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LGP 50 - RoMa Craft Maestranza
12 Plays4 days ago
This week, we feature the RoMa Craft Maestranza!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Movie Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to let's get pairing. I'm going to start the show off. We were talking in the green room and I ran out of time to tell Dennis about it. Um, and I'll try to remember the whole thing if I can.
00:00:12
Speaker
Uh, I got, I have a partial script for it here, so I'll be able to go over some of it. So we're talking about the movie Congo. You ever seen the movie Congo? Very fun, but it's pretty bad. About, uh, basically anaconda.
00:00:28
Speaker
but with monkeys, gorillas, really? um Apes. Great apes. And eventually there's ah gorillas lasers strapped to their heads. Like, this it's wild.
00:00:40
Speaker
um It's a pretty bad. Sharks with laser beams, man. So, there was this Comic-Con thing where Bruce Campbell was asked, why did you make Congo? the legendary B-movie actor, Bruce Campbell.
00:00:54
Speaker
ah So this guy says, why did you make Congo? And he says, I want to get somebody up on the stage. And so in this in this case, Dennis is going to play the guy that comes up on the stage to imitate. ah You are going to be a Paramount executive, and I'm going to pitch you a movie, and you're you just have to say yes or no. Thumbs up or thumbs down to making this movie. Fantastic.
00:01:12
Speaker
So um we've got John packrick Patrick Shanley to write the screenplay. He won an Academy Award for Moonstruck. Uh, Evie coats, uh, is going to edit the movie. She edited Lawrence of Arabia.
00:01:27
Speaker
Uh, Alan Davio is going to do the photography. He shot ET and empire of the sun. Great movies. Uh, it's going to be produced by Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. Uh, Kathleen Kennedy now known for, uh, being ah the brain behind all the latest star Wars movies and TV shows.
00:01:45
Speaker
Some people are or hit or miss on that, but I love them. Um, Michael Crichton wrote the book. It's going based on his book. Jurassic Park, man.
00:01:56
Speaker
What do you say to this movie? It sounds great, right? Absolutely not. Award-winning filmmakers. ah well Yeah, what's the tagline? what's the What's the story? Tell me about the story. We don't need to get into that.
00:02:08
Speaker
What's the bottom line? But you just need to know the people behind this movie. They're legends in their field. And then the guy says yes, and he says, congratulations, you just made Congo. um And that's basically what Bruce Campbell has to say about It it was a terrible movie that we love in our in our nostalgic hearts.
00:02:27
Speaker
um But it's pretty bad. Don't watch Congo.
Cigar Discussion: Maestranza by Roma Craft
00:02:30
Speaker
It was hot garbage, but you gotta to watch it. Alright, guys. Today we're smoking the Maestrenza from Romacraft Tobacco.
00:02:40
Speaker
Romacraft Tobacco. Sorry, Skip. Uh... We're going get into this cigar and tell you all about it. Do some pairing. ah So let's grab yourself a cigar, grab yourself a drink and let's get pairing.
00:03:11
Speaker
Oh, just sticks on the palate immediately. And we're back. And we're back. Welcome back. We'll get to your tasting notes in a minute. Calm down, Dennis. um Welcome back, everybody. I'm your host, Tripp, here in the Casamante Cristo studio with my co-host, Dennis, from the Dungeon of Darkness.
00:03:27
Speaker
Dennis, how you doing, my brother? Fantastic. I am lovely. lu We will say I am lovely. I'm jazzed about this cigar, this cigar that we talked about during the week, and and I pulled it out of the humidor and said, man, we we have to smoke this thing.
00:03:42
Speaker
We have to do something with this. Let's check it out. And I think you and I both have a very strange set of pairings. Not typical for us, necessarily. Certainly strange pairings.
00:03:54
Speaker
I went against type for the most part, which is i think I think will be kind of fun. um Welcome, everybody. ah This is the Roma Craft Tobacco Maestranza.
00:04:06
Speaker
Maestranza? Maestranza? It sounds like I'm saying a German word, but it's Spanish, think, or Italian. Maestranza. So Maestranza, the name first, comes from episode three of Chef's Table, which they've done like seven seasons now or something like that. But this was season one, episode three.
00:04:24
Speaker
ah Francis Malman. ah he's cooking and he says the word maestranza defines it and kind of explains that it means the people who are around you helping. um That one word and one phrase that ah contains the meaning stuck with Skip Martin immediately. And he thought about it. He said that he basically thought about that for six years before making this cigar, but he felt like ah he, he wasn't ready for the cigar.
00:04:51
Speaker
So after some practice, he, You know, he's he's had quite the evolution, I think, from going from crazy brash in-your-face cigars to things that are a little bit more refined like this.
00:05:02
Speaker
um He has, he did the Quinquagenario, Quinquagenario, that's how you say it. um project couple years ago, last year, year before, with Ernie Perez Carrillo.
00:05:17
Speaker
And he says he learned a ton blending with him, learning how to use tobaccos he's not familiar with, um kind of learning a more Dominican style, I guess you might say. ah And then he made this cigar, came out the and tail end of last year, and it was previewed at the PCA show last show last year, and also previewed in his maquette series,
00:05:39
Speaker
where he's doing kind of these paper bundles, very, very limited runs of of new or interesting blends. Some of them are very limited where they're only going to do one run and then they're gone. um So Maestranza is a tribute to everyone who is at the Nicosueño factory who helped Roma Craft go from a budding cigar company to where they are these days.
00:06:02
Speaker
um So the blend on this is a little bit It reminds me a little bit of a Neanderthal, um but without that crazy powerhouse.
00:06:15
Speaker
Like I said, a little bit more refined, a little bit more elegant. um So the wrapper on this is Mexican San André. Binder is from Brazil. The fillers are from Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. So that's five different countries worth of tobacco.
00:06:29
Speaker
Of course, they're made at the Fabrica de Tobacco's Nicasueño. um And they are regular production. This is a new line for Roma Craft. They're going to be pretty much everywhere you can find Roma Craft stuff.
00:06:40
Speaker
We are smoking the 6x52 Valencia size, kind of a box-pressed Toro. um I've noticed with all these sizes that they may be measured before box-pressing or something because they're ah they seem a little smaller. This seems more like a 50 to me, I think, but yeah I don't always have the best gauge for Yeah, absolutely. Same. I think it's a little bit smaller. And it's interesting that the last couple of shows we've been pushing for this sort of box press, medium press, oval kind of the shape has been indicative of last couple of shows. It's kind of funny.
00:07:12
Speaker
You're right. That's funny. I think if I remember correctly, this is the third box press cigar we've had on the show in a row because you missed the Warhead Week. I don't remember what we smoked the week before that, but it's possible was box pressed.
00:07:25
Speaker
Wish I remembered right now. Anyway, what you think of the cigar so far, Dennis? I can't nail the flavor. it's It's the craziest thing. Almost any time I pick up a cigar light it up, I can pick out at least something.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I started smoking this off the light, and I can't figure it out. It's so strange, so... don't want call it syrupy. There's some flavor to it that I can't pick out. It's certainly not dry. There's there's a lot of really nice wet flavor to it and wet flavor sounds weird, but... It sure does. it's a It's the kind of flavor that coats the palate immediately.
00:08:00
Speaker
Rather than the dryness that hits the front end of the palate and kind of goes away, immediately this is the thing that hits the back of the palate and sits there. And it's it's very it's almost like a um dare I say, mean, even even like a fig jam.
00:08:15
Speaker
It's that that jammy, some stone fruit action. um Leather, sure, but I i think not not classic leather. When we talk about cigars, we talk about leather. That leather quality is very distinct, and generally most of us, when we say leather, we kind of know it's it's a very distinct type of leather. This is more of a leather adjacent.
00:08:36
Speaker
Maybe, you know, that might be a weird way to put it, but what do you think of the cigar? I do get, there there is a a sort of leatheriness to it. I get a lot of black pepper on the palate.
00:08:48
Speaker
Just kind of a hint of baking spice. There's like a dark sweetness to it, like you were talking about. like It reminds me of, like you said, kind of like figs or like toasted, like not toasted, but like really toasted sugar.
00:09:05
Speaker
Like creme brulee sugar where you're you're charring it and you're getting a little bit that bitterness to it. it's It's actually exactly like a date now I'm thinking about it. It's that that sweetness on the skin of a dried date. But it's like almost an earthy sweet. Quality dates.
00:09:19
Speaker
Right? Yes. like yeah I can't quite describe it.
00:09:25
Speaker
It's wild. It's it's just ah off the light for it to have that level of, I'm not sure what this is. It is really cool and I'm really excited to see how it's going to progress through the thirds. Yeah, me too. I forgot to mention the pricing for these. I believe this is $11. If I remember correctly, it might be $12 or $13.
00:09:42
Speaker
think I think the sizes go $11, $12, $13. So I think this one is $13 because it's the longest size. and my Which is still a great price. I think looking at the cigar off the light, just the general feel, that the construction, which is classic Roma.
00:09:56
Speaker
yeah The classic Roma construction on is awesome. And it's ah it's a hefty cigar. It's kind of like a sturdy cigar, if you will. Which I've always loved about everything from Roma. I was going to say most Roma Craft cigars are.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, man. why is my I'm out of focus here, man. It it will not focus on my face. It will focus on my tobacco-covered hands. You've focus. We're doing a show. You've got to focus. We're doing stuff here. There we go. Now I'm going to focus.
00:10:23
Speaker
All right. And with that, let's get pairing. we'll get it We'll get into more tasting notes a little bit later.
Exploring Fernet Branca and Bardstown Bourbon
00:10:28
Speaker
um But for now, we're going to do some pairing. but Let's get pairing. That was not as smooth as the last couple weeks.
00:10:36
Speaker
I messed that up. All right. So. That's fine. Created in 1845 in Milan, Italy. ah Made with 27 herbs and other ingredients.
00:10:47
Speaker
Oh, hell no. And originally marketed as a medicine is Fernet Branca. Oh, my God, dude. i almost did Fernet tonight. So I didn't realize. So Burnett, I assumed it had been originally marketed as medicine because everything that tastes like this was originally meant to be medicine.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah. um Which is the truth. It was originally marketed as medicine. Oh, was it? ah Yes. Oh, shit. I thought ring it was one of the few that wasn't. No, it was. And during Prohibition, it switched back to being medicine in the U.S. So this was available during Prohibition.
00:11:22
Speaker
If you're brave enough to drink some Fernet Branca, you could have as much as you want, or at least if you had a prescription, I guess. um But I'm not just drinking Fernet Branca.
00:11:33
Speaker
I'm drinking Fernet and Coke. Oh, hell yeah. So I mentioned the other day, i rarely have Coca-Cola in my house. If we do, it's usually Coke Zero um or Pepsi, which, course, ah would be a travesty.
00:11:47
Speaker
to make this cocktail with you don't make a jack hope with pepsi um just like you don't make an acceptable exactly um so this is the for net concoca as it's known in argentina um where it was at least sort of invented.
00:12:04
Speaker
um there's no There's no real etymology on this cocktail. Cocktailmology. um Cocktology. Cocktology. There's no real cocktology on this cocktail.
00:12:16
Speaker
but ah So we don't know where exactly it came from or when. ah But what what we do know is that it is the most popular drink in or at least, sorry, the most popular cocktail in Argentina.
00:12:29
Speaker
It first became popular in the 80s in the college town of Cordoba. Currently, it's the most popular cocktail in Argentina, resulting in cocktail... cocktail Argentina, consuming a staggering 79% of the Fernet in the world.
00:12:49
Speaker
That's a lot of Fernet. Fernet is not something you see... a lot. Um, as Dennis loves to talk about, it's known as the bartender's handshake because it is particularly well loved by bartenders around the U S and around the world.
00:13:04
Speaker
Um, if you go in and you are a bartender, you typically going order a for net Branca and they're kind of like, Oh, I see you. The bartender knows what's up when you order that, uh, around 5% of the for net sold in Argentina.
00:13:22
Speaker
is consumed by itself. 5%, 95% is used in cocktails. And that's 79% of the world's Fernet. um Even before the popularity of this drink, which I should have mentioned, it's also called the Fernando or the Fernandito.
00:13:40
Speaker
Fernandito, which is very cute. It's nice. ah Even before the popularity of the Fernando exploded, Fernet was very popular in Argentina because ah in the early 20th century, there was a lot of ah immigrants from Europe who kind of brought it with them.
00:13:57
Speaker
It started being distributed there in 19... Oh, um man, I forgot to put it on my notes. I think it was 1901 when it was introduced to the country of Argentina.
00:14:09
Speaker
Um, so it did, I mean, it had only been around for 50 years, sorry. It had been around for 50 years already. Um, and then they started, ah bringing it into Argentina by 1941. The popularity was so high that they built their first ever production facility outside of a Italy in Buenos Aires.
00:14:27
Speaker
Uh,
00:14:30
Speaker
to To say that this is popular in Argentina is an understatement.
00:14:36
Speaker
Reportedly, you can find ready-to-drink canned versions all over the place there, which is amazing. I've heard about this. It's a very popular flavor used in things. like Think of, um you know, you go to 7-Eleven, they have the Coca-Cola slushy.
00:14:51
Speaker
Um, that's kind of what they do with this. So you can get candy, you can get ice cream. I saw one thing that said there's a whipped topping for desserts available. I don't know if that means whipped cream or something similar.
00:15:03
Speaker
oh wow. But I want it and I couldn't find anything about it online other than the the line about it on Wikipedia. Um, so we're not Bronco. I forgot to put down the ABV, but it's 39% alcohol by volume.
00:15:16
Speaker
If you've never had it, it's a very intense liqueur like drink. Not really a liqueur, but it kind of feels like one when you're drinking it. um it's not It's certainly not for everybody.
00:15:29
Speaker
I've never had it mixed with Coke, which I'm excited about. Wait, you've never had this? No. Oh, stop. I've always had Fernet by itself or in one of handful of cocktails.
00:15:40
Speaker
So, Ian, you haven't had a sip yet? No, I haven't. So I'm going to take a couple sips while you talk about your first pairing. I'll let you know what I think. I do want to bring up a thing about Fernet. You mentioned 39% alcohol.
00:15:53
Speaker
This is a classic Central and South American thing, and I think some of this happens in Mexico. I forget what the ruling was. There's a specific law that states where you— you um It goes from a liqueur to a liquor at $40,000.
00:16:08
Speaker
And so for them to market it and sell it and oh and the taxation and everything else, some places, they have to make it 39%. But actually, the but where's my bottle? I had a bottle here somewhere.
00:16:20
Speaker
But um my my bottle is $40,000. This bottle is a couple years old, so they may have changed it in the U.S. recently. So actually, yeah, maybe maybe they moved back to 40 for the U.S., but definitely outside of the U.S., s you're looking at 39 at most.
00:16:34
Speaker
And then the Menta version of it, which is slightly more minty, more sweet, is ah it runs at about 35%. It tastes like Pernet Branca that you dropped a bunch of ah like cough syrup or throat drops into it.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's such an interesting flavor. um It's so curious because the acidity of the Coca-Cola brings out all of these interesting minty qualities from from the Frenet.
00:17:03
Speaker
And all of that bitterness sort of fades away. So if you've had Frenet... Yeah, way less bitter. like You barely don't like it. You barely taste the sweetness of the Coca-Cola, man but the the bitterness is really dialed back by it.
00:17:15
Speaker
And that like really... complex flavor profile of the Coca-Cola works really well with it. Yeah, dude, it's kind of snazzy. I really dig it. It's one of my favorite drinks to make.
00:17:26
Speaker
And I'm also sipping on this, which is now becoming one of my most favorite drinks, and I'll i'll tell you about it in a second.
00:17:35
Speaker
As I take a sip and I coat the palate. You gotta lubricate the bits before you start speaking, right, as they say. um I was at the store the other day, and I saw something that I don't think I've ever seen before. i'm um If I have, maybe I forgot about it, but it's certainly something I've never tried, which is very fun for me.
00:17:55
Speaker
And i when I go shopping, as as you probably do as well, you spend a really long time at the store looking for your shelves and thinking about, what am I going to get? The same old thing? going to take a gamble, get something new? Yeah, I can't buy an entire rolling basket full of stuff.
00:18:11
Speaker
I got to make up my mind on just like one to three bottles. And I try to be sensible as well. And so this time in my experimentation, I thought, let me take a gamble on this, see what it's all about.
00:18:23
Speaker
I have Bartstown Bourbon Company and I have their bonded. Well, so sorry, hold on. It's bottled in bond, but they specifically call it the original series or origin series.
00:18:37
Speaker
Sorry. Coming in 50%, it is a Kentucky straight bourbon. which is really cool. And let me give you the mash bill real quick, which is nice because they put it on the side of the bottle, which side of it, here it is.
00:18:48
Speaker
So six year age statement, this is really nice. They have a really nice little block of information on the side that breaks everything down. So Bardstown, Kentucky, six year aged, 68% corn, 20% wheat, 12% malted barley.
00:19:00
Speaker
twenty percent a wheat and twelve percent malted barley This batch was distilled in the spring of twenty eighteen
00:19:10
Speaker
which is kind of fun and cool. And i love I love the bottle, has this really great artwork on the back. And so when you look at it from the front, it doesn't come out on camera. When you look it from the front. I mean, it comes out a little bit on camera. It's almost got like 3D effect.
00:19:22
Speaker
Sort of slight, yeah. But it's supposed to have this 3D effect of the trees in the background, which is really pretty and nice. And there's some weird, i don't I don't want to call it weird, maybe kind of interesting history behind this, because this is really the first New Age distillery opened in Kentucky for decades.
00:19:42
Speaker
Classically, Kentucky, it's been kind of the family thing of the old distilleries exchanges hands. um They close, they open. ah rename it. Rename it. they they right but But the distilleries themselves have been there for so long.
00:19:56
Speaker
And this was the first in quite some time, at least 30 years, 30 years, of just completely new production, new facility, new equipment, all high-tech stuff, founded in 2014. think they fully opened their doors in 2016.
00:20:14
Speaker
It's not fully clear if was 2015, 2016, but 2014 is when they sort signed the paperwork and started to make it happen. And Peter Lofton, who at the time was a telecommunicate telecommunicate.
00:20:27
Speaker
It's hard to say telecommunications entrepreneur, um started the founding with a bunch of different investors. He passed away in 2019, but the investors are kind of keeping this vision going.
00:20:38
Speaker
they They started this up. It's got a hundred acre campus on the bourbon trail. So that's a lot, man. It's for somebody new to come in and say we're going to do stuff in Kentucky is a big deal.
00:20:56
Speaker
And on the bourbon trail, no less, is an extremely big deal. He came in, interestingly enough, I was reading up um about him a little bit. He founded Business Telecom Inc., which if when he was only 25 years old, wow became a multi it became a multimillion dollar company.
00:21:13
Speaker
And it eventually merged with Delta Com, which is now we know as Earthlink. That's wild. Kind of wild. Earthlink even still exists, though? it It does, as as far as I know, to to some kind of mid-degree. They probably DSL somewhere in, like, the middle of country. Yeah, so something like that. Starlink, I'm sure, is probably trying to buy him over, right? But um it's crazy because he but he he bought. It's weird. It's like the weird history of this guy.
00:21:43
Speaker
Interesting history, I should say. Casa Cuestradina, which was. you you know this? Does that sound familiar to you at all? No, not at all. So that was Giovanni Versace's mansion in Miami Beach.
00:21:56
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, Casa Casterina. Not great things happened there. he No, not good things happened, but he turned it into a high-end boutique hotel, ah which was nuts. Like, that just like, I'm going to buy this thing. when Was this after the slaying?
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, this was this was after ah after the awful, all the all the craziness that happened. um Now, so back to the distillery. The distillery really operates on two kind of sides. One side, they're producing their in-house stuff, which is they have several different distinct series that they're putting out. So they have a really solid baseline of of product, but also there they are contracting.
00:22:37
Speaker
Which is not uncommon, right? They're doing a lot custom collaborative stuff. extremely common in Kentucky. That's why, like, you'll see a lot of brands that are made in Kentucky, but they don't have, they don't actually have their own distillery.
00:22:49
Speaker
um Not all of those are, you know, doing the the MGP thing. ah We talked about it last week or the week before with some distillery I wish I could remember who it was that um rather than making their own whiskey or buying MGP whiskey, they are contracting to actually have their mash bill produced and barreled and age.
00:23:14
Speaker
And then they take over the product. Yeah, so it's kind of a really cool bespoke process now where it's it's you' you're sitting down and you have a menu of items. And of course, if you have the money for it, now you can sit down and and nail down not just, hey, do this.
00:23:29
Speaker
You can say, do this in this way, in this style, for this amount of time. The Rick houses have to be configured a certain way. For them, they're kind of interesting. And again, I mentioned that they're kind of high-tech new age.
00:23:42
Speaker
They have classic rickhouses, but their distillation process is largely automated. Wow. It is heavily monitored, super automated. They, oh man, let me let me tell you about the the volume because it's in intense.
00:23:59
Speaker
I'm looking for my notes in the volume here. So 7 million proof gallons per a year. Wow. So proof gallon is against 50% 100 proof baseline Consider a proof gallon.
00:24:14
Speaker
If we break that down to what they've done, that means ah you're looking at... Hold on. I have the number here for you. It's it's wild. So 7 million proof gallons comes out Where's my math here?
00:24:31
Speaker
Ah, where is it? 105,660 full-size barrels per year at what they're producing today. Now, for comparison, you may say, well okay, well, that sounds like a lot, but what does that really mean?
00:24:44
Speaker
To give you an idea of other Kentucky distilleries, Heaven Hill is producing about 450,000 barrels year. That's about four times much. About four times, yeah. Jim Beam is doing 250,000. Buffalo is at 500,000. Wild Turkey is close. Wild Turkey is at 160,000.
00:24:56
Speaker
buffalo traces at five hundred thousand while turkey's close while turkey's at a hundred and sixty thousand Okay, so they're up there with the big boys for the most part. Yes, sir. Yeah, they're absolutely up there. And the other cool thing with them, because they're doing a lot of contract work, they're doing collaborative work. It's not just pure contract stuff.
00:25:14
Speaker
They're doing collaborations with a lot of different people. They did work with Bell Mead, High West, Calumet Farm, James E. Pepper, which I'm a huge fan of. and Blue Run, just to name a few.
00:25:26
Speaker
So they've kind of been out there, man. They're doing a lot of cool stuff. And as soon as I poured this, you know, I kind of shook it, shook it around. I want to see see the legs, see how it's kind of the viscosity of it.
00:25:38
Speaker
And in shaking it up, I got some bubbles in there. And these bubbles are still here from 15 minutes ago, just chilling. It's so viscous. Wow. The bubbles are not going away, man.
00:25:51
Speaker
ah It's amazing. And I also should have mentioned they are considered one of the most visitor-friendly modern distilleries in Kentucky today. They have a full-service restaurant and bar on site.
00:26:03
Speaker
um They do different kinds of experiences, so you can sign up for an education experience, go into the lab, learn a little bit about how whiskey is made at a deeper level beyond just like here. Here's a tour. This is the mash. This is the still kind of thing, which is pretty cool.
00:26:19
Speaker
Nice. Oh, and they have a whiskey library. after I forgot to mention this. of cool. You know a little bit of whiskey libraries, Tripp, from your experience. Yes. ah They have a library of over 400 bottles.
00:26:32
Speaker
And they can do they can do verticals for you. And so if you say, hey, i really dig this thing, they will run a vertical for you in a flight and walk you through it. And I'm sure it's not cheap.
00:26:44
Speaker
um No doubt it's not cheap. but no No place with whiskey library in the name has ever been cheap. no No, but they're they're pumping, man. And I think, you know, as as we continue to move forward and where we are today in the U.S. with with bourbon specifically, i think they're going to be a really big frontrunner in the next couple of years.
00:27:04
Speaker
I'm feeling especially if they're working with High West. I know High West has been pumping pretty hard on what they're doing.
00:27:13
Speaker
All right. So the Furnette and Coke. Furnette and Coca. Of course. I love it. ah I don't know why i didn't try this earlier. I should say that if you're afraid to try for net, I get it.
00:27:25
Speaker
It's like 35, 40 bucks a bottle. And it tastes like the unknown as much as you are afraid it does. Like if you're afraid to try it because you don't know what it's going to taste like, it tastes as strange as you think it's going to taste.
00:27:41
Speaker
It may not be as off-putting as you think, but it tastes as weird as you think. um So my recommendation would be to try one of these. You'll get a little little taste of the Frenet lifestyle without having to shell out for a whole bottle or ah having to deal with the embarrassment of ordering a glass of Frenet and leaving everything but one sip on the table.
00:28:03
Speaker
um Pretty much any bar worth its salt is going to have Frenet on the bar. um It's... It's not a super common ingredient, but like I said, it's known as the bartender's handshake because bartenders tend to love it.
00:28:19
Speaker
um If you're in an Applebee's, they're probably not going to have it, though they might. but but um But if you're in any place that, bit you know, where the the bartender thinks of themselves as a professional bartender, um they're going to have Frenet.
00:28:35
Speaker
any Anywhere that's mildly geeky about cocktails is going to have Frenet, no matter what. um because it's probably that bartender's favorite favorite thing to drink straight.
00:28:48
Speaker
All right, to the comments for a second. Sam Fennel is drinking a honey old-fashioned. ah I'm not going to read his whole ingredient list, but it's bourbon, honey, triple sec, little bit grenadine, ah two dashes of bitters, and four drops of your mother's tears.
00:29:06
Speaker
Oh, my man. I like that addition. Yeah. He jokes, but, you know, saline is quite common in a lot of cocktails. And if you it sounds stupid maybe to some people that are not into, like, the cocktail science thing. But, listen, salt water, little couple drops, drip drop, little bit of salt water in there opens up a lot of things.
00:29:27
Speaker
We talk about scotch, single malt scotch specifically, drop a couple drops. Oh, I can't speak. A couple drops of of water into a single malt scotch really opens it up. And similarly for a cocktail, a little bit of that saltiness brings out so many flavors that you may have not noticed, which is really cool. So definitely try it if you have a chance. Nice.
00:29:51
Speaker
ah Rob Goodhart says, for net cough syrup, what's the difference? And he says, so good. Thanks to Dennis. He has tried under Unterberg. Unterberg is great stuff. Unterberg is very nice.
00:30:02
Speaker
We like it. It's not exactly the same thing as Fernet, but it's pretty close. Like, they're in the same family. It's, yeah, I think, you know, if if you wanted to really break it down, like, we would say the gentian is the prime ingredient in Unterberg, and Fernet is less so. Fernet, it's one of the ingredients. It's not the main ingredient.
00:30:23
Speaker
That's, I think, the best way to break it down is the gentian flavor, and that's the intense bitterness that you get. Yeah, the Fernet is bitter in a different way. um But like I said before, like the putting it with the Coke really cuts that bitterness in a really nice way. You still get um kind of a coffee level of bitterness. It reminds me of like if you get a Starbucks coffee with cream, um that level of bitterness.
00:30:51
Speaker
Doesn't taste anything like that otherwise, but that level of bitterness. um But speaking of coffee, maybe that's why I thought of it. the The cigar, I think this cocktail brought out a little bit of kind of the coffee flavor in the cigar.
00:31:01
Speaker
I've noticed that the retrohale for me is is very like black pepper forward. ah Very spicy, which is nice. um any Any tasting notes midway through for you, Dennis?
00:31:16
Speaker
I'll tell you what, and this this bourbon here is so viscous that it is completely muting any flavors of the cigar. ah Oh, man, that's a bummer. Well, I would say this.
00:31:29
Speaker
I think this bourbon specifically would work really well with Neanderthal. This cigar being a little bit more elegant to your point earlier, it it's I think this would have been like a final third pairing better rather than off the light.
00:31:41
Speaker
All right. um i should note because you said that it reminded me this is a the wrapper on this is san andrea just like the neanderthal um this is what's called a spanish market selection um it's basically lower primings of the same leaves that are used in neanderthal so you get that you know it's a little more velvety a little less uh aggressive in flavor and texture um yeah Yeah, just a little a little softer, also a little lighter colored.
00:32:13
Speaker
um Spanish market selection refers to that kind of like reddish brown that it is. Comes from a time, think, I don't know when these were really used. Near the turn of the century, like I believe around the 20s or so is when the and MS, the market selection system was used.
00:32:29
Speaker
And it was basically that ah the trends were that um different countries liked different wrappers. So American market selection eventually became Candela somehow because a majority of cant of cigars smoked in the U.S. were Candela at the time. Back then. Yeah, man.
00:32:46
Speaker
It's crazy to think about. English market selection is kind of a ah ah I don't know, I guess you would call it a Habano. And Spanish market selection was kind of almost Maduro dark.
00:33:00
Speaker
um There were a couple others, but I can't remember what they are off the top of my head. Yeah, it was on the plus side, generally speaking, if you had to compare the three. um or yeah Yeah, and it it was kind of, and know there were more, but I can't remember what they were, but it was kind of a classification system that Cuba came up with ah for, you know, they were, it's it's kind of what Cuba does now. They roll the cigars, they come out whatever color they come out, and then they grade them by color rather than grading them into different brands like they sometimes do now or um just putting them in different boxes so the colors match up.
00:33:32
Speaker
they would send of the different color shades to different countries. Kind of interesting. yeah all right almost like how mcdonald mcdonald's grades their their beef right it's by color not by flavor exactly sorry i'm a little spicy about cuban tobacco i have have many thoughts and one day i think we'll do a cuban show and we'll get into it and it'll be a three-hour show we'll get mctavish on here and we'll just talk shop that sounds great um right my next what's your second pairing
00:34:04
Speaker
It's going to be Fiorella by Mas Icneus.
Fiorella Wine and Cigar Pairings
00:34:09
Speaker
Anybody who knows what they know recognizes the name Fiorella. So Fiorella is Skip Martin, the one of the co-founders of Romacraft and the the blender.
00:34:22
Speaker
I was going to say master blender, but I'll say blender. He's working on the master part eventually. Maybe. it's ah It's a whole thing. there's I actually have a shirt from them that says, we are all apprentices in a world where no one becomes a master or something like that. It's a ah quote. um um Ernest Hemingway, I think.
00:34:43
Speaker
ah But this is Fiorella by Masagnius. So Fiorella is Skip's daughter. He named a cigar after her that was created the year she was born. um And I guess he also created ah a wine label for her.
00:34:57
Speaker
I don't know a whole lot about that. I haven't bugged skip about it, um but you might've noticed my Roma craft hat ammo fitted new era. It's awesome. um So a couple of years ago, they did a pre-order.
00:35:10
Speaker
They had, ah i mean, i don't think they really had a limited, a specific limited number, but they just kind of said, if you want one of these hats, get at me. um So of course being that hat,
00:35:23
Speaker
guy that I am. I had to, uh, it ended up being a very expensive hat cause they're custom made, they're fitteds and they're, I mean the fitted alone, like just a blank hat like this is like 35 bucks.
00:35:35
Speaker
Yep. 30. If you're 30, if you're lucky, um, new eras are not cheap these days. getting them embroidered adds a little bit. So they did pre-orders so you could get your size.
00:35:46
Speaker
um And it was like 50 something. um I think it was $53, which seems crazy for a hat. But I knew the Roma craft does nothing lightly.
00:35:59
Speaker
um I figured they would toss a couple of cigars in, you know, I get a sweet hat plus a couple of cigars and I'm square. Like that makes me happy enough. Uh, but they also included a bottle of wine with all the orders, which is pretty cool. I noticed some of the guys got white wine.
00:36:14
Speaker
I saw people posting that they got white and I was like, God, I hope I get a red. Um, and somehow I was lucky enough to be one of the couple people that I saw at least that got the red blend.
00:36:26
Speaker
Um, but I've been saving it for a rainy day and today seemed like the right kind of rainy day to go for it. Um, so this is from mas igneous, which is kind of funny. As soon as I saw it, I recognized that name. I recognize that label.
00:36:40
Speaker
Um, I'm trying to remember that his company name now. Luciano Cigars, I guess, is is the name of the company. was trying to remember if it was... I was trying to go through what Ace Prime turned into in my head for a second.
00:36:53
Speaker
Luciano Cigars has a partnership with Mas Igneas, and they have a Mas Igneas cigar that's out there. I don't know if that partnership is still active, because I haven't heard them talk about in a while, but that's besides the point.
00:37:04
Speaker
um Mas Igneas... ah was It's an organic wine company from Spain, and it was started by two Spanish wine growers who started the project in about 1997, where they were like, all right, we're going to grow fully organic on these two...
00:37:20
Speaker
ah
00:37:23
Speaker
What's the word for a winery? that like Where they grow the grapes. Terroir? ah grape terir No, that that means ground. There's a word that I'm looking for. the location is what you' asking for.
00:37:35
Speaker
vintner? Is that what it's called? v but Yeah, a vintner is a person that produces the wine. right, well, these two guys got together and decided both their farms, whatever you're going to call those. Somebody will correct me in the comments, I'm sure. ah Because I don't think you just can't find the word. Vineyard. Vineyard. That's the word I was looking for.
00:37:52
Speaker
Words fall out of my head, man. I've been under a lot of stress. I got a baby. I feel you, man. That's the same. And wife that can't get up with her in the middle of the night because her foot is still ah healing up from some surgery.
00:38:04
Speaker
So i'm I'm burnt out more than even usual. So these two vineyards decided to team up and start the first organic-only vineyards in Spain. um They're in Prioryat, Spain.
00:38:18
Speaker
And they they really established a winery in 2004. So they spent a few years. Sam Fiddle says I was typing. He was ready to spit that word out at me. In 2020, or no, sorry, in 2004, rather, ah they established their winery.
00:38:36
Speaker
um I found some weird information on this. I saw on their website, They never say when they started using the Mas Igneous name, but there is a reference that in 2020, winemaker Ornelius and Jerome purchased the entire project and named it renamed it from Igneous to Mas Igneous.
00:38:57
Speaker
I'm not sure if that's correct, but I couldn't find any reference to it before 2020, so I don't know. um Anyway, they are the they were the first organic-only...
00:39:11
Speaker
vineyard and winery in Spain. Um, and now they're, they're pretty popular. I've, I've found they're apparently very popular in Europe. Um, they're somewhat popular here. I've seen some other stuff around.
00:39:24
Speaker
I at least knew of the name before I, before the Mas Agnes cigar from Luciano. Uh, this one in particular Fiorella is a special edition of Fusio, which is one of their core lines.
00:39:40
Speaker
ah that is a red blend all from their own vineyards, of course, of Grenache, Perignon, I think is how you pronounce it. I'm not I'm not deep into the wine, guys.
00:39:53
Speaker
Merlot, Cab Sav, and Syrah, which is then aged 12 months in French oak barrels of different sizes, which I find really interesting. So they have a bunch of different sizes of of oak barrels that they're aging this in for 12 months.
00:40:06
Speaker
um And then they do the blending and bottling. So this, I think, is kind of ah just a private label of of their core line. I don't know if there was any barrel selection or anything like that going on. Um, but I'm curious to try it. I've never had a mass agnese wine.
00:40:20
Speaker
Um, so I'm going to give it a couple sips. See how it pairs with the, my strands. Uh, while you talk about your second parent, Oh, I have to, I should probably show you the color too. This is very dark, very dark, very dark, purpley kind of more purple than red, but almost black.
00:40:36
Speaker
Like I can barely see through that. It looks almost as black as it does on camera. Like the reflection is red. That's it. It looks really nice. Actually. Very pretty. Spells nice. Alright, what do you got up?
00:40:49
Speaker
i've I've, as you've been talking, I've been sipping a little too hard in mine. I did know. So I need to need to pour little bit more because more sometimes is better. um It's funny that you did the Frenette because I was going to do the Frenette tonight and I said, don't know. I got a different tomorrow. I'm going to It's fine.
00:41:08
Speaker
I'll do another Amaro and it'll be okay because I like Frenette and I always drink it. so I'm going back to this Amaro, man. Amaro Nonino. Have you had this?
00:41:19
Speaker
I have not. you have not. all right, dude, you got to get down on this. Let me tell you a little bit about it. It's really cool. And so in a lot of ways, people talk about Frenet as a classic Amaro in Italy.
00:41:30
Speaker
It is very iconic, iconically Italian. Now, Amaro Nonino is equally as iconic in Italy. It's been around for, I want to say almost as long, 1897, 1897.
00:41:42
Speaker
So roughly around the same time as Frenet, and it's been it has been family-owned since day one. It still is today as far as I know. They basically came from a small village in Perkota, which is near—I'm going to butcher this pronunciation, but it's Udin Udan.
00:42:04
Speaker
In the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. So some someone who is better at speaking Italian will tell me that. See, here's a trick that i I sometimes remember to do, but a lot of times I'm too...
00:42:16
Speaker
um to in my head about it to actually follow through with my own advice, which is just say it like you're confident move on past it. Just barrel through and it'll be gone before anybody is able to say that you... I didn't do the fingers. I didn't like Udin. It's ah the Friuli region. that That would have helped too.
00:42:36
Speaker
Very nice. It helps. It does help. So it's very close to the border with Austria and Slovenia. They have, ah it's known for its really kind of alpine herbs and winemaking traditions. And this is absolutely no slouch in that regard because it has this really beautiful intensity to it.
00:42:55
Speaker
um Classically, we're talking about Amaro's Amari. but In the US it's weird because people say Amaros, but outside of the US people refer to Amaro as... The plural is Amari.
00:43:08
Speaker
And it's interesting to me be in the conversation when people use both at the same time, you kind of go like, I don't know, man. that's what What am I supposed to say? So it's Amari in general. We'll always have things like gentian root, rhubarb, saffron.
00:43:21
Speaker
um This one in particular has tamarind, which I don't think is is as quite as a common ingredient. Now, of course, the recipes— Usually they aren't made with fruit. No, they are not. And so not only tamarind, but this particularly has sweet and bitter orange in addition to licorice, which is more of a classic ingredient.
00:43:41
Speaker
um But classically in the Amari space, right, these these are secret recipes. Nobody really talks about them. They're aged in really small oak barrels. It's very small production. And interestingly enough, they are kind of integrated with a grappa base, which is not common.
00:43:58
Speaker
At all. For any kind of Amari. The grappa distillation is done using batch distillation, which is like not not a ah continuous column.
00:44:09
Speaker
It's a lot slower. it takes It takes more time. There's a little bit more of a finesse that that that's required. um Man, i got let me let me give you some fun facts about this. I'm so jazzed about this thing because I love it.
00:44:22
Speaker
I love it so much. So it's the only Amari made with a grappa, as I mentioned that before. ah which is kind of cool and kind of weird. And grappa in and of itself has been used as a digestive for, you know, for many years.
00:44:35
Speaker
It's a weird kind of intense. It's hard to put your finger down unless you've had it. It's it's hard to talk about what exactly it is. You absolutely, absolutely.
00:44:46
Speaker
and absolutely Yes. Absolution. You should absolutely try.
00:44:52
Speaker
So cool thing is, Gianola Nonino was a female pioneer in distillation in a world where for a long time it was male-dominated. The whole space was completely male-dominated. She really pushed hard for using grappa. She pushed hard for kind of pushing the... What we're drinking today is different than what was available 100 years ago.
00:45:16
Speaker
um This is the quintessentia. So this is sort of their like... flagship, if you will. Now it's become their flagship. She was a big part of rebuilding that and making this the actual flagship and working on the recipe.
00:45:30
Speaker
So I would suspect older older versions of this were a little bit harsher, I would say. I think, you know, a good way to put this is If you did dilute some Coca-Cola syrup or a cola syrup, it has that cola essence to it, but it's not as intensely cola-flavored as something like a Ramazote would be, which I don't know if you've had Ramazote.
00:45:54
Speaker
But if you want cola flavor in a Amaro, go for Ramazote every day. Okay. It's wild. If you put it with club soda, it basically tastes like a Sort of like a fancy Coke.
00:46:06
Speaker
That's cool. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. um So it's an iconic ingredient in classic cocktail paper plane. Now it's classic 2007, but the paper plane has been around long enough for us to all remember what it is.
00:46:21
Speaker
It's a major ingredient in the paper plane. um They also created Italy's most prestigious literary prize, which is the Premio Nonino, founded back in 1975. Interesting.
00:46:34
Speaker
Which is kind of cool, and it's globally respected. It's like it's a big, big deal. and Some of the recipients have been Nobel Prize winners as well. Wow. Very cool. So it's kind of cool. And I did mention the terroir. It's having access to those mountain herbs really gives them an opportunity to play with this in a way that I think...
00:46:54
Speaker
Frenet didn't have a chance. I mean, were outside of Milan, you're really not getting a whole lot of those mountain herbs. You're not getting that kind of intensity of, of well, terroir, but also of plant life.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah. So it's subdued, man. It's a very subdued Amaro. Definitely recommend it, especially if you go, i don't like Frenet. don't like these weird, bitter things. I don't like Jaeger. I don't like Unterberg.
00:47:22
Speaker
If I were to bring somebody to my house, the first Amaro that I would give them they've never had one is this. Because it's so approachable. And I i should have mentioned the ABV on this. Let me tell you what it is. I forgot.
00:47:34
Speaker
It is... My man. Nope, 35. That was going to be my other guess. That was my second But it is sweet. it's It's a lot sweeter. So at 35, it gives it a chance to be a little bit more approachable.
00:47:48
Speaker
If you hit somebody with a 40, you're going to have the heat from the alcohol. It's going to cut through the viscosity of it. It is very syrupy. um and But I find that works well. Most Amaris are. A lot of them are.
00:47:59
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of Amaris are very, very syrupy. And certainly intensely sweet. I think you and I are very used to them. So for us, they're more sweet than bitter. Yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker
But it's like giving Malort to somebody that's never had Malort. They're going to spit it out and say, this is the most bitter thing i've ever had. I mean, it still might be the most bitter thing I've ever had. Really?
00:48:23
Speaker
It's pretty bitter. I'll fix that for you next time I see. I got some things for you. All right. So how's your pairing going for you? Really good. i'm I'm really surprised by this wine because it's kind of the opposite of what I usually gravitate towards. I should have mentioned this is a 2018 vintage, which, you know.
00:48:42
Speaker
It was probably a great year. was probably a bad year. I'm sure people say both because they say that about every year in wine. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Here we are. Yeah, it wass pretty much. Somebody says it's the best year. Somebody says it's the worst year of every single year that's ever happened in wine. But yeah I don't keep track of that.
00:48:59
Speaker
What I do know is this the opposite of what I usually like. Usually I like a big, dry red wine. right? Like very, very low in sweetness, very high in intensity and tannins.
00:49:12
Speaker
Um, and this is kind of the opposite of that. It's very juicy. Like there's, there's fresh fruit kind of flavors in this. It's very bright and sweet.
00:49:24
Speaker
But then at the same time, like, that's how it starts. And then it finishes kind of a little bit bitter, a little bit leathery, a little bit of ah almost like coffee kind of note.
00:49:37
Speaker
um It's really interesting because it's like it's drinking two different glasses of wine at the same time. That's kind of cool. I don't know what's doing it because I don't know enough about wines. I know that...
00:49:51
Speaker
I guess Grenache, I think, is usually a sweeter wine, and I know Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah and Merlot are usually drier wines. um But I definitely read there's only 4% Syrah, so it's not like there's a lot of that. This is mostly that Grenache and Canning Young, whatever that is.
00:50:08
Speaker
um Canning Young? Carignan. heron ah which is, i think a Spanish grape, but I don't know much about it. ah But it's working really well with the cigar. It's really bringing out that spice that I was tasting before, which is really awesome. um There's like a really dry earthy kind of spice on the front of this cigar, like, like red pepper, black pepper, kind of spice, white pepper, maybe.
00:50:37
Speaker
um And then it finishes with kind of leather, a little bit of earth. there's a I'm getting a distinct bitterness from the cigar, but not like not an off-putting bitterness.
00:50:47
Speaker
Like I said before ah about the Fournette, it reminds me kind of of of a coffee bitterness. Like not super intense, but a nice light roast coffee. yeah You have that like distinct bitterness, but it it really doesn't sit on your palate the way sometimes bitterness stuff can.
00:51:05
Speaker
What's that word, man? i I think... Is it marzipan? I think, yeah, so marzipan. Retrohale. Have you hit the retro on this yet? Hit it in it and and then just kind of get your palate all juiced up and just kind of taste through it. ah For me, I'm getting a lot of that spice that you just mentioned, that earthiness.
00:51:23
Speaker
And then the finish on that is a lot of marzipan. but Yeah, there's like really— I've been thinking about that for a while. There's like a really light sweetness on the retrohale. Like on the on the finish of the retrohale. Like you retrohale and you get all that intense spice.
00:51:37
Speaker
That kind of intense... I get like an intense coffee kind of note. Maybe I just have coffee in my brain today. um I mean, it could be a Nicaraguan sock coffee.
00:51:48
Speaker
Exactly. To be fair, because right that that's a very distinct flavor than like a coffee from Starbucks or a Wawa or McDonald's or whatever. Yes, course. has its own quality to its own life that that's really interesting.
00:52:00
Speaker
Maybe it's that. ah me um But like ah when I retrohale, there's like a starts off spicy that ah earthiness and then that starts to fade. And as you get to the finish, all of a sudden there's sweetness and coffee, which I think is that marzipan you're talking about, like that little bit of nuttiness.
00:52:21
Speaker
it's them So I thought hazelnut skin at first, and then the marzipan hit. But when you talk about coffee, as I have this with this Amaro, I'm getting very much a black coffee with a bunch of sugar in it.
00:52:34
Speaker
It's that the way that sugar interacts with the ah just a cup of black coffee... little Cafe Cabano action? Yes, actually. You know what? Probably that's the best way to put it. I think it's Cafe Cabano in a lot of different ways, certainly with an Amaro.
00:52:47
Speaker
um And I should have mentioned, Amaro is not a...
Amaro Nonino and Freem Family Brewers
00:52:50
Speaker
It's not a regulated term. You can call anything an Amaro, technically, which is wild. and And so you look at countries like ah Hungary. Great example. I have a bottle downstairs.
00:53:01
Speaker
They have something called Chinar. You familiar with Chinar? Yes. sometimes have you had Sometimes called Kainar. Yeah. Yeah. Depends on which bar you walk into. But basically, it is a artichoke-based Amaro.
00:53:16
Speaker
Is that what it's made out of? Yeah, it's artichokes. I never knew that. I definitely had it. um It's wild. and But I've never had a bottle of it. It's one of those things where like I had a buddy or a colleague who kept a bottle of it at work.
00:53:32
Speaker
And so we would we would have one of those once in a while after work. I'm sure your buddy was a maniac. That's a special. but And I have the company where I worked.
00:53:43
Speaker
had some very special people working there. ah One guy has his own ah bar recipe book that he's and not, I mean, not published. He just has a website that he maintains with it served from a server somewhere in the cloud um where he just basically keeps notes about cocktails he's making and working on.
00:54:06
Speaker
That's Which is very cool. There was another dude who his wife's parents ran a Thai place that had a bar and he was the CTO of the company.
00:54:20
Speaker
And he would work Friday and Saturday nights at the bar for fun. That's awesome. Like, just so he could bartend and make up cocktails. ah He had... That's cool. ah A liquor case. Like, you know, the 12, 18 count or so case that liquor comes in, and and he just had a different bottle in each slot.
00:54:40
Speaker
And so he would order these Amaros to make... Or Amari, rather, to make cocktails at the bar that his in-laws ran. And then he would...
00:54:52
Speaker
They would go, we're running out of room at the bar. They would go, okay, well, we aren't using this, this, this, this this and this that I ordered. um So he just had all of these three quarters full bottles of weird Amari in his office. So we would just, you know, it was an awesome place to work ah back before we got bought by ah the big boy.
00:55:11
Speaker
um Yeah, I know about that. We had a couple taps in the office. ah They said we could keep those, but they only lasted like three months after we got acquired. That's why you bring your own taps, man. That's you know that's why I brew my own beer.
00:55:25
Speaker
I'm strong proponent of that. I brew my own beer to the office. I don't need someone to bring beer for me. It was pretty cool. mean, we yeah we had good beers on tap there. I can't remember what they were, but they're definitely good beer.
00:55:37
Speaker
I guess it was usually like something from Elysian because they were across the street before they got bought. A little Great Notion. ah No, Great Notion wasn't around yet at that point. Oh, wow. This was like 2015-ish.
00:55:49
Speaker
No, it would have been all Seattle stuff. Seattle, okay. Yeah, yeah, I think it was Heron Brewing. One of those. ah Anyway.
00:56:01
Speaker
some Some Seattle brewery. ah But it was a super cool place to work because we would we would just... be out we would go out drinking and you know there's a bunch of cool bars in downtown seattle that we would go get weird cocktails at that's awesome there are a lot of bars where like uh man i wish i remembered what was in it there's you know what a meat hook is um i know yes i remember the ingredients of a meat hook to miss rye and something else um but he had a variation of it called the red hook
00:56:34
Speaker
Maybe it was the opposite. Maybe it was called the red hook and his was the meat hook. I think it was the red hook that had a float of LaFroig on top. And so we would go into bars and teach them how to make that so we could drink 10 of them and then stumble back to my hotel.
00:56:48
Speaker
it it was It was a great time. Lovely. Yeah. ah Anyway, I guess it's time to move on to our last pairing, huh? Yeah, I think so. All right. So you you just mentioned them.
00:57:01
Speaker
Uh, unknowingly, I hadn't, my I'm going to go on record and say, Dennis was not briefed in the control room. He did not know this was coming, but he did mention Freem Brewers. Oh, you have a Freem on you dirty bastard. I wish I could get Freem.
00:57:15
Speaker
So Freem family Brewers, you can get Freem. Um, so they have started popping up with Freem on my, my frenemy Tavor. I keep telling myself I'm done with Tavor. I can't pay $9 for any more beers.
00:57:31
Speaker
And then they pop up with beers like this. And I'm like, I guess I'll pay 12 bucks for that. I'll take six. Exactly. Um, So Freem was formed by Josh Freem and two friends in 2012.
00:57:44
Speaker
He started off his brewing career working at Utah Brewing, not Utah, but Utah. Sorry, in Utah. Utah. Working at, I misspelled Utah, so I was reading it as U-T-A-W as the brewery, and then I kept reading the sentence in my notes and realized, oh, that's a state, not a brewery.
00:58:03
Speaker
Utah had Squatters Brewing. ah and quickly developed an appreciation for loggers in particular. So he became like the lager guy. He went on to work at Chuckanut, which is in Washington, um before ending up at Full Sail Brewing.
00:58:18
Speaker
Both of those are very lager-focused. Full Sail, I believe, only does lagers. Yeah, Full Sail hardcore about their lagers, man. Yeah, and they they make some really good stuff. i used to love their Vassail in the winter.
00:58:29
Speaker
Man, that stuff was great. After a couple years of making... ah Oh, after a couple of years of making ah beers with Chuckanut, Wit and Blonde IPA became their flagships due to their popularity.
00:58:49
Speaker
I'm like, who wrote these notes for me? um Yes. So that's what it was. So Wit and Blonde IPA became the flagships of Chuckanut.
00:59:00
Speaker
ah even though their brew system was designed for lagering. So Freem was started in 2012. ah As you would expect, he designed their system entirely for lagering.
00:59:14
Speaker
And again, just like at Chuckanut found that the big sellers were their IPAs, uh, even though they didn't make a lot of them at first, they were making, you know, 10 or 12 Pilsners, different Pilsners a year and making two IPAs and the IPAs were outselling because it's IPA town.
00:59:32
Speaker
People wanted their IPAs. Uh, They first released their Pilsner in 2014. And that was like when award season started for them. Like they were winning awards like crazy for their Pilsners and their loggers.
00:59:46
Speaker
um After 10 years in business, cream is now renowned, not just for their dedication to loggers and Pilsners, but also for their Belgian style inspired styles. And they're constantly rotating an extensive barrel aging program.
01:00:01
Speaker
And I have something from that here. um And I will say, if you live in Oregon, they even have, i think they might do it in Washington and California too, but I'm not sure how far they ship. They have a barrel club.
01:00:12
Speaker
You join this club, you pay, i think it's 120 or so a year. um And you get, ah I can't remember the numbers, I guess four, four packs might be four, six packs, six, four packs or something like that.
01:00:25
Speaker
But they basically send you everything. They barrel age for the whole year. and Including a couple of special releases that are only available to people in that club. It's super cool. um And they've kind of, theyve they've turned what was initially, you know, a lot of companies have always had one or two barrel age beers that come out a year.
01:00:46
Speaker
And then they'll have two or three more that are limited release. They started kind of the, I would call it the black label trading company style where they have the same barrel aged beers coming out every year. They'll do a couple offshoots with that.
01:01:01
Speaker
They're changing up a little bit, but like this beer, which is their barrel aged brown ale, rye whiskey barrel aged brown ah is available every year. So every year this comes back the same season.
01:01:14
Speaker
You can get it all the time. Pretty much always available. It is only available in Oregon, except if you're on Tavor. um As most of their barrel age stuff is.
01:01:25
Speaker
Some of the stuff makes it to Washington and California. For the most part, it's Oregon only. um This is their Imperial Brown Ale, aged one year in rye barrels.
01:01:37
Speaker
It's really good. I'll spoil it there. It doesn't look too much like a Brown Ale, as can see. It's about as dark as a Guinness. Um... It's 12.3% ABV and 45 IBUs.
01:01:51
Speaker
So, uh, oh, and this 2023 release. I didn't realize that I just got it, but it was bottled 20, nine, two, 20, 23.
01:02:02
Speaker
um Yeah. So if you're not on Tavor, I suggest you check it out. It's pretty cool. The best part is you only buy what you want. Like, it's not one of those.
01:02:14
Speaker
I hesitate every time I see one, but there's like these things where you can buy like a mystery box. And every month they'll send you six beers in this mystery box. But you don't know what that's going to be. What if it's a beer you don't like?
01:02:26
Speaker
What if it's a sour? Like, I hate blueberry. What if it's a blueberry sour this month? Or three different blueberry sours? An octopus blueberry sour sounds amazing. And I'm going to make it just just for you.
01:02:37
Speaker
I would drink an octopus beer. I'm not off-put by the flavor of octopus. It's the the tentacles. if If it had chunks of octopus floating in it, that'd be a no-go. But I think that'd be hard to make.
01:02:49
Speaker
man Don't tempt me because I'm looking to make a weird beer now. I need something something to jazz me back up. I've been making classic beers for so long now. I want to do something funky. but yeah check and I definitely recommend you check out Tavor and see if it's available in your area because ah if you're like me, there's a couple breweries you really like around the country.
01:03:09
Speaker
and i just watch for the notifications and I'm like, ooh, I'll get one of those. um and Most of it is stuff i um of it is stuff that I can find around here if I look really hard.
01:03:20
Speaker
Most of it that I buy is stuff that is impossible for me to get here unless I have somebody ship it to me from Oregon. Um, so like the great notion stuff, the frame stuff is the stuff I really go after.
01:03:32
Speaker
Um, yeah. Shout out Tabor. Uh, what do you have up last in your rotation? Yeah. I got a really fun thing, man, from ah from a local winery.
01:03:44
Speaker
Winery and winery. i my coach my My Deutsch is coming out. my My Russian's coming out. All the languages are like coming together. it's It must be the cigar. i don't know what's going on.
01:03:57
Speaker
um Let me grab this bottle. So it's a growler. It's not very exciting. There's no real cool bottle to show you. I don't think they actually sell this in a bottle. This is available on draft at at the the winery itself.
01:04:09
Speaker
which is the Argo from Bellevue Winery, which is right by my house. It's about eight minutes away from the house in Landisville, New Jersey. They were founded in 2000. two thousand And they've done some cool cool stuff that I didn't know about until I really kind of went into the history.
01:04:27
Speaker
So Jim Querella started this this back in 2000. They have 50 acres where they're like under cultivation, right? Officially under cultivation, 50 acres. And they're producing about 9,000 cases a year as of 2024.
01:04:45
Speaker
I know they've been trying to expand, but it is a classic thing down here in in South Jersey. it's It's a winery, you go, you hang out, you can bring your own food, you can go sit outside. They have a big area outside, so generally we we'll take the kids out when the weather's nice. nice Bring the kids out, they have some, they really don't serve food, but they have like cheese plates you can get.
01:05:07
Speaker
ah They used to have food trucks, i don't know if they're coming back for the summer, they might. But people just hang out, man. And a lot of cigar smokers hang out there as well, which is really cool. We have somebody down here um from the from the Black Horse Pike area that that brings out a mobile lounge.
01:05:24
Speaker
And because it's a shop in in you know in that area, they can sell cigars. They have a lounge. You can sit down. they have nice ashtrays and seats and in an interior space that's really fun.
01:05:35
Speaker
So it's great, man. And it's so close to the house. and We were just there earlier today, and i it's it's just a wine that I really, really dig. So before I get into the wine, let me tell you a little bit about what they're doing, because i think it's kind of cool.
01:05:50
Speaker
They are doing things like, they're they're trying to be kind of classically European. They're doing things like vertical shoot positioning for a lot of their European varietals. So it's it's a way of putting the the plant, right, so that it it is more it's it's has more visibility to the sun.
01:06:08
Speaker
so that I can actually a little stronger. I'm connecting dots. We talk about primings. So rather than going... It's kind of like the Fittner primings. So like if the hill is coming down this way, rather than going perpendicular to the hill, they're going parallel with the angle of the hill?
01:06:26
Speaker
that what that means? part of it. That's part of it, but in our case, because we don't really have a hilly terrain, it's mostly flat. What they're doing is they are wrapping and guiding... the vines to go up and face up. So it's almost like a... It's almost like a... Like a dog cone.
01:06:45
Speaker
Sort of, yeah. Sort of like that, right? And and that that's kind of pretty pretty known in in the tobacco world. They're doing a lot of cool stuff. They have a very interesting production facility. Interesting, I say, because they are...
01:07:00
Speaker
Well, in today's world, we've moved from classic just barreling to steel tanks. We go steel tank first, then we go into barrel. People have poo-pooed this for a long time, but actually this is really cool because it gives you, number one, it gives you better control of the the final product.
01:07:17
Speaker
It gives you a little bit of time to get some of those off flavors out before you put it into a barrel. You have more consistency product over product, case over case, batch over batch, if you will, season over season.
01:07:30
Speaker
which is which is really cool. And they've been collaborating with a lot of different people as well. I think part of the advantage of using steel barrels like that, because we see steel barrels not only in wine, but also in lots of rums do it, some tequilas do it.
01:07:49
Speaker
It's really that you're allowing the the product to oxidize a little bit, to do some aging in a neutral environment before you introduce those you know, the charred barrels that are really going to impart some flavor.
01:08:06
Speaker
So you're and it's really changing the baseline of what you're putting barrel. Absolutely. And I think a lot of the sort of the the intensity of every young wine gets cut down by being in a steel tank for a little bit.
01:08:19
Speaker
and So that, again, when you go into a barrel, you you have a slightly better product going into a barrel and you have less sort of but what's the word chuff, if you will, at the end that you need to deal with.
01:08:32
Speaker
They're cool also because they are really well known for their dandelion wine, which I've had ah on ah on occasion. I've enjoyed their dandelion wine. Dandelion wine, interesting. it's It's been some family recipe that they've had for really long time, which is cool.
01:08:46
Speaker
But also they are among the first US wineries to cultivate San Marco, San Marco, I should say, which is a cross between Northern Italian varieties and it was first planted in 2018.
01:08:59
Speaker
So it's kind of like an interesting, they're they're pushing the boundaries a little bit. so It's that new hotness. It's the the HVA 2020 of the It's sort of like that. They're taking varietals from Europe and they're they're trying to recreate that experience here and, of course, bottle it and sell it, ah which is cool.
01:09:21
Speaker
A family winery, of course. The wine that I'm drinking today, I should have mentioned, is a weird blend. it's It's very odd. they Maybe that's why I don't put it into a bottle because it's kind of an odd thing.
01:09:33
Speaker
It's a mix between like a Blau-Frankish and a um ah Bordeaux. So two very different kinds of wines. Like Bordeaux is classically a blend of different grapes from France.
01:09:46
Speaker
ah which I love. I'm a big, big fan. And if I'm not mistaken, Pete's wine is a Bordeaux, if I'm not wrong, right? ah Probably it's a Bordeaux or a Burgundy. Oh, you know what? I think he's a Burgundy, actually.
01:09:59
Speaker
I think he's Burgundy I'm not positive. He might be a Burgundy man. um And then so Blaufrankisch is a red grape variety grown in Austria. Well, Austria, Hungary, there's some Eastern European places that have it as well, but it's it's distinct. It's got this massive acidity that I really love for a red. It makes it really dry.
01:10:21
Speaker
And this is, let me show my glass so you can see it. I mean, it's hard. When we talk about wine, it's, all right, it looks like wine. Great. Yeah. It's really hard to show. It's not like a beer where can show you the bubbles and the head and the the body of it.
01:10:37
Speaker
But really cool, distinct blackberry, black cherry, plum, all these really intense flavors and that really nice... ah What's the English word again? Because I can't think of the English word.
01:10:52
Speaker
ah Red. No, the skin. The astringency. Thank you.
01:11:01
Speaker
It's the astringency of the grape skin that really settles nicely into this particular blend of wine that they've made. And I love it. it It goes well. for i mean, for me, it goes well with anything. But you can pair it with most people like to pair with red meats, cheeses, lamb, kind of things that are equally intensely flavored mushrooms.
01:11:20
Speaker
Another one of your favorite foods. Yep. ye
01:11:26
Speaker
And I think it's working really well, man. You know, for the final third of the cigar, I think it was a really great choice. My first two pairings, I think I may have swapped. I was thinking the same thing about mine. Like, I have all those bright flavors in the wine, all those kind of darker, sweeter flavors in the Furnette and Coke.
Rye Barrel-Aged Ale: Flavors and Barrel Aging
01:11:43
Speaker
I should have swapped those two. I think this rye barrel-aged brown is the right call for the final third, though. Oh, agree. So how's that tasting for you with the cigar?
01:11:55
Speaker
Oh, she good. um Yeah. Like I said, this is what we would call Hida at 12.3% ABV. um It has that like one of my favorite things about barrel aging where you don't always get it.
01:12:10
Speaker
Like it's really dependent, I think on the barrels, how fresh they are, whether you refilled them or sprayed them before filling. um But it really has like, you really taste that rye, man.
01:12:22
Speaker
Like if you put a half a shot of whiskey in an imperial brown it would taste oh wow okay like it's it's intense it's got a little bit of that barrel flavor that barrel char and barrel bitterness going on um it's very very sweet like syrupy kind of sweet which is kind of expected for an imperial pretty much anything imperial is going be quite sweet the only way to really get that out is by making it crazy hoppy.
01:12:53
Speaker
Um, and that is just really trying to cover up the sweetness more than anything else. Um, you're, you're going to have residual sugars with something that's high enough gravity to get up, you know, to get up to 12 and a half percent.
01:13:07
Speaker
Um, and presumably, i mean, I've never thought about this before, but I wonder if ABV goes up or down during barrel aging.
01:13:20
Speaker
ah I'm not sure. i guess I guess it kind of depends on how wet the barrels are. Like, if you re-wet the barrels, it's going to go up because there's a bunch of whiskey in there. um Yeah, that's a good question. I think can go up or depending how functioning barrels. Yeah, think it depends on the condition of the barrels.
01:13:41
Speaker
But the sweetness is, like, the star of the show here. But then you've really got that nice... lot You know, you don't just have a sugary, syrupy kind of sweetness. You also have that, like, malty sweetness that you expect from a brown ale.
01:13:56
Speaker
um With those rye notes, those barrel notes, it's kind of got some cherry-esque kind of flavors. And it's working wonderfully with the final...
01:14:08
Speaker
half, final third of this cigar. So I'm curious, what's the rye like on there? Is it a, can you, can you pick out a particular bottle of rye that you really dig? Let visualize some ryes for a second and think of what it reminds me most of.
01:14:27
Speaker
I think the one that comes to mind is bullet rye. I'm sure it's not what they're using. They probably use something more local, um but it reminds me of like a bullet rye. Okay.
01:14:39
Speaker
it's It's pretty high rye on that. It's it's not, um I mean, in the in the world of rye, it's not a top top high rye, but it's, and i when I say top, I don't mean like quality wise, I mean in terms of the intensity of the rye. Yeah, rye means 51% or more.
01:14:55
Speaker
High rye is like, and like 81? 70s, yeah. yeah um But I mean, you there there. ah or there's a lot of ninety five percent rise um And it's really just what kind of balance you're looking for. do you want it to be kind of like bourbon, but with the rye character, do you want it to be straight up rye attack?
01:15:20
Speaker
I love those. Those are my favorite. I love them too. um But this reminds me somewhere in the middle. Like it's got a little bit of bourbon influence, but then you definitely get that kind of like baking spice quality of the rye.
01:15:33
Speaker
It's man. I love this beer. This been one of my favorite beers for like 10 years. um So it's no surprise that I like it so much. I was so excited to see it on Tavor. I immediately, i think Cameron preferred two or four bottles, but I definitely didn't order enough.
01:15:48
Speaker
I should have ordered some just to stash in the back of my beer fridge and yeah keep them for a couple more years. I mean, this is already a year and a half full. um Yeah. If, if you've never had this and you see it somewhere,
01:16:02
Speaker
I would
Wine and Cigar Pairings: Tannic Astringency
01:16:03
Speaker
recommend it. It is fantastic. And it worked really well with an intense cigar. Like the final third of this is, I think it wouldn't have worked as well with the first third. Um, but with the final third, it's doing the trick.
01:16:15
Speaker
I'm going to go back through my pairings. Now, while you talk about your, your final pairing and how it went, my one man, you know what? It's, it's an easy pick for me. My pairing of the night is going have to be this wine. I think it it sits so well with the cigar. with with it would be fantastic with every part of the cigar.
01:16:34
Speaker
Start to finish, especially now where I'm at the final, what I would call the final third, But it's working so well that that sort of palate coating intense.
01:16:46
Speaker
um What did I call it before? The astringency. it's the skin the the The skin bitterness is sitting so well. I think it was Sam called it tannins. Oh, tannins. Well, thank you. Yeah. yeah So, yes, the tannic astringency.
01:17:02
Speaker
Thank you, Sam, ah is working really well. And I suspect this is a great cigar with wine, if especially if you drink red. White's going to be tough. I think with this sort of blend, it'll be certain. sir I can think of certain wines like, uh, vino verde might work well with this. Cause it has the acidity that can cut through some of the flavor.
01:17:26
Speaker
Um, what do you thinking? Man, for me, all three are great.
01:17:32
Speaker
Uh,
01:17:34
Speaker
I think my pairing of the night, similar to yours is going to be this masagnes wine from Roma craft. Not just because it says Roma craft. I mean, it doesn't actually say Roma craft, but not just because it says Fiorella on the bottle.
01:17:45
Speaker
Um, I think you're right that this, uh, this is a dynamic cigar that is pairing with everything I've, I'm having tonight. Wonderfully. Um, but really goes well with a ah wine.
01:17:56
Speaker
Um, just kind of the, the flavors play together really well. Um, And they complement each other really well. Yeah. and Agreed.
01:18:08
Speaker
and a Any final thoughts on this cigar?
01:18:13
Speaker
I need more. Yeah, I think this is a very solid line, ah not line extension, but new line from Chroma Craft. um I liked Baca, but I don't think it hit the It didn't scratch the Roma craft.
01:18:33
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like if I want to scratch the Roma craft itch, I'm going for Neanderthal Cro-Magnon or Aquitaine.
Romacraft Cigars: Intensity and Quality
01:18:40
Speaker
Um, I would add this in there. Like this is, or, or Volstead. Volstead is another one of my favorites. Volstead was cool.
01:18:49
Speaker
I've only had a, uh, I think two or three, but I agree with you for me. I almost always go for Neanderthal. That's my go-to cigar. And this actually might replace that.
01:19:00
Speaker
Because I love how dynamic it is and how approachable it is with a lot of pairings. Neanderthal is kind of a bit, it's certainly more intense. Maybe we can even say aggressive, sure. ah But this, dude, I can have this, I'm out, you know, on on a, even in the morning. Well, again, you and I both kind of smoke more intense cigars in the mornings.
01:19:22
Speaker
I think i've I've done it on several occasions. For me, this is a perfect morning cigar. I love to start my morning with like a ah punch in the face like that, an espresso and a cigar like this.
01:19:33
Speaker
Right up my alley. Yeah. I love it. I love the size also, and I think it's really great value. We talked about what MSRP is $13 on this viatola I believe so. Somewhere around 13, right? and I think it's a great deal.
01:19:48
Speaker
Certainly, we're not talking limited release, so hopefully you can find it wherever you go, which is really nice. um Obtainable, which is important, especially if you like it.
01:20:02
Speaker
Man. Never mind. This thing's a steal. What is it? $5.99. $10. five ninety nine and buck No shit. 10 bucks is the MSRP on this.
01:20:15
Speaker
I'm finding it like like just some very cursory looks. I'm finding it for nine. Wow. ah Okay. All right. This is a good cigar for that price. And of like you said, it it's an interesting comparison with the Neanderthal because it's a very different cigar, but it has some of the similar flavors of that.
01:20:39
Speaker
I think probably because of the wrapper especially and probably some of those fillers as well. Sure. It just kind of, it and lives three or four rungs down on the ladder from the Neanderthal in terms of intensity and strength.
01:20:57
Speaker
I think it's a nice... it's ah Certainly if someone came to my house and all I had was these and Neanderthals, these would be the ones that I would say, hey try this. you might You might really dig it. It's not a powerhouse in the sense of knock you on your ass.
01:21:11
Speaker
Not at all. It's not a... It's not like a cigar nerd cigar necessarily and in in terms of the strength, but in terms of flavor, it is awesome. And I think because it's so approachable, someone that's less versed in cigars will would really enjoy this as much as someone that is incredibly well-versed.
01:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me, this is I mean, he hasn't, I don't want to say it's in like my top X, But this is one of my favorite cigars that's getting splendid, especially in recent history.
01:21:44
Speaker
Top X is tough, right? We try not to talk about that because it's, again, it's it depends on the time period. It depends on the year. It depends on as our palates change and we age and and we experience new flavors, our perspective is constantly changing.
01:21:59
Speaker
It's really hard to nail down. Whereas a certain cigar might be a point in time. I know cigars that I've loved five to eight years ago that I don't really enjoy as much today for that reason.
01:22:13
Speaker
ah But yeah, go check out my stranza. Check it out at your nearest Romacraft retailer. um As you can probably tell, we're... We're somewhat fanboys, I guess you could say, but for me, it's, you know, I like Skip as a person, but to me, it's really about the cigars. Like the cigars are what I love.
01:22:33
Speaker
I love Skip, but, uh, you know, he's not the reason I appreciate the ah company so much for me. It's just the cigars are, are for my palate for the most part.
01:22:44
Speaker
Um, and this is no exception. Go check this cigar out. Cause it's, it's great in my opinion. um Have I told you my story with with Neanderthals? Why I love them so much?
01:22:54
Speaker
Is it the boat story? Yeah, it's a boat story. Yeah. All right. you can You can say it again just for the show. Yeah, it's just quick thing. For haven't heard it. Quick thing, i was on a little canoe out on a lake and I was smoking Neanderthal and we were out fishing and hanging out and this massive thunderstorm rolled in.
01:23:17
Speaker
Torrential rain, soaked to the bone kind of torrential rain. I'm smoking this cigar, I'm not covering it. the The rain is hitting it. I'm smoking it. I'm smoking it. And it's burning great.
01:23:29
Speaker
It's smoking great. I've always pictured you like smoking wet with the cigar in your mouth with water dripping off the end of the cigar. It was. Yeah. So water was dripping off of it.
01:23:40
Speaker
And it sounds crazy to say it's true. Try it. If you don't believe me, get a Neanderthal, jump in your shower. Light it up, smoke that sucker, and see what happens. If you don't believe me, because it this was true, and it blew me away. And I couldn't believe how cool that was.
01:23:56
Speaker
It was still such an enjoyable experience that the rain didn't ruin it. um And again, it speaks to the construction and the quality of the cigar. Not that it's magic in any way, right?
01:24:07
Speaker
But there's something there.
01:24:12
Speaker
You have to admit there's something there that's kind of cool. And certainly one of the reasons like that's my my lore in my history with the brand and the company. Really, I should say the company.
01:24:24
Speaker
That's why I love them. Yeah. and for me, it's just they just make cigars that that scratch the itch. That's what it's all about for me is finding cigars that scratch the itch.
01:24:35
Speaker
Took me absolutely years of in my beginning of smoking to find a cigar that I was like, oh, that's the one. yeah Now I found dozens. There are many cigars that scratch the itch for me, but Roma craft is one that does it every time.
01:24:50
Speaker
Uh, yeah. So check out the cigar, uh, next week. We will be here on Sunday. We will have a show as usual.
01:25:00
Speaker
We haven't decided what cigar, but we'll figure that out. That's, that's, that's the later problem. That's a Thursday problem. Uh, but the following week, like a week from tomorrow um is when I'm going to be gearing up to go to the PCA. I'm going be running around interviewing some of your favorite cigar folks.
01:25:19
Speaker
um Keep an eye on our page. Dennis can't make it, unfortunately, this year. So you're going miss out on pictures of him. I'm so sad. I know. I'm so sad for you, dude. right ah But he is going to be holding down the virtual fort here tomorrow.
01:25:33
Speaker
And he's going to be doing some editing, getting some posts out there for us and Cigar Coop. ah So keep an eye on Cigar Coop and ah let's get pairing. ah We will have almost live coverage from the PCA show floor, which I think should be super cool.
01:25:50
Speaker
um Hopefully we can get things uploading fast enough that we can at least get a couple videos out a day. um That's always the hard part is getting the videos back to the mothership.
01:26:02
Speaker
to be edited and uploaded. um But i think I think it should be pretty cool. I think you guys will enjoy it. We'll have some short form stuff, which I think should be perfect. I'm going to running around with the one and only, the legendary, legend of the cigar media, Cigar Coop, holding the camera for me.
01:26:21
Speaker
um Which is a dream come true, you know? Like, there's nothing I've ever wanted more than Coop shooting the camera for me, teaching him ah use my phone so he can shoot the video.
01:26:33
Speaker
It should be super fun. We're going to have a blast.
PCA Show Plans and Movie Nostalgia
01:26:36
Speaker
I'll tell you guys all about it and Dennis when we get back. ah But we'll still have another show before then. I just wanted to give a heads up.
01:26:45
Speaker
Dennis, of course, now it's time for one for the road. I haven't thought of one, so I'm going to let you go first. but but Because I'm like I said, my life has been insane lately.
01:26:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's been wacky. I think now's the time of the year for all of us. We're kind of getting into coming off of Christmas to a degree, still just recovering, trying to figure out what's going on in life.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, man, my one for the road is a film. I mentioned this in the green room a little bit. It's a film that's near and dear in my heart, and I think a lot of people ah love to hate it. It's so bad, but it's kind of good and it's kind of fun.
01:27:21
Speaker
Anaconda, Anaconda. nineteen ninety seven anaconda Do remember this movie? Of course. This movie was wild.
01:27:32
Speaker
It had Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube and John Voight. I mean, Jonathan Hyde, who I love in all of his films. That classic like British know-it-all fancy man who is also kind of a dirty man because he smokes and drinks and has an opinion every time you see him.
01:27:51
Speaker
ah love that. I love that character. And, you know, this movie kind of gained this weird popularity. It sucked in theaters. People hated it. And then critics hated it. And then people got back to it and they said, this is actually kind of cool.
01:28:07
Speaker
Part of the reason why i love it is because they incorporated practical effects and CGI. Today's world, see it's crazy to think about watching. I watched this last night again. CGI in 1997 was so much better than today's CGI.
01:28:22
Speaker
It's my opinion. But the practical effects were super cool. I think it was that they had to try harder. I think that might be what it is. is now like ah they They get the CGI, like the pre-CGI...
01:28:37
Speaker
parts of the movie ready. So they're ready for CGI and they give them to the CGI production house. Whoever's doing the, whatever special effects house is doing all the CGI and they give them X amount of time.
01:28:50
Speaker
Yeah. X amount of time these days is in weeks. Back then it was in years or months. Like back then they had like rendering took so long that they had to get everything perfect.
01:29:02
Speaker
Now you can render a scene in like, or a shot in like two minutes and So they're like under the barrel trying to get this thing out the door because they're not going to get paid if they're late.
01:29:13
Speaker
um So I think it has to do with those pressures and budgets of these days compared to them. Now, good segue. Speaking of budgets, they ran on a $45 million dollars budget.
01:29:25
Speaker
They grossed about $136 million in theaters. Not bad. Which is good. it's be You know, think that's good for it certainly for back then, right? Generally, the rule is double. um Yeah, like that double kind of break even. Yeah, doubling your budget will make you break even-ish for marketing budget and and just just costs that aren't included in the production budget of the movie. Right, right, which is a whole lot of other costs.
01:29:50
Speaker
um And so actually the the company that did the practical effects and the early CGI for them was the same company behind the animatronics and Free Willy.
01:30:01
Speaker
Oh, really? You know, if you feel jazzed about Free Willy, if you love that movie, they they were on the scene. And interestingly enough, they added a thing that doesn't happen in real life.
01:30:12
Speaker
Do you remember? The snake screams.
01:30:17
Speaker
It screeches. I'm not going to do the screech. I did the screech your last night. I made a weird look because i i my monitor just turned off for a couple seconds. and So I was like, what the hell?
01:30:28
Speaker
um But yes, I do remember the snake going. wow
01:30:34
Speaker
And I like something like that. Not not as high pitch, but in whatever sound you made did not even come through on the mic. Well, I'm not going to do it again. I did it in person for you.
01:30:48
Speaker
But yes, I made a really weird sound, which is not typical for anacondas. They don't make that sound. um But please don't play with anacondas. um no I think they make a hiss.
01:31:03
Speaker
Not even a hiss. What they do is they make a sound which which sounds like air leaving a balloon minus the valve fart syncopation of it. but It's like, yeah, there's like an exhale.
01:31:18
Speaker
But really, there's not a whole lot, which makes it even more terrifying. But, dude, this was the beginning of J. Lo's career in in film. Jon Voight's character, I think, garnered a cult following, which is great because he had this awful accent.
01:31:33
Speaker
that nobody could place. it was weird. Oh my God. I forgot about that accent. Semi-Portuguese. He had this grin on his face the whole time. And he became this quintessential villain in a world where in 1997, we had all these other movies that were coming out that were wild and crazy. And people kind of liken this film to things like Tremors.
01:31:56
Speaker
They liken it to arachnophobia to a degree.
01:32:01
Speaker
Kind of shitty movies, but also great movies in their own right. And not because they want it to be great. So that's my one for the road. If you haven't seen it, definitely go check it out. It's ah it's a it's a gas...
01:32:14
Speaker
if the NFL want to be and use popular language, it's a gas. Yeah. Check it out. Um, well, as you know, I don't watch trailers. I'm going to get to something before I get to my, I hate watching trailers cause would just, I would really just rather be surprised by the movie.
01:32:30
Speaker
I want to know who's in it, who's making it and what the story is going to be. So I read like the log line on IMDB or on Google or whatever, or rotten tomatoes. Um, but don't I haven't watched this trailer, but are you aware that there's a new Anaconda movie coming out?
01:32:48
Speaker
What? No. December 25th of 2025. Oh, stop. Anaconda. I'm going to Google this. 2025 starring Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn, and Jack Black. Tell me.
01:32:59
Speaker
What? Three childhood friends. I'm not reading this. It said something along these lines. Three childhood friends go to the jungle to make a remake of their favorite movie of all time, which is Anaconda starring Jennifer Lopez.
01:33:11
Speaker
oh Oh my God. and things go horribly awry. I love Paul. reid How fun has does that fucking sound? Like I, I cannot wait to see this movie.
01:33:22
Speaker
I'm, I'm such a super fan of Paul Rudd and Jack Black. I love Paul Rudd as celery man. Celery man. It has been ingrained in my soul and Jack Black in, uh, uh, uh, fuck. What's the movie? The Jackal with Bruce Willis.
01:33:37
Speaker
I love. Yeah. It was so good. It's so good. um Wow, this is a really great cast, actually, looking at the rest of the cast. it's but it sounds It sounds incredible.
01:33:48
Speaker
um I can't wait to watch it. ah Again, I don't watch trailers because I'm over that, um but it should be... like it has all the all the parts to be really good.
01:34:02
Speaker
Oh man, I hope I can get to it. It's directed by the guy who made the unbearable weight of massive talent. Oh, perfect. So it'll be great. Yeah, it should be great. All
New Movie 'The Monkey' and Cigar Buying Tips
01:34:12
Speaker
right. My one for the road is going to be in a somewhat similar vein, but not that similar.
01:34:20
Speaker
I went to see it. It's coming out on streaming Friday. If you don't want to pay to go see it, but it's going to be expensive. So maybe wait until it hits streaming elsewhere on Netflix or whatever. Yeah. Movie called the monkey.
01:34:33
Speaker
directed by Osgood Perkins. ah
01:34:38
Speaker
This is a weird movie because it's in some ways a remake of Monkey Shine from the 80s, but Monkey Shine was actually a knockoff of the book or the story by Stephen King that was unofficial.
01:34:56
Speaker
I thought you were going to say R.L. Stine. No. um So the monkey, it is about a monkey that is ah like a wind up doll monkey that you wind it up and it drums.
01:35:09
Speaker
ah um
01:35:13
Speaker
Only this one is weird, mysteriously magic. It's um this kind of a horror comedy, but not it's like.
01:35:23
Speaker
It's 60-40 horror to comedy. So it's like more horror than comedy. this is Don't think Tucker and Dale think something a little less intentionally funny.
01:35:35
Speaker
um This is about a family that obtains this monkey and can't get rid of it.
01:35:43
Speaker
um they but These two twins figure out when they're kids that if you wind up the monkey, it's going fuck some shit up. ah Crazy things are going to happen.
01:35:55
Speaker
Somebody's going to die, but you can't predict who the only person that never dies. As far as they've figured out is the person who turns the key to wind it up. Anyone else in the world is fair game.
01:36:08
Speaker
Uh, it's basically an excuse to come up with a bunch of red ridiculous death scenes that are awesome. Uh, like the, the opening scene involves a pawn shop and a harpoon gun.
01:36:20
Speaker
And it's wild. The whole movie is wild. It's very bloody, very fun. I highly recommend it. So you liked it? Oh, I loved it, dude. Okay.
01:36:31
Speaker
Because i i've I saw the trailer for it and I thought this might be shit. I don't know. No, it's it's definitely not shit. It's a really good. Osgood Perkins is... um Well, that's why I wasn't sure. An up-and-coming incredible horror director. He's only directed like three or four movies.
01:36:50
Speaker
But if you couldn't guess from the name, he's Anthony Perkins' son. ah but you know, the history there, the original psycho, which is wild.
01:37:01
Speaker
um And he's, he's been making movies. He's come out with three movies in the last year and a half or so. um Yeah. He's been pushing hard. And I saw, well it's funny because like you see that happen and you're like, this dude has two movies coming out a month apart from each other.
01:37:18
Speaker
Um, and I was reading an AMA the other day from him on Reddit and somebody was asking like, dude, how are you pumping out movies so fast? And he was like, well, just happened like three movies I was involved in all got picked up at the same time. And all of a sudden I was busy but after years of doing onesie twosie, you know, working a couple months a year when he can.
01:37:39
Speaker
Um, and I, you know, that's how the movie business works. Like sometimes you're on fire. Sometimes you're not right now. He's on fire, which is cool. Cause he makes good movies and the monkey might just be one of his best movies yet.
01:37:52
Speaker
um Wow. Go check it out. It's it it is really a lot of fun. I highly recommend it comes out on Friday on streaming. It's still in some theaters. can go see it at the, uh, what, what 30 years ago was the dollar theater in your town.
01:38:09
Speaker
Maybe I miss those theaters. Dude, me too. um Good times. That's my one for the road. Keep an eye out for one for the road from PCA in a week and a half.
01:38:21
Speaker
I can't wait. ah Yeah. And also, as I've said over and over again, check out Maestranza from Romacraft. Great stuff. um I guess that's the end of the show.
01:38:36
Speaker
had There was something that I had thought of as like a tagline or something, but I can't even remember what it was. because I'm not smart enough to, or awake enough to keep thoughts in my head anymore.
01:38:47
Speaker
So anyway,
01:38:51
Speaker
Dennis, any other closing thoughts, closing words? I love this cigar. I'm, I'm, uh, once we close, I am buying couple boxes because, uh, I need this in my life and my humidor is running low. So this is the perfect excuse.
01:39:06
Speaker
I think that's the right move. At that price point, too, it's it is a steal. I mean, all all of the Roma Crafts cigars are kind of like that, right? Yeah. Very nice.
01:39:18
Speaker
Anyway, ah thanks, everybody, for checking out the show. Thanks for hanging out with us. Oh, I got to get to the one for the road for the viewers. We got two people now tossing it in the comments.
01:39:30
Speaker
Oh, nice. If you're watching late, feel free to toss it the comments. um Sam Fennel is still watching Wheel of Time and he says, if you forget the books, it's great. Otherwise, ah the directors have changed it is the spoiler alert.
01:39:43
Speaker
ah So it's different than the book, which is always a little frustrating, right? Just like The Witcher, which is why I stopped watching The Witcher. It was but it just devolved. Me too. We watched about half of season two, and then we were like, eh, this doesn't feel right anymore.
01:39:59
Speaker
ah Chris hay Healy ah says, White Lotus season three, the only issue is he was watching with his wife, ah but she couldn't wait for him. but She watched without him.
01:40:11
Speaker
It's on my list. I've been meaning to watch that, actually. I keep hearing great things about it. My parents, um I've talked before, my parents live in an apartment that's attached to our house, so we've spent a lot of time together. I'm dropping off the baby, picking up the baby all the time, um bringing them dinner or lunch or whatever, and I'm always in there.
01:40:28
Speaker
They were watching White Lotus last week. They were catching up. um I have not watched any of it yet, similar to Dennis, so I got to get on that and check it out.
01:40:39
Speaker
And Gemstones is coming out, I think, in May, the final season of Gemstones. ah I thought it already started. shit, did it?
01:40:52
Speaker
I'm not connected into the future, man. I try to disconnect from media as much as I can. I hear that. we enough it yeah It started but it started ah March something. March 9th. Ah, well, Chicago. Okay, I'm going watch it. It's been out. it's been out and so they're They're on episode 4 now.
01:41:07
Speaker
I got watch it too. i watch I like to wait until a season is done. she can last Dude, last season, i went through all of Righteous Gemstones season.
01:41:20
Speaker
but was that? Season three in one workday. I just started playing when I started work and then I finished work and had already finished the season. um All right. That's a rule.
01:41:32
Speaker
Way to flex your technical acumen. Jesus. I mean, to be honest, I can't say I paid attention the whole thing, but I've watched the whole thing.
01:41:43
Speaker
I have a TV in my office so I can just play background music or videos while working. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Same, same for me. Sam Fiddle says the Doge is still letting him treat America's veterans tomorrow.
01:41:56
Speaker
We appreciate what you do, Sam. Absolutely. Glad Doge hasn't, hasn't touched you yet. Hopefully they don't. Word on the street is Elon's going to be retiring already. So ah maybe it'll slow down a little bit.
01:42:09
Speaker
Anyway. Any other closing thoughts before we end the show, Dennis?
01:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, man. I would say last closing thought. Don't knock wine. If you're not a wine drinker, don't necessarily knock it if you're a cigar smoker. Try wine with a cigar. You might really like it.
01:42:26
Speaker
And it may be you may not like wine by itself or with food. And maybe your thing is wine and cigars. And that's cool. And you won't know until you try it. What I learned when I started drinking wine is that wines can be vastly different. If you don't like wine, it's probably because you've had a couple of wines that aren't for you.
01:42:46
Speaker
That's right. You know, similar to anything, similar to any spirit, really like, um, bourbon might be an exception because most people I find like bourbon, but you know, scotch, rum, uh, beer,
01:43:05
Speaker
any kind of like beer to drink, there's probably a couple of versions that you're going to like, and a bunch of versions you're not going to like the first time. Um, I know with Dennis and I with rum, it was, we had to try the right rum before we could go back and and enjoy other rums.
01:43:21
Speaker
Um, and it's, it's like that for a lot of people. So don't, I agree with Dennis. Don't, don't hate on wine unless you've tried every wine in the world.
01:43:34
Speaker
That's all I got to say. I think i would with that, I will say thank you everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.