there.
00:36:21
Speaker
You could get a horse there, but you can't carry that much on a horse. You can't carry a truck full of barrels. uh, or I should say a wagon full of barrels. Um, their first road from, from the rest of Iowa was built in 1960. Uh, so it was, it was about 80 years that they had no roads, just boats.
00:36:44
Speaker
Uh, you, you were lucky to get there alive, I would say. Um, In 1885, so they were brand new. This was four years after they officially started.
00:36:55
Speaker
As far as I could tell, this isn't one of those distilleries that it was distilling for 100 years before they actually got licensed. um But in 1885, so they'd only been around for four years, ah the... Man, I should put the guy's name, but I can't pronounce it, but he's like the Grand Chairman of Whiskey or something like that. Oh, his name is impossible to pronounce. Yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
i In the 1800s, in 1885, he visited the distillery and said that it is the most automated distillery he's ever seen in Scotland. They had stuff like steam-powered elevators and steam-powered conveyor belts to move things around, stuff like the barley going up and down the stairs.
00:37:35
Speaker
and They even had a, I love this. They had an Archimedes screw for the barley so that it, so that, you know, in most distilleries, you had to carry bags up, dump them out on the floor, and then use shovels to spread them out so that you could malt the barley.
00:37:54
Speaker
um And they had automated pretty much the whole thing. So it' was a lot less work for them. They were the first building on the island to have lights, electronic lights in 1894.
00:38:07
Speaker
Man, just imagine going back 130 years and living back then when you had no lights. You didn't even have lights. I'm trying to remember. LeFruik had a similar kind of thing where they were
00:38:21
Speaker
oh man i'll remember it but yeah that that's pretty gnarly it it could be something like lafroig may have i mean it may have been weeks later that lafroig got power um and they may have uh had a lot more electrical machines um that we're were ready to go or something like that maybe they were the first ah i don't know distillery to have full electricity or something like that because yeah ah In the, in the, in what I found, Boonehaban only had lights. In 1894, they only got lights. They didn't have anything else that was powered by electricity.
00:38:58
Speaker
um It's been said for a long time, many years, many decades, that when they designed the distillery, it was designed by a ah the designer of the prisons in Scotland.
00:39:12
Speaker
ah because it looks like a prison from the outside. In reality, it was actually designed like a ah ah French Bordeaux chateau. um So, you know, big fancy with ah kind of inward-facing... What do you call those things? Balconies. Yeah, courtyard.
00:39:33
Speaker
ah In the they... they See, the way that this was worded when I found it ah was that in the 1950s, they started using spring water. I think it's that actually in the 1950s, they started using exclusively spring water because the whole point of building it there was because there was a spring.
00:39:53
Speaker
um Since then, they've been only using spring water. um And right now, they are the only distillery only using spring water for their distilling Islay. Interesting.
00:40:04
Speaker
Interesting. um And lastly, of course, they're they're known for their unpeated whiskeys. They're on Isla, but they're not peating most of their whiskeys. um So that you don't have that intense smokiness, but you still get a little bit of that Isla vibe.
00:40:20
Speaker
um A little bit of the kind of like... Yeah, the minerality, i always call it iodine salt ah salt spray is what I think of.
00:40:31
Speaker
Like that feeling when you're near the beach, you're not on the beach, but you're near the beach and it's a real windy day and you can taste the salt. You know what i mean? Wow.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah. Like if you're at the Jersey Shore, and you lick your lips and you can taste the salt in the air. um That's what it reminds me of. i love whiskey. Um, cause you do get a little bit of that salt influence.
00:40:53
Speaker
This is their 12 year. It is aged 12 years in a mix of Sherry bourbon and whiskey casks, which i assume means second use scotch.
00:41:05
Speaker
Um, But who knows? Maybe that's rye. Maybe that's something else. ah This is bottled at 46.3% ABV. So it's a little stronger than your typical, but not too bad.
00:41:17
Speaker
So I'm going to take couple sips of this delightful drink and let you talk about your first pairing of the night. Or second pairing night. Drunk already.
00:41:29
Speaker
ah
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah, man. Let me see if I can get this one to actually pop up. since I don't have a proper backdrop. Just remember to hold it in front of your face. Not quite yet. i My face seems to be great for blocking lots of things.
00:41:46
Speaker
There we go. Look at that. Oh, almost. Straight from Ryan Gosling. Gosling's ginger beer. ah You either know this very well or you have seen this in the store and have been kind of curious. Like, what's the deal?
00:42:02
Speaker
What's the deal with this ginger beer thing? um I'm still surprised, i guess, that a lot of people haven't tried any ginger beer, let alone Gosling's. and And I recommend you try it if you haven't. It's a soft it's soft drink. There's no alcohol in it.
00:42:18
Speaker
um It works really well with a lot of different things. But Gosling's is... it's It's wildly fascinating to me. The the whole story with Gosling is really fascinating. The Gosling family has been around in business officially since 1806. They started doing rum, producing it in Bermuda.
00:42:38
Speaker
In Bermuda today, right, so they started with the rum. They moved to the ginger beer. ah But in Bermuda today, Gosling's is like... Just about everybody drinks, whether they mix it with alcohol or they don't mix it with alcohol.
00:42:52
Speaker
Everybody absolutely loves this stuff in Bermuda. And it was so popular there that it ended up making its way around the world to all kinds of places. And the cool thing with them is the Dark and Stormy is the the they're the official ginger beer for the Dark and Stormy.
00:43:10
Speaker
They trademarked that cocktail. I had no idea they had a trademark. I didn't know they had a trademark on it. That's interesting. They trademarked it because they make black seal rum. Hence the... hint They make both parts. so Seal, yeah. they They make both parts. They trademarked that cocktail.
00:43:27
Speaker
um I'll get into the seal a little bit in a little bit. it's It's kind of really cool. But Gosling's, in terms of ginger beer, is specifically unique in that the ginger is really sharp.
00:43:39
Speaker
yeah It's got a lot more. it's It's purposely got a lot more carbonation than than you would expect. um I'm curious if you know about this. Do you know what the difference is between ginger ale and ginger beer?
00:43:53
Speaker
ah Oh, I didn't know this at some point. It's the.
00:44:00
Speaker
Hold on. I think there's actually multiple differences. Yeah, one. So one of them is carbonation. ah Is it the sugar content? Fermentation.
00:44:12
Speaker
Oh, the beer is fermented. Yes, ginger beer is fermented. Ale doesn't have to be. um As far as I understand it, that's kind of where the term ginger ale came from, was companies like Seagram's and what's that other one? Canada Dry. Canada Dry. I love Canada to Dry. They were making a ginger, a carbonated ginger thing, but they're not allowed to call it ginger beer because it wasn't fermented. So they just called it ale.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah, man, I completely forgot about that. its So a lot of ginger ales, you'll see that they, not all of them have this, but a lot of them will have the, contains less than 0.5% ABV.
00:44:53
Speaker
Oh, I've never seen that actually on on any of those. Interesting. I've also noticed there's a difference in the in the the the quality of the ginger, the spice. Yeah, a lot of times ginger beer has like chunks of ginger in it.
00:45:07
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:45:11
Speaker
There's oh, it's very carbonated. Jeez. There's a brand of unfiltered ginger beer that comes in glass bottles with cane sugar. green ones?
00:45:23
Speaker
I don't think it's, no, if they're not green. They're clear bottles. They're clear bottles. i I absolutely love them. i forget their name. I don't know if they're still around, but let me tell you a little bit about this whole Gosling thing because I was really fascinated.
00:45:36
Speaker
this It's the black seal rum. is a huge part of their their history. they right they started They started making this black seal rum way before they started making ginger beer. And ah around World War Gosling started to sell their rum in champagne bottles due to a shortage of glass.
00:45:54
Speaker
There's no glass around. And they started to sell, Sally sold seashells by the seashore, obviously. They started to sell their rum and champagne bottles and they were sealed with black wax to prevent any kind of leakage.
00:46:10
Speaker
And eventually they started to refer to as the black seal rum. The name kind of stuck. They were like, oh, okay, I guess we're going to put a black seal on, on part of the branding. And that's how we ended up with the seal. That's now in the can.
00:46:23
Speaker
It's on the, it's on that's awesome. I had, I never knew i would have never connected those dots. Because a guy like a gosling, if you Google a gosling, gosling is not a seal.
00:46:34
Speaker
A gosling actually is ah is a is baby goose. I was going to say it's a bird, right? It's a bird. It's a baby goose. It's a gosling, like a starling. Nope, bad example. Starlings are different. starlings I was going to say, isn't starling its own thing?
00:46:50
Speaker
It is. All right.
00:46:55
Speaker
I had a thought, but anyway, so ginger beer, I think is really a great, in general, it's really great pairing with cigars, not just for the carbonation, but that level of spice and the sugar.
00:47:06
Speaker
This is something that is often kind of, especially with new smokers, overlooked, is the importance of having something sweet just in case, because the nicotine will drop your blood sugar,
00:47:17
Speaker
And that's why you'll see, i don't know if shops do this anymore, but I've seen tons of shops that have bowls of candy, like hard candies. Yeah, a lot of shops will have bowls of candy, packets of sugar or sodas.
00:47:32
Speaker
Like pretty much any shop will have one of those three.
00:47:37
Speaker
And it's great. And again, going back to the bubbles, it's always about the bubbles. It's such a great way to cleanse the palate and ginger in general. If you start, not to mention, if you start feeling kind of queasy from a cigar, whether it's whether whether you're you know an experienced smoker and you finally hit that Lajero that smoked way too fast because you're on your third cigar and you're hanging with friends, or if you just picked up a new cigar for the first time, the ginger will help settle the stomach a little bit.
00:48:03
Speaker
Sugar will help with the nicotine drop, ah with the blood sugar drop from nicotine. And the bubbles will scrub your tongue a little bit in between draws of the cigar so you can really experience what the cigar is about.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah. like Well said. It's kind of multifaceted.
00:48:22
Speaker
Well said. ah All right. So Buna Haban. This is a great scotch, man. It's... ah It has, like, some of those... it's It's such a good mix of different scotchy flavors.
00:48:37
Speaker
It has, like, an intense hard candy kind of sweetness. um A little bit of... There was some word I was thinking of, but now I forgot what it was. Butterscotch.
00:48:48
Speaker
It reminds me of butterscotch candies. Grandma candies. Oh, yeah. Those are great. It finishes with that, man, that those sherry barrels are are all over this.
00:48:59
Speaker
It's got like that, it's just such a nice mix of the sweetness of butterscotch with the sweetness of sherry, which is kind of a
00:49:10
Speaker
almost plummy kind of sweetness, I guess. um And then there's not really smoke to it. but you get a little of that salty, like I said, sea spray, a little bit earthy kind of flavor.
00:49:27
Speaker
um Man, I just love this scotch. I can't believe I'd never tried it until like last year.
00:49:35
Speaker
And it's again, working really well with the cigar. The cigar is just a pairing champ so far.
00:49:42
Speaker
Any notes on how it's working with that, that black seal? Fantastic. Fantastic. I, I, Again, I love liquid death. It's great. but I love the tea, especially what I'm having here.
00:49:55
Speaker
I think the the bit of carbonation is really doing so much for the cigar and bringing out even the retrohale is now different. It's kind of a fuller flavor on the retrohale, not just that black pepper spice, but it's it's got a roundness to it.
00:50:09
Speaker
um What's the I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it.
00:50:14
Speaker
Well, it's more savory, if that makes sense. Yes. Um, I'm definitely getting that. It reminds me of that, uh, that note that I always am hunting for and can never quite identify that reminds me of the char on a steak where it like, it's a little bit sweeter from that caramel caramelization and, ah has just that, that umami meatiness.
00:50:44
Speaker
Absolutely. That's what it reminds me of. Um, And I also started getting something else. Oh, a little bit of citrus. Getting a little bit of citrus now, which is nice. Brightens that up a little bit. Ready move on? Last pairing?
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it, man. Let's do the thing. So this one... i was afraid to pair it with my other cigar that we had chosen. um i'm real worried about this one. This is...
00:51:12
Speaker
You may remember this. Maker's Mark 46, Bill's Recipe, French Oak Cask Strength. um So a little history on Maker's Mark before I get to it.
00:51:23
Speaker
ah Maker's Mark was created when Bill Samuel Sr. purchased the Burks Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky for about $35,000. I wish I could buy a distillery for $35,000, but that was 1953.
00:51:37
Speaker
Money doesn't work that way these days. Yeah, slightly different kind of money. In 1954, about a year later, they started Maker's Mark. um Or they started distilling Maker's Mark, I should say. And the run was first bottled in 1958. Ever since the very beginning, the very first run had the iconic wax seal.
00:52:00
Speaker
um In the 60s and 70s, I love this little fun fact. ah makers mark advertisements use the tagline tastes expensive and it is
00:52:15
Speaker
just very matter of fact um different back then man you have to admit yeah um but i mean to be fair it was one of those whiskeys that still was around through the 70s and 80s when the downfall of whiskey happened um In 1981, it was bought by Hiram Walker and Sons, and it has been sold a bunch of times since then ah to eventually become now owned by Beam Centauri,
00:52:42
Speaker
ah which, you know, they own a ton of distilleries in everywhere, Scotland, U.S., Ireland, Japan. I think they've been able to really, i i support a lot of the portfolio that Beam Centauri has and kind of the life that they've put back into so many distilleries that were struggling.
00:53:05
Speaker
They would have been gone if it wasn't for them, I think. Yeah. Um, even with the sale to beam Centauri, Bill Samuels and, or sorry, the further sales after the first sale to hire him, hire him, Hiram Walker, um, Bill Samuels, Jr. Son of the founder, uh, was still president and CEO for 30 years before he passed it down to his son, Rob in 2011.
00:53:28
Speaker
Um, this is a, a, just kind of a funny note in 2013.
00:53:34
Speaker
um it's It's weird because this was like before the bourbon boom, but maybe it was maybe it was because Maker's Mark was a um was still a widely known whiskey at that point when people were starting to to get into whiskey again.
00:53:51
Speaker
um They tried to reduce the ABV from 90 proof to 84 proof. Eight days later, they announced that they would not be making that change because people were pissed.
00:54:03
Speaker
Wow. ah there There was so much backlash. Eight days later, they released a statement saying, yeah, we changed our mind. We're going to leave it at 90 proof. um Of course, this one is cast strength.
00:54:16
Speaker
90 proof doesn't apply. um Dave Pickerel, may he rest in peace, ah who we know is the creator of Blackened Whiskey. ah before he was Before he created Blackened, he was the master distiller for Bankers Mark.
00:54:31
Speaker
um And this one,
00:54:35
Speaker
Bill's recipe number 46. So maker's mark 46 was, uh, Bill Samuels jr's attempt to create a new version of maker's mark that he felt like, you know, they hadn't, they, they'd been making the same stuff for 50 years and he wanted to make something a little different. Uh, it took him 46 attempts to find a recipe he was happy with.
00:55:00
Speaker
Um, the well i would say the normal stuff this too enters the barrel at 110 proof it's aged for at least four years um and then is finished with virgin french oak staves um this one in particular is bottled at cask strength which is just a little over barrel in which is 110.3 that's very um point three that's very nice um Well, what I've learned from my last attempt at pairing this whiskey is that it is a very hot 110. That's only, mean, shouldn't say only, but that's only, what it? 55% ABV, which is high.
00:55:41
Speaker
fifty five percent ab v which is high but not crazy. I've got a lot of whiskeys that are higher than that. This one drinks hotter than any of them. I think it's due to the four-year aging on a cask strength. Most cask strength stuff I have is in the Scotch world where it's 10, 12, 15 years.
00:56:03
Speaker
um and It rounds out a little better. Yeah, it definitely rounds out. Especially when you're looking at stuff like you're adding secondary staves to it. You're barreling, let's say, in in like the limousine cask is a great example.
00:56:18
Speaker
Limousine cask with a couple of years on it for cask strength breaks down those flavors and makes them, well, it rounds them down, I should say. Rounds the flavors down. um I've had a couple hot whiskeys, though, young whiskeys.
00:56:33
Speaker
It's just a lot. And it's fine. You add some ice, you can cut it with something. This isn't as hot as I remember, but I'm going to warm back up to it and see. Tell us about your final pairing tonight.
00:56:45
Speaker
Oh, I haven't even... Actually, I should probably open my final pairing. I thought you were going to say you didn't even have one. No, no, word for no. I have a final pairing. So this is something that I don't know if I've ever had this exact one.
00:57:02
Speaker
um You know where I'm going this. Found it. That's not a twist off, brother. Oh, boy. Hold on. We're going to challenge days.
00:57:12
Speaker
Pop the top. All right.
00:57:16
Speaker
Oh, check that out. Mm-hmm. and They're Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic. So I honestly don't think I've had the Mediterranean Tonic from Fever Tree.
00:57:27
Speaker
I think that's my favorite one. and i'm I'm pretty sure i bought it because I remember you saying it was really excellent and and you and I have a very similar palette for certain things.
00:57:40
Speaker
um But man, so um before I take a sip, let me tell you a little bit more about Fever Tree Onyx, which is really also interesting stuff. So founded in 2005 by Charles Rolls and Tim Warlow. I can't say Warlow.
00:57:56
Speaker
Warlow. Yeah, Warlow. It's hard to say. um they've really expanded to a whole bunch of things. So now they're making ginger ales. They're making different botanical like seltzers. They'll make a... They got a cola.
00:58:11
Speaker
I haven't seen the cola. I've heard... I keep hearing about the cola. But they... Do you know they source their quinine from the Democratic Republic of Congo? Yeah. It's it's crazy.
00:58:22
Speaker
Wild. Wildly cool. um So they... they Fever tree. I want to get this out of the way. The fever tree sources, they're quinin from the fever trees of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
00:58:36
Speaker
So it's got this really, you can get quinin from a lot of different kind of sources, if you will. What they're trying to say by that is they're getting high quality quinin directly from kind of the source. if Yeah, straight from the tree bark of the whatever tree that is.
00:58:53
Speaker
So the tree- not gonna try. It's so hard. i kept trying to go back and forth on the pronunciation. It's the cinchona tree, also known as the fever tree, has been a natural source of quinine. Obviously, they get it from there.
00:59:05
Speaker
Originally, it was used to treat malaria. which is really cool, hence the name. Because the the malaria would induce this massive fever, they would call this the fever tree. If you had a fever, that's kind of where they would... And it's actually chewing on the bark. So you would break off a piece of bark and kind of chew on it, and ah apparently it alleviated your fever.
00:59:26
Speaker
And they... To make it a little bit easier to... I guess part of it is palatable, so you don't have to chew on the bark. They start extracting and adding it with...
00:59:37
Speaker
carbonated water, basically. And some sugar and some other things. And all of a sudden, now we we see things like gin and tonics. Yeah, so tonic was originally quinine
00:59:52
Speaker
extract, I guess you would call it. It was a vial of quinine. And they would mix it with water and gin to make it more palatable. Make it easier to get down.
01:00:04
Speaker
And then somebody was like, hey, throw some ice in there. Throw a little lime, maybe. um And the signature flavor really started to pop. um Now, the really, it's associated with gin, but um what they've done, Fever Tree specifically has done is campaigned to push for not just with ah gin, but also with vodka and also just as its own soft drink.
01:00:31
Speaker
And it's great. i I love like ah any of those Fever Tree tonics with a couple dashes of bitters. Yeah, man. Oh, my God. It's so good.
01:00:42
Speaker
that's the That's the old bartender's... One of the old bartender's trick is add some bitters to some tonic and it just opens it up. and Again, if you want to wake up and you want to stay alert on the job and not you know obviously not drink a whole lot, it it certainly helps.
01:01:01
Speaker
This one... um This one is Mediterranean Botanical, so it has lemon thyme, rosemary, and there's something else in there that is not listed. I don't see it.
01:01:15
Speaker
ah Yeah, they say natural natural flavors, but really what they're saying is they're using flavors from lemon, thyme, and also rosemary. I love tonic by itself.
01:01:26
Speaker
Some people really don't enjoy tonic, and that's okay. yeah it's like I remember when I was a kid, I loved seltzer water or sparkling water or any of those kind of bubbly waters. And I remember one time opening a bottle of my parents' tonic and just being like, God, that's awful.
01:01:49
Speaker
ah Now I love it. I drink a lot of it. Should have mentioned glows under UV light, which is really fun. you got on those Always order a gin and tonic in a strip club with UV lights. I'll say that.
01:02:02
Speaker
I boggled a stripper's mind with that one time. ah yeah Look, it's magic water. um Truly magic water now that it's disappearing. I'm being censored, actually. They found out that we're talking about them without license.
01:02:13
Speaker
So you can't see what I'm holding, but trust me when I tell you. It's trash can. Oh, it is a trash can. What do you mean? Or an ashtray, maybe both. Again, i think there's a theme here, bubbles.
01:02:26
Speaker
The theme, the bubbles of this cigar, for whatever reason, for my my palate, I really love having something carbonated, sharply carbonated at that for Connecticut cigars or Connecticut-based cigars, or even cigars that are less oily than you would normally expect.
01:02:42
Speaker
We talked about the dryness a little bit. Cigars that are a little bit drier on the palate, I find that the bubbles really help to to reset in in between draws if you're just sitting around.
01:02:55
Speaker
it It does wonder. So if you haven't tried that, give it a shot next time you're smoking a cigar. definitely worth it. Absolutely. um All right. So my final pairing.
01:03:06
Speaker
First of all, I'm finding the cigar. I'm like nearing the end of this thing, man. ah Unfortunately. not even further along I am. I did light 10 or so minutes before you, but I might be housing this thing a little bit because it's great.
01:03:19
Speaker
um It's calming down a little bit at this point. I'm not getting quite as much spice. Maybe that's the pairing, though. um But it tastes like it's calming down.
01:03:30
Speaker
The pairing, on the other hand, is very intense, but not as intense as I remember it. It may be because I poured this before the show started, so over an hour ago. before I took a sip. Maybe it burned off a little bit of that alcohol.
01:03:44
Speaker
um But it's it's a lot more palatable than I remember being. um It's not kind of zapping my palate like it did the first time I tried it.
01:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's very flavorful. the that The French oak really comes through, I think, in kind of that dry wood kind of flavor that it's got.
01:04:10
Speaker
I'm trying to think of if there's any other notes I tasted. Is it... You mentioned the wood. Is it... It's not astringent, is it? Or is it just from the alcohol heat? There is a little bit of astringency, but I think it's really from the alcohol.
01:04:30
Speaker
and Like, it really is pretty hot. But I'm... Like, I taste it this time. Last time I had it, I don't feel like I even tasted it. um This reminds me, it reminds me a little bit of ah which this is again, like you said, love it or hate it. This is the thing. Some people love it. Some people hate it.
01:04:51
Speaker
The smell when you're sanding ah nice wood. know what I'm saying? Like you're sanding a table or something that's made out of oak. but though not not like Not like... What's toxic? Purple Heart?
01:05:05
Speaker
No, not something like that. But like like if you're sanding a ah ah ah pine... um mine a piece of pine or something. Or a coffin. Or a piece of oak, maybe.
01:05:18
Speaker
I don't know. I know exactly. You know what I mean? Like that smell that gets in the air. This is the licking the rock ah scenario. Yes, it is. If you get it, you get it. If not, you think it's crazy.
01:05:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. um I may be crazy. That could be it. ah But yeah, it's it's a much better whiskey than I remember it being, which is good.
01:05:44
Speaker
um Because last time I was a little annoyed at it for being as hot as it was. But maybe it was just the pairing that night. um Because it's a little better this time. Even though it's a pretty fairly mild cigar.
01:05:56
Speaker
I mean, I'd call it medium body medium, but as far as some of the stuff we smoke, it's pretty much. Yeah. Same for me. I think it's ah just under medium.
01:06:11
Speaker
That said, this is a great cigar, man. ah I highly recommend you check out the Rose of Sharon. This size to me is one of the the better sizes.
01:06:23
Speaker
um Check out Casa de Monte Cristo to find some. If you have one local, if you need to order online, highly recommend this cigar. I got to go back through my pairings because I'm not sure what my pairing in the night is.
01:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, I started of going back through mine, and i'm oddly enough, I'm gravitating back toward the iced tea. Of course you are, because it's Liquid Death. The branding. i I don't know, man. but it's Well, it's it's here. Hold on.
01:06:50
Speaker
It's the iced tea. It's not just tea. It's tea with with lemonade. It's the 50-50 Arnold Palmer blend. um that little bit of of acidity from the from the the lemon juice, I think is really going well with the cigar.
01:07:06
Speaker
i can guess I could see that really working with the cigar. Maybe that's why I like the fever tree so much too, because it has a bit of acidity to it. Brightness, if you will. That cleans up.
01:07:18
Speaker
i Again, I smoke fast, and sometimes my cigars start great, in the end, not so great, because I've smoked way too fast, and I've ruined it. and I've seen it happen, people. Yeah.
01:07:29
Speaker
The little trick is that little bit of acidity, a little bit of that carbonation, lot of bit of the carbonation, I should say, tends to, in a sense, not just reset the palate, but also kind of reset my ability to enjoy the cigar and the cigar itself to some some degree.
01:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, I get what you mean. ah For me, I just went back through while you were talking. Florida Canyon, no surprise. Yeah, of course. um Buna Haban is incredible whiskey, but I think it's got a little too much flavor for this cigar.
01:08:01
Speaker
um The Maker's Mark, I'm coming around to, but it's just a little too hot for this cigar. Yeah. The Florida Konya is just perfect.
01:08:13
Speaker
It's well-rounded. um That sweetness really brings out some extra sweetness in the cigar, which I appreciate. um It's just, it works really well with this cigar.
01:08:24
Speaker
um And like I said before, it's ah it's very bourbon forward. So you still get some of those bourbon flavor flavors that work well with this cigar.
01:08:37
Speaker
You have any final thoughts on the cigar?
01:08:40
Speaker
My favorite size. Really? well Rose of Sharon, my favorite size. I think it's great. And I don't go for this size almost ever. Uh, yeah, I generally kind of hate Salamones.
01:08:55
Speaker
I'm just not a fan. i feel like a lot of times they don't burn well. Um, this one is burning perfectly. I've, I have not touched it up once.
01:09:06
Speaker
It hasn't gone out once. Um, it's every cigar that i've smoked thus far for this one for this blend um in this size has been has burned great no issues i smoked it indoors i smoked it outside in the wind and it was fine yeah i think southern draw knocked it out of the park with this one um it's i know it's been getting some high praise and it deserves it this great cigar absolutely great yeah shout out casa de monte cristo as always
01:09:41
Speaker
All right, I guess that brings us to the end of the show. But first, we got to get our one for the road out of the way. Dennis, what you got for this week? What you got for this?
01:09:51
Speaker
What do you have for us this week? well I got lazy with that pronunciation there for a second. what ah what i've done been had is
01:10:01
Speaker
What I done been had is something from, well, I guess I'm wearing it, so that's can you see him oh yeah blood sport all right so we're gonna bring this back man february february 26th hold on i'll tell you in sec february where's the date february yes february 26 1988 starring jean-claude van damme a classic now that we know great underground fighting tournament known as the kumite blood sport and this is an old like uh
01:10:33
Speaker
old japanese uh ad for blood sport nice um this is blood sport on the bottom there is blood sport and uh holy crap what a movie if you haven't seen it go watch it if if you've seen it go watch it it's one of those feel-good films and it launched i i'm pretty sure it launched van damme into like becoming a huge action star yeah He was doing things here and there, but it wasn't until this. there I think this was really his breakthrough role.
01:11:07
Speaker
um And I think it was his first leading role and in Hollywood and in a big like Hollywood film. ah Low budget, which is really cool. they It was a very low budget movie, but they grossed over $50 million worldwide. So back in 1988, that's lot money.
01:11:21
Speaker
it a lot of money even It's a very, very big deal. And now this movie is kind of, they say, there's loosely it's loosely based on the real life, not the story, but the claims by um a guy by the name of Frank Dukes.
01:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. Titular character character and in the film. He wrote a book and he talked about this like thing that he participated in and martial arts people around the world. have their own opinions everyone has their own opinion about whether or not this is actually really true but man it made for a really fun movie and the movie actually believe it or not at the end of the filming the movie the final edit they didn't like and it just it wasn't working well so van damme himself came in and helped with the editing to get really that's wild i never knew that
01:12:13
Speaker
they They did not dig it. ah Of course, the movie had Bolo Young. If you don't know Bolo Young, he's famous from ah Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, which is another like really cool, fantastic. you're into martial arts films, this is another like it's a classic you have to have.
01:12:30
Speaker
You have to watch. Great movie. yeah Good record. The other thing is, if you haven't seen it yet, Google or on oral YouTube, same brand, I guess,
01:12:41
Speaker
Go on YouTube and check out the video. Type in Bloodsport Mentos commercial. So they took scenes from Bloodsport and they cut it into Mentos commercial. That's amazing. That scene where he's running away from the cops, they basically added the Mentos music to it.
01:12:57
Speaker
And it it and works so well. I love it. I'm going to have to watch that. um i mean I haven't watched it, but there's i know there's a new movie called Last Kumite that I'm very curious about, but I've heard it's terrible.
01:13:10
Speaker
I've been so tempted to watch it. But i don't I don't know the quality of it. I assume it's terrible because I've heard pretty bad things. Alright, so for me, I've been watching some shows. Like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I've been um've been having a show to keep on and while I'm hanging out with the baby. like during ah My wife could puts the other kids to bed while I hang out with the baby.
01:13:36
Speaker
i hang out with the baby in the morning while she's getting them ready for school. And I've been watching reruns. I mean, not reruns, because there's no such thing as reruns anymore, but I've been working my way back through and I just finished every season of it's always sunny in Philadelphia, which was great.
01:13:54
Speaker
Um, but my recommendation is going to be this show that I am now crazy about. We just started watching it a couple nights ago. So we're only halfway through the first season and the second season comes out soon or something, ah called the old man starring Jeff Bridges.
01:14:11
Speaker
It's on Hulu,
01:14:15
Speaker
if you If you have TV, it's on FX. um And man, I have not seen seen an action show this good in a long time. ah Jeff Bridges is an ex-CIA agent who's left that life behind and it's coming back to get him.
01:14:32
Speaker
And so he he's on the run and being chased by the law kind of stuff. ah But do the action in this show is like lot of long cuts. No, like there. I think most of the action scenes, there's no cut.
01:14:47
Speaker
It's all a one shot. Which is really refreshing because so much action now is like those really quick shaky cam kind of shots where you're bouncing back and forth. oh much um And this is like you you come in through a window to them already fighting and then you the whole fight plays out in real time in one shot.
01:15:07
Speaker
And it's just it's really well done. I'm really intrigued by the story. The old man starring Jeff Bridges. It is my jam currently. wife and I are loving it. list I need to watch this.
01:15:20
Speaker
It's on Hulu. If you have Hulu, if you have normal TV, it's on FX. um But i I highly recommend it. I want to see if Sam got one in.
01:15:31
Speaker
Oh, nice. Sam is ah rereading the Book of the Five Rings by Musashi. Oh, yes. I love, absolutely love the Book of Five Rings by Musashi. All the stories are amazing.
01:15:43
Speaker
ah One of my favorite stories, classically, Musashi came out to this... Oh, God, he went out to fight somebody and he purposely showed up late because the guy had a short temper and he knew this about him. So he wanted to break his focus and concentration in the fight. So he purposely showed up late just to piss him off so that the guy would give just a little bit of leeway.
01:16:05
Speaker
Right. It kind of like just screw up enough where you can get in for a kill. And sure enough, he did. Amazing. Book of Five Rings. Great choice. I've never read it I'll have to read it. ah And for music, he says he's listening to the heavy metal soundtrack.
01:16:19
Speaker
Man, heavy metal brings me back. I don't know if I still have them, but I used to have a collection of heavy metal magazines that I got in the 90s. Man, they were good stuff.
01:16:31
Speaker
Perfect segue, if you haven't watched it, Turbulence. Turbulence 3, heavy metal. here they have a concert on a plane and a bunch of people die and it's awful but it's also great it's just a crappy movie but it's just a fun fun kind of crappy film to watch and it's kind of ridiculous now watching it so many years later I'm into it it's in the 90s and now it's just gaudy yeah
01:16:59
Speaker
man looking at some of these songs on the heavy metal soundtrack really brings me back I haven't watched that movie in forever. I remember I used to watch it on... What's that channel? Sci-Fi.
01:17:13
Speaker
Used to be on Sci-Fi all the time when I was a kid.
01:17:17
Speaker
The censored version, but I still loved it. I'm nervous about this Kumite thing. i um I'm guessing it's going to be bad. um That's not a recommendation. i just remember seeing that it came out.
01:17:28
Speaker
but tyus my my Matthias Hughes is in it. and I know Cynthia Rothrock is in it. Yeah, Cynthia Rothrock. Billy Blanks? Holy
Mystery of the Disappearing Individual
01:17:38
Speaker
crap. i He's alive?
01:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, as people say that, he disappeared for a little bit, but hey, people are still buying the videos, no doubt. Exactly. dude's got to be loaded. Taibo.
01:17:51
Speaker
Taibo. All right, man.
Rose of Sharon Salamone Recommendation
01:17:55
Speaker
Well, I guess that wraps it up for tonight. Everyone check out the Rose of Sharon Salamone. Good cigar. ah Highly recommend it.
01:18:03
Speaker
um Once again, available at Casa de Monte Cristo. um all right. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for listening.
Farewell and Special Mentions
01:18:13
Speaker
Shout out to Sam for giving us your one for the road. Yeah, man, always. Thank you.
01:18:18
Speaker
And I guess that is the end for us. So we will see you next
Next Week's Teaser and Sign-off
01:18:21
Speaker
week. I don't know what we'll be smoking at because this is what we were going to smoke next week. And the thing we were going to smoke this week is missing. So we'll figure it out.
01:18:28
Speaker
We'll figure it out. We'll get back to you. um I'll try i have it posted sooner rather than on Sunday night like I usually do. So thank you, everybody. Have a good and safe week.
01:18:39
Speaker
And Dennis, do the catchphrase thing. Remember, everybody, want you to drink better, but we want you drink less.