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LGP 53 - Southern Draw Decennium
10 Plays4 days ago
This week, we try out Southern Draw's 10th Anniversary release, the Decennium!
Recommended
Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
yeah everybody ah welcome back but let's get pairing i'm your host trip uh today we're smoking the southern draw decennium little it doesn't need to focus i'll show you in a little while but for now grab yourself a cigar grab yourself a drink let's get pairing
00:00:35
Speaker
And we're back. Welcome back, everybody.
Recording Location and Guest Introduction
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm your host, Tripp. This is Let's Get Pairing. i am also, I should note, in the Casa Monte Cristo studio here in Florida with Dennis from the Darkness Dungeon of Death.
00:00:48
Speaker
ah Dennis, how are you doing this week? Yeah, man. We're at the Triple D. Triple D. You're rolling in ah That's right. As I tend to do. Good, man. Good. i'm ah We'll talk about this during the show, I think, a little bit.
00:01:01
Speaker
I am... ah Quite cigarred up, if you will, from the week and had a chance to smoke some cool stuff. I'm excited for tonight. And also maybe a ah a bit of a fun story about a not great interaction I had with something that stung me.
00:01:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I heard about that. If you don't smoke cigars, but you're here with us just for the pairings, maybe I can entice you with a story about getting stung by something unknown. An unknown creature.
00:01:29
Speaker
That's right. it Still unknown. I have no idea what it was, but it was awful. It sounds pretty awful, but we'll get to that
Southern Draw Decennium Cigar Overview
00:01:35
Speaker
in a little while. For now, we're going talk about a cigar. This is the... going to do this. The Southern Draw Decennium.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, man. See it'll focus there. Hello? Very 90s. I love the 90s dolphin graphic. This brings me back to middle school. You know, remember those stickers with the, with the what what would you call this? The holograph. The hologra hologram.
00:01:57
Speaker
They're so cool. I love Holograph, one of those. And I think this is a really classy representation of that to to give all credit to Southern Draw for what they did with this cigar. the the The labeling, certainly.
00:02:08
Speaker
um It's just kind of fun. And i think it's I think it's nice how it's like their regular label, but fancied up a little bit. Yes, exactly. all right. So this is the Southern Draw Decennium.
00:02:20
Speaker
um I'll start off by saying... I know Coop said in his review that he hated it. I kind of love that it comes in this little cardboard tube for three cigars.
00:02:30
Speaker
I just think it's a, maybe not the fanciest way of presenting a 10 year anniversary cigar, but it's, it's, you I think it's kind of nice. It's a chair different at least. I think that it makes it very shareable. And certainly i I think a lot of guys that smoke and go out to events and hang out with their friends, they need something that can stick in their pocket. And oftentimes, uh,
00:02:51
Speaker
Maybe you want to carry a couple of cigars, but you don't necessarily have a pouch. You don't want to bring your your hard case. You want something stick in your in your shirt pocket. I think that fits really well for that.
00:03:02
Speaker
I think that's kind of why I like it, because I love carrying around cigars in my shirt pocket when I have a shirt with a pocket in. um But I think there's another reason that they did this, which I'll get to in a couple of minutes. um So this is to celebrate, as it says on here, at the 10th anniversary of Southern Draw Cigars. Of course, they were started in 2014. This was released late last year, 2024.
00:03:22
Speaker
twenty twenty four um So for the 10th anniversary, Southern Draw went outside of A.J. Fernandez factory for production for the first time. um So the story...
00:03:34
Speaker
i should have I should have reached out to Robert first to confirm, but it was I was doing my notes right before the show, and I didn't want to have a message out to him and then get bad information or and put out bad information, so I'll keep it to what is in the press release.
00:03:46
Speaker
But I heard something slightly different from the horse's mouth, but I don't want to get it wrong. Um... According to the press release, this was initially commissioned as cigar made in at El Teton de Bronze um that was going to be a shop exclusive.
00:04:01
Speaker
Plans somehow changed, and Southern Draw ended up with the opportunity to release it um ah around their 10th anniversary and decided it was the perfect cigar. What Robert told me is kind of that they they had planned on in the beginning of Southern Draw working with Sandy, so this was kind of a full circle moment.
00:04:18
Speaker
um And it does say... aged on the side of the but band. I don't know how long that means. um Pretty sure it wasn't aged 10 years because he'd be charging a lot more than 15 bucks, I would think. you um At least a year, year and a half, two years, maybe.
00:04:38
Speaker
ah Very likely. Around two year mark, yeah. ah But anyway, so as kind of ah you know a way to do something a little different, um they went outside of AJ Fernandez and had this made at El Teton DeBron's.
00:04:51
Speaker
um Like I said, it was supposed to be some kind of ah shop exclusive, but something fell apart there. And this is what we ended up with. ah Oh, the last thing.
00:05:04
Speaker
Southern Draw, with pretty much all their cigars, they donate a portion to charity. And for the Decennium Project, they decided to ah donate to a charity of Sandy Cobas' selection. and um So Sandy, the owner of Teton de Bronze, actually selected the charity that these are proceeds from this are being donated to.
00:05:27
Speaker
As I mentioned before, he's come in little three packs, about 45 bucks because they're 15, 1499 really per cigar. It is a six by 46 Lonsdale.
00:05:37
Speaker
Wrapper is Brazilian Araparaca. Binder is Dominican Criollo 98. And the filler is all Nicaraguan. I couldn't find an exact number on how many of these were made.
00:05:49
Speaker
But from my understanding, when I talked to Robert about it last year, um there are not going to be more of them. It was like a one and done thing. And they they had a set number of cigars. And if they want to remake it, it'll kind of be a new blend.
00:06:04
Speaker
Um, because the the materials aren't necessarily available anymore or something along those lines, but I couldn't find a number on how many were actually produced. Um, but that is part of why they did these three packs is because they wanted them to be as widely available as they could.
00:06:20
Speaker
And if they did 20 count boxes or 10 count boxes, that would cut down the amount of people that would be able to buy them. Um, so they wanted to kind of spread the love as much as possible among their customers.
Initial Thoughts on the Cigar
00:06:31
Speaker
So,
00:06:32
Speaker
Now we've lit it up, what your first thoughts on the cigar, Dennis? I love the juiciness of it, and juicy in terms of a savory way. If I were to describe it, this reminds me of...
00:06:45
Speaker
um In some ways, if I were to take the de Nicaragua and Tanya, the original release... And cubify it, if that makes any sense.
00:06:57
Speaker
Okay. Cubify it that, like, a little sweetness that, you know, the extra bit of humidity and sweetness that comes with that when you when you actually light it up. um It's really cool.
00:07:07
Speaker
It's got a ah very kind of full mouth coating sweetness to it that's really great. And it's a full, um I don't want to say full flavor, but it's a, my shit, what's the word?
00:07:19
Speaker
Trippy, you can help me with this. Full-bodied? It's not that it's full-bodied. No, I think that really this is on the front end, on the palate, rather than the actual full experience. Yeah, I get what you're saying.
00:07:31
Speaker
It's savory. it's It's got that, like, it fills your mouth and stays in there, and you kind of want a little bit more, and I love that there's this essence of sweetness to it that is, in my mind, very distinctly Cuban of some of the cigars, like the Bolivars that I love to smoke.
00:07:45
Speaker
ah Not at the level of the Partagas. If we leave Partagas aside, which is my other favorite, like the number four, I love number four, but oh yeah there's a distinctly Cuban kind of room note to it, but with a bit of an edge, which I really love. And again, we know this is not a Cuban cigar, so it makes sense.
Japanese Beer Primer
00:08:06
Speaker
um But it's, here, how about this? Taffy. So on the palate, it's got that taffy quality. The smoke is thick and layered and sits on your palate.
00:08:18
Speaker
It's not just a like, oh I'm smoking tobacco. It's like, what what's that flavor? I can't put my finger on that. Is that almond? Is that a little bit of leather? Is that a little sugar? Like... um like cane sugar, like raw sugar.
00:08:34
Speaker
e It's kind of like that. And I think it's really cool. And this is off the first light. Normally my first light is and miserable experience because I hit it too hard and I go, man, this sucks. Mine has kind of a tight draw, which sort of prevents that problem by default, right? Yes.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah. um I'm having, i'm I'm not sure if it's a very different experience. Or just a different way of describing exactly the same experience. So what it makes me think of is... I wasn't thinking Cuban at all, but now I'm like trying to find that find those flavors in my head.
00:09:13
Speaker
little bit that hazelnut, you know? Well, so to me, this is a lot more in your face than what you're talking about. So this, to me, has a lot of red pepper and black pepper spice.
00:09:25
Speaker
specifically what it reminds me of is like the burnt ends or the crust on a brisket where it's like that mixture of, of just blackened sugar and charred, uh, black pepper and salt.
00:09:43
Speaker
Like to me, it's, it's very salty, peppery, um,
00:09:49
Speaker
with a little bit of, I don't know, earthiness, woodiness. I guess woodiness is closer than earth, but they're both there. I can absolutely agree with you on the salt.
00:10:00
Speaker
And I think I should have mentioned for me, I pulled this out of my humidor at about, it must have been close to 70% humidity. humidity So it is kind of spongy. It's it's decently wet if you want to talk about it that way.
00:10:16
Speaker
So I think probably, and again, normally I dry box a lot of my cigars before I smoke them, bring them down. My humidor sits roughly around 66. But even at 66, I tend to dry box. And this is one one of the cigars that I did not dry box before. Interesting.
00:10:32
Speaker
that That could be part of the reason that we're part of it we have a difference in you know what we're tasting. Well, this is a show about pairing, not just about cigars. I'm so for what you Let's get pairing. jazzed. We'll do our first pairing, then we'll do a little bit of story time with you. All right?
00:10:50
Speaker
um race All right. So my first pairing, I mean, you're the one telling the story. Oh, good. Okay. Well... Should should I go over the my Japanese beer primer again, or should get straight into the pairing?
00:11:01
Speaker
What do you think? i Honestly, I think it'd be worth doing it because every time you and I go through this, there's something new Yeah, I feel like we'll pick up. It's it's absolutely worth we learn something new every time. So a little primer on Japanese beer.
00:11:16
Speaker
ah Japanese brewing shares a lot of similarities to Japanese distilling. They both kind of happened ah around the same time and ah pretty much the same way. um So Sebei Nakagawa.
00:11:28
Speaker
was a high school student. He left Japan at the age of 17 when he finished school to explore the world. Um, he spent seven years in England. Um, and he decided to journey to Berlin, uh, because he met up with a guy who I should have updated my notes to have the name.
00:11:47
Speaker
Um, but a guy who, uh, was from Japan and he would eventually become the foreign minister of Japan, uh, in the early nineteen hundreds Um, but he kind of got the inspiration from this talk to this guy. You know, he was like, Berlin is great.
00:12:01
Speaker
You should go there. There's lot of cool stuff, something along those lines. So, uh, our boy, Sebe headed off to Berlin, um, and started working for Berlin beer company, um, just to kind of figure out what brewing was about. He thought it was interesting.
00:12:17
Speaker
So he spent about three years there. And, um, after a total of 10 years away from home, he returned as the first ever certified brewer, um, who, who was from Japan and Japanese.
00:12:32
Speaker
Um, and he, had some contacts in the government and went to a pitch meeting and they said sure open a brewery for us so that's how the puro brewery started in hokkaido in 1876 um so actually it was a little bit before the scotch stuff happened um but it's still very similar uh so the brewery that was
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh, I'm messing myself up with my notes. The brewery that eventually would become Kirin Brewery, Kirin Ichiban, is their most popular beer, um actually predates Sapporo by seven years, and it was it was built and started before them.
00:13:14
Speaker
But it was actually founded by an American-European brewer, guy from America who had spent a bunch of time in Europe and ah decided to start a brewery in Japan. So it wasn't actually a Japanese brewery, right? It was...
00:13:26
Speaker
um a foreigner making a brewery, ah which in Japan was not cool at the time, but apparently it did well enough for him to sell the company to, I believe it was to the Japanese government or a Japanese conglomerate later on.
00:13:41
Speaker
um During this early, these early years, the late 1800s, it became really kind of obvious early on that Japan just didn't have production of the right ingredients.
00:13:55
Speaker
They had some grains. I don't think they had any hops, but they were trying to grow them, and it was proving difficult. So it just became commonplace for Japanese breweries to use or sometimes, in some cases, just advertise that they were using imported European ingredients, even though they were using cheap Japanese ingredients.
00:14:18
Speaker
um And it became kind of the, just the mark of quality, like any Japanese brewery making real beer using all German ingredients, which was kind of the style at the time.
00:14:30
Speaker
In the 1980s is when the next huge change to Japanese beer happened, ah which was Asahi started adding rice to their beer. Yeah, I'm a big fan.
00:14:41
Speaker
It kind of started, my understanding is as a mixture of just an experience to see if it would be better, to see if they could make it cheaper using, obviously, buying rice from the rice patty down the road is a lot cheaper than importing grain from Germany.
00:15:01
Speaker
um Oh, for sure. and what they found was that it created a ah very different taste and it became their signature super dry. When you see Asahi super dry, the super dry means that it's made with rice.
00:15:14
Speaker
Now that's very common. Even American beers are sometimes made with rice, um like the ah the the big boys, right? like Yeah, yeah yeah they're they's so they're doing it to stretch their dollar.
00:15:26
Speaker
In Japan, it kind of started that way, but it became such a signature flavor that now most Japanese beers use at least some rice to... ah to get that
Pairing the Cigar with Japanese Beverages
00:15:38
Speaker
uh that kind of clean crisp very dry non-sweet flavor it's a really distinct dryness that you don't necessarily understand in beers unless you are a wine drinker and you understand when you get to those like really super super dry whites then you understand okay that that's that's why this beer makes sense mm-hmm
00:16:00
Speaker
ah These days, of course, you see a lot of micro breweries making Japanese lagers as ah I think it kind of came to be in the U.S. and in micro brews, at least, because it's kind of a mix between beer that if you like PBR and Bud Light, um you can walk into this micro brewery and find something you'll like.
00:16:22
Speaker
ah the Japanese lager. um But also it, it's just a, you know, a cool, interesting style. And like we always talk about with Pilsners, it kind of shows off a little bit, you know, you can, that rice even makes Pilsner more difficult to nail than it already is because you're turning the volume down on all those flavors and turning down that sweetness.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's my, my Japanese beer primer. Now I'll get into Kawaba. Kawaba is a microbrewery that was founded in 1997, uh, in a small village of the same name called Kawaba in Gunma, Japan. It's located about, about two hours North of Tokyo.
00:17:02
Speaker
Um, for their beers, this in classic Japanese tradition, they use all imported German ingredients, um, except for some stuff like I'll, I'll get to with this particular beer and local spring water,
00:17:16
Speaker
ah to brook glu produce mostly Japanese-style beers that almost always have... ah Sorry, German-style beers that almost always have a Japanese kind of twist. um So this one I'm drinking is called Pearl Pilsner.
00:17:30
Speaker
The name comes from sake, Pearl Sake, which is also known as Sakenagori, which is kind of a milky, cloudy, unfiltered sake. So milky.
00:17:41
Speaker
ah And this is a a rice pilsner. So this is a rice beer that is made unfiltered, kind of in the same style as that Nagori, with local rice that they say is a very rare rice called Yukihotaka.
00:17:59
Speaker
Couldn't find much more on that. um But you can see it's it's very unfiltered. It's more yellow than it looks on camera because the light is coming from the wrong side. It's only 5.2% ABV.
00:18:12
Speaker
And I'll take a couple sips. You can talk about your first pairing and then lead into your story if you want, or or we can talk to finish off this pairing first if you want.
00:18:22
Speaker
I'm so jazzed about Japanese beer, and it's such a ah cool thing because i think the Japanese
IPA Pairings with the Cigar
00:18:27
Speaker
have approached beer, to your point earlier, in such a dedicated way as they have whiskey where they've gotten to a point where their whiskeys, their single malts are coming out and they're so good that even Scotland has said, you can call this scotch. We're cool with this. You can do this. And I said, no, man, we're, we can't do it, but it's uniquely ours. It's uniquely special in that regard. And listen to your point about water,
00:18:57
Speaker
but I think the water is really important. We talk about beer. Water is one of the most important ingredients, if not arguably the most important ingredient in a beer that affects your ultimate flavor profile.
00:19:08
Speaker
And obviously there are other things, right? Like your yeast, your, how your fermentation goes, how your mashing goes and all that stuff. But really water is going to be at the core of it. So if you have the same style of beer,
00:19:20
Speaker
at different places, you're going to notice that they taste different, and that's because of the water profile. And for someone to go in and say, we're using local spring water, it's it's crazy, man, because it's so much harder to use...
00:19:35
Speaker
Water that's going to have variation, maybe not by much, but but you know certainly ah over a certain amount of time, over a year, over a month, you're going to have some level of variation. You have to account for that in your product, especially if you're producing to sell.
00:19:51
Speaker
If your home brewer is a little bit different, fine, whatever, it doesn't really matter. But, and I say this for myself as an easy cop out for me, I just go, well, I'm not sure about my local water. I don't know going to be consistent.
00:20:03
Speaker
I don't want to keep testing it. I'm just going to rebuild the water profile chemically with with the right salts and things and and get the water profile to where it needs to be. Yeah.
00:20:15
Speaker
So I always admire breweries that go in and say, well, this is the local spring. This is where we get water. This beer tastes like this town. Everything made in this town is going to have that quality. And I love that because people people gravitate toward that kind of thing.
00:20:29
Speaker
And you go visit a place and you have beer at that place and the beer is brewed there. And you go and you have a meal and you have some bread and something else. And you go, man, there's it tastes like that town. Yeah, that's true. Really cool.
00:20:42
Speaker
Now, again, if you're the PBRs of the world or the Anheuser AB InBevs, I should say, sorry, AB InBevs of the world, um maybe that's different. Maybe, right, you don't want to focus on that as much and and you want to cut that down. so And I suspect um AB InBev, for a lot of their beers, cuts the profile in-house.
00:21:03
Speaker
Oh, I'm starting to have it. They'll pull in water. That's why Bud Light tastes the same all across the country because they right there are multiple breweries. in the country, but it tastes the same everywhere.
00:21:13
Speaker
And they have to, and I understand, right, at that scale, but I really love that local thing. the Japanese have done a really great job of... doing that. And that goes for food, that goes for sake. lot of the sakes, if you've tasted enough of them, you kind of get an idea of this is northern Japan, this is southern Japan, this is like southeastern Japan.
00:21:34
Speaker
All have different unique profiles. And they're so subtle that honestly, if you didn't have them before, you didn't think about them, you'd never know. You go, okay, well that Nagori tastes like the other Nagori that I had kind of like coats my palate. It's a little milky. It's interesting, but that's it.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah. And you get into the funk. And again, this is, you know, we talk about grapes with wine, which is a great example. So my first pairing is quite interesting. i never had it before. And I wanted to kind of jump in and try saying something different. i could not resist. So this is a kind of a fun label, too. Hold on. let me see if I get the camera there.
00:22:10
Speaker
There you go. Medusa Brewing Laser Kitten IPA. I think this cigar might work with an IPA. It is. It's working so well.
00:22:22
Speaker
And i I love it, but almost going to hate It's a weird, it's a love-hate relationship. So cool label. It's got this lovely little cat thing going on. It's called Laser Kitten because they have a more imperial version of this, which is Laser Cat.
00:22:37
Speaker
So this is 6% ABV. Laser Kitten is the but lesser version. Laser Cat Light. It's a Laser Cat Light, if you will. And this brewery has been around for actually quite a while, and I've never seen them in my life, not once, in all of my trials.
00:22:55
Speaker
So I was super jazzed. I it at the store. I couldn't resist. I had to buy it. um They were founded in 2013 by Keith Sullivan, Keith Antle, and Tom Sutter in Hudson, Massachusetts.
00:23:08
Speaker
And man, let me tell you. so this is there as i know As far as I know today, they are still running on the same system, which is a seven-barrel system. Holy crap.
00:23:19
Speaker
And a seven-barrel system produces roughly, you're looking at, You'll get like 217-ish gallons to a batch on that system if you're doing a single batch on that one system. right um Not a lot of beer, technically speaking for ah production company, certainly one that's canning their beers like they are.
00:23:40
Speaker
So, kind of impressive. That would be, let me let me do some quick math.
00:23:47
Speaker
That's a little under 2,500 beers, like bottles cans. like bottles or can I think it's like it comes down like 500 540 cases of 12-ounce beers?
00:24:05
Speaker
Something like that? Yeah, that sounds about right. if yeah That would be 540-ish six-packs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is not a lot.
00:24:16
Speaker
like it's It sounds like a big number. It's not that much. But that's enough and to supply a couple stores... if it's something that people actually want. Oh, for sure. And again, keep in mind, right, this is a beer that I i got in Jersey.
00:24:30
Speaker
So they're certainly they're distributing to the the local. I'm sure they're distributing to Connecticut and New York and Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, maybe even further than that. I don't know.
00:24:42
Speaker
But it's a really interesting IPA. Let me pour the rest of this can so you can see. And i when I say interesting, I mean, It is an IPA that a beer drinker today, like, let's say someone who is 21, 22 today.
00:25:00
Speaker
You and I are in our 30s. 21, 22. um in my 40s. Are you from your 40s already? Yeah, man. but You look fantastic. Thank Didn't we just celebrate your 30th birthday?
00:25:12
Speaker
Like, recently. and That might have been the one we celebrated in Nicaragua. No, that was 36-ish. Oh, is that 36? God damn, you're an old bitch. Okay, well, anyway.
00:25:24
Speaker
ah Oh, that's looking very classic for an IPA. Yes, dude. Okay, so here, let's talk about this. Very West Coast coloring. This is West Coast coloring, but with that early Stone era bitterness.
00:25:40
Speaker
which is Which is decidedly West Coast style. Yes, it's it's classically West Coast, and the East Coast pulled it in and tried to bastardize it in some way. But Stone, I think, did a great job when they had their Stone Ruination. That's my my favorite. Oh, I love that beer.
00:25:55
Speaker
My favorite beer doesn't exist anymore. But back then, back in 2011, 2012, these beers existed. and And I think the IPA drinkers of back then...
00:26:06
Speaker
We remember a time that doesn't exist anymore, and today's IPAs are very soft.
A Humorous Anecdote from Dennis
00:26:12
Speaker
Today's IPAs— The great hops arm race. It was, I think, to a degree. That's a great point. That's a great way to say it. I think it was an arm race.
00:26:21
Speaker
ah And listen, man, in today's world, we've softened up the profiles. And I know because I'm brewing new age IPAs, and I'm softening things up, and I'm adding— flaked oats and other stuff to like kind of give it a drinkable, approachable characteristic. But back then, man, those IPAs were like scotch tape.
00:26:44
Speaker
They've just, you either did it or you didn't do it. It was one of those things. Like it's very distinct. Not everybody could just go sit down and at ah at a a bar and order an IPA. If you ordered an IPA, somebody else would look at you and go, I see.
00:27:00
Speaker
What's wrong with this guy? My my people, right? Every now and again, you get somebody that's into that too, and you go, oh, hey. You get that nod. And so it's super distinctly West Coast classic 2008, 2009 West Coast,
00:27:14
Speaker
two thousand and eleven east coast style ipa um and great. And I love that it's 6% because there's such an intense hop quality to it that it cuts through a lot of the sweetness of the cigar that I was getting.
00:27:28
Speaker
And you mentioned spice. So that black pepper, not so much for me, but I'm getting a lot of the red pepper now. And I love... I'm really surprised we're having such different experiences with that. Like, this is a very spicy cigar to me, or at least it was at the beginning. It's slowed down a little for me now.
00:27:46
Speaker
I mean, I could also be having an off day with my palate and like, you know, more, more psychotic palate wise than usual. um But that being said, and I think also, again, humidity plays a huge part. ah Humidity is going the deciding factor, whether or not your cigar tastes like a burning newspaper or a i don't know, a churro that's on fire.
00:28:15
Speaker
It's right. Humidity is such a big deal beyond how fast you smoke, beyond how you light, beyond all this stuff. it's ah Humidity plays a big part. And certainly for this size of cigar, for this particular ritola, I think smoking fast, again, is going to be no-no.
00:28:32
Speaker
And certainly, in my opinion, over-humidifying is going to be... You'll get a noticeably different experience. Now, if this was a 60 ring gauge, maybe it wouldn't be that big of a shift.
00:28:45
Speaker
right The Delta would be sort certainly a little bit less, but um I think the IPA is really working with it. Nice. How's your pairing going? It's working really well.
00:28:57
Speaker
This beer is a lot different than I was expecting. all right, time to get nerdy a little bit. It has a little bit of that coating texture that Nagori has.
00:29:10
Speaker
I'm guessing it's because they're adding... ah you know, kind of unpolished rice to this. You're getting some of that rice, uh, of the dust.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. That rice dust that you normally rinse off when you make rice. And then normally you filter out when you make sake. Um, and they're leaving that. So you definitely get a little bit of that, like almost velvety kind of texture that you get from Nagori sake.
00:29:38
Speaker
Uh, but then the bubbles, then the bubbles, These are like very, very tiny, delicate, like champagne style bubbles. You s switch a little bit and you get like a nice foam to it.
00:29:51
Speaker
Uh, man, this beer is a lot better than I expected it to be. I wish that I drank it sooner because I saved it for, I don't know a month or two since I bought it. Like, you know, I got to find the right cigar for this one. I don't want to blow out this probably decent beer with a strong cigar.
00:30:11
Speaker
um I think I waited too long. I think it would work with a lot stronger cigar than this. So i would I would ask, how does it compare with a lot of the other Japanese beers that you've had?
00:30:21
Speaker
And I know you've had quite a bit. Very different. um So it's got a little bit more sweetness than most Japanese lagers. And then just a little bit of like...
00:30:34
Speaker
Kind of... There's a little bit of almost citrus. Like almost lemony. kind of brightness to it along with a little bit of like an earthy bitterness right before the hops kind of hit your palate wow um it's a really complex beer for just a pilsner um i'm super impressed dark for a pilsner too yeah that too but yeah you know that has to do with being unfiltered like man i wish i could get let me try something
00:31:09
Speaker
There go. That's a little bit more like what the coloring really looks like. Oh, boy. Like, very bright yellow, but definitely cloudy. Okay, so it's less dark than it comes off on camera. That's fair.
00:31:21
Speaker
and and But still, again, I think... Listen, man. It's super cool for... for somebody as precise as as the Japanese are, certainly with their brewing, their spirit industry, and a lot of other other industries, for them to come out and ah to go, ah, we're going to do kind of a like ah unfiltered, hazy pilsner in a world where there's no such thing. Because pilsner is like, you've got a hazy pilsner, you messed up your process.
00:31:49
Speaker
yeah What are you giving me this dirty water for? and the Japanese come out and well, no, no, hold on. Try this. This is cool. Exactly. yeah because to that point like this would not be the same experience if it wasn't filtered or if it was filtered rather um like not filtering it is what gives it that that texture that you just wouldn't have at all if you filtered it and again i think to your point right negories you mentioned negories earlier earlier earlier and That's likely the similar approach that they put. They wanted a little bit more of a longer-lasting finish.
00:32:25
Speaker
Not so much on the body, right? The body's pretty light. But you want that that's something to sit on your palate so that you can go, okay, what can i eat with this? What can i what can i what else can i consume that will allow these flavors to come out?
00:32:41
Speaker
And do you like it with the cigar so far? Oh, yeah. It's working really well with the cigar. um It does... dial back that spice a little bit, I think, and it brings out some of the sweeter, earthier qualities of the cigar. I don't taste as much of the salt either.
00:32:56
Speaker
I'm curious if that's going to change as I go through my paris. Oh, dude, the salt is wrapping up so hard for me. that was it Really, the minerality of it. I don't want to necessarily just sequester it to salt, but I think there's a minerality to it that's really interesting.
00:33:09
Speaker
it's um It's salty, but it's also mineral-rich in the sense of like a Oh, jeez. I don't even know what to compare it to. Like a... Like the smell of volcanic soil. Like ah like a limestone kind of minerality.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. Something they're little bit more basic. Less acidic, more basic. I gotcha. Alright, let's do story time before we move on to our second pairing here.
Exploring Chikala Mezcal
00:33:38
Speaker
What's the story?
00:33:39
Speaker
Your story. What story is this? About the stingy thing. unknown Oh, jeez. The unknown creature. Oh, sweet mother of God. I, you know, I'll, I'll, all right.
00:33:51
Speaker
I'm going to break it down. TLDR. I, I encountered a creature of some kind that I, uh, of unknown origin. I don't know what it was. Preacher of ill repute.
00:34:03
Speaker
A ill repute for sure. it was pretty pissed off, no doubt, but, um, yeah, man, I was on my bike and, uh, and, and, Something hit my helmet in about 10 seconds. In a lot of things, right? In summertime, certainly South Jersey, there's tons of stuff. You get a little thwack in the middle of your face. You get a thwack of something.
00:34:25
Speaker
And so if something hit my helmet, and I didn't think anything of it. About 10 seconds later, I felt this, like it a stinging pain, but not bad. Like, oh yeah, i a mosquito kind of thing, right?
00:34:37
Speaker
And then immediately it felt like boiling water was being poured down my ass cheeks. Because where I was stung was right at the base of the Cracola.
00:34:49
Speaker
Right in Death's Valley. Right in Death's Valley, right at the Cracola, by the spine, in my back. And sweet Jesus, it felt so bad that I, thankfully didn't dump the bike, but i I jumped off the bike and threw off my helmet and spent the next 15 minutes screaming like an idiot and like on the side of the road.
00:35:14
Speaker
busy traffic well no less no no nobody was fine but but like I didn't know what it was that I couldn't tell and I couldn't see because it was such a spot right um and the pain man it lasted for so many hours after and that was the thing is the pain radiated through my legs it was bad bad so I don't know it it could have been I've had wasps things before and the thing is I have been bitten and stung by so many venomous creatures that I have never experienced this this particular effect you know uh it threw me off it's certainly in my diving relatively thin diving career i've experienced jellyfish i've experienced um coral all kinds of stuff right and this thing was the worst man ive i have a tattoo on my finger
00:36:08
Speaker
I have a tattoo on my finger and and like even on the inside of the hand, that hurt less than this sting felt. And you still don't know what it was. That's the worst I have no idea. You don't know next time if you see this thing tomorrow. Like you won't know to run away screaming.
00:36:22
Speaker
No, I have no idea. I'm just thankful that I wasn't allergic and have a reaction to it. It was more of a just like, God damn, this sucks. Okay. Just super pain. Oh, the pain was wild. I've had fire ants.
00:36:36
Speaker
I've had fire ants in my pants, literally. Literally, fire ants on my thighs stinging me. Well, biting me, I should say. They don't sting They bite. And the formic acid is... I've gotten a lot of fire ant bites since I moved to Florida, man.
00:36:49
Speaker
I get it. Dude, dude. A lot of these things, you'll get stung. You'll get bitten. You'll get envenomated by something. And you don't feel it until two days later. Yep. That's how fire ants usually are. but You feel them in um the moment sometimes, but sometimes...
00:37:04
Speaker
You'll be walking around in the yard and the next day, two days later, you're just like, wow, what happened to my ankle? And then the formic acid hits you and you realize, well, there's a bubble on my you know body, wherever it was.
00:37:20
Speaker
There's a bubble and it hurts and it feels like a sunburn and a cigarette burn at the same time. That's exactly how I would describe it. I never knew ants consume so many cigarettes. I mean, geez, the amount of camels they smoke a year. It's the only reason the company's still alive.
00:37:39
Speaker
Exactly. exactly what's ah What's your second pairing? All right. I'm excited to hear about it. I'm excited about this one. So at the Big Smoke, no, not Big Smoke, the Great Smoke in March, I tried some new stuff.
00:37:54
Speaker
And some of it impressed me, and I was able to find one of the things that impressed me. locally. um So I got me a bottle of... I gotta remember how to say this.
00:38:08
Speaker
Chikala. Mezcal. um um So Chikala. There's not a whole lot of information on this company. My guess, based on the way that they describe it, is that it is a distillery that was making Mezcal for other companies and decided to make their own Mezcal.
00:38:27
Speaker
So kind of like... ah You know, like A.J. Fernandez started. A.J. Fernandez, for the first years, he didn't have his name on anything. Any cigars, at least. ah He waited until he, you know, had a ah reputation, and then he started coming out with his own cigars.
00:38:44
Speaker
I think that's kind of what they're doing here. um So, Chikala is distilled at Distillery Tlacula. Tlaculala. No. What?
00:38:55
Speaker
Tlaculala. Tlacolula. Tlacolula. Okay. In Oaxaca. o Hard to say. Okay. I mean, Oaxaca, I'm okay with. yeah And it was found that, as you can see here, maybe. 19... What? Enhance.
00:39:10
Speaker
Enhance. There we go. 1920. and hands enhance
00:39:17
Speaker
nineteen twenty s Wow. No shit. So this a distillery that was founded in 1920. That's super cool. um And right next to it, this is the main reason that I think that they are, that this is the distillery's own brand that they're releasing now, is that NOM O-0-1-X.
00:39:37
Speaker
Do you have any idea what that means? Have you ever seen it before? Or anything like that? What does it say? NOM O-0-1-X? Yeah.
00:39:47
Speaker
Oh, is it that denomination of origin? it's It is. That's not what NAM means. NAM is an acronym for something that I can't remember. Something of Mexico. NOME.
00:39:58
Speaker
nomenclature is it the nomenclature or no it doesn't have to do with that it's it's it's actually an acronym something of mexico oh okay but zero and x at the beginning and end mean that it's a mezcal distillery in oaxaca so when they did the regulation i believe it was in the 90s i read when mexico started regulation of distilleries for producing mezcal um you mezcal is a uh I
00:40:30
Speaker
yeah i can't remember what the other part of that word is, but Mezcal is a palliated, which means palliated origin. is that what they call it? Anyway, it means that legally it has to be ah approved to be called Mezcal at all. Anywhere in the world, Mexico has to say, yes, that's Mezcal.
00:40:48
Speaker
um And they came up with these NOM numbers to identify distilleries. um And it's it's not necessarily where it's distilled. It's actually the packaging, but it is the number, the designation for their license, basically.
00:41:03
Speaker
um And what that means, this was the first distillery in Oaxaca to officially make Mezcal. with the approval of the government, which I think is pretty interesting. I did find a couple others that are made in this distillery, or packaged in this distillery, rather, because it doesn't necessarily indicate where it's distilled. It indicates where it's packaged and bottled.
00:41:26
Speaker
ah At least one illegal... was distilled there. um And they've also had them distilled a couple other places. There were also a couple couple other brands that I didn't recognize.
00:41:37
Speaker
um Takala is named after a Mexican deity that represents creativity and individuality. And in a kind of nod to that, ah it has this little guy.
00:41:54
Speaker
um that's man. See my little llama? So this is a hand-carved, hand-painted... That's nice. They say that all of the paints are made using local berries, spices, things like that. They're not using ink. They're using locally made paints.
00:42:11
Speaker
The blood of the children of the town. Only for red the red. and And to redden up this purple a little bit, I think. That's right. But I got this cute little llama. They have a bunch of different kind animals that they make. It seems like they just kind rotate them out. So every bottle has some little animal.
00:42:27
Speaker
I saw a parrot, I think. I saw a flamingo. That one was super cool. That's awesome, man. A turtle, a frog, a...
00:42:39
Speaker
ah um i lost the word. a seahorse. That's the word. um they're all painted differently by hand. So like when you pick up a bottle of this, it comes with this, just this nice little key chain kind of thing is a,
00:42:52
Speaker
as an ode to Oaxacan tradition and this Mexican deity, Tecala. God, I love mezcal so much. It makes me so happy. I just love every, every time I hear a story like that, it's just, it's so exciting. and And I love the, the culture of mezcal beyond all the big companies that we in the U.S. are are aware of. You to Mexico and mezcal is such a cultural and familial thing.
00:43:19
Speaker
Every family will have their own kind. And in a community, every household will bring to a party their homemade mezcal. And they all taste different, but they're from the same place. I want to go to that party.
00:43:32
Speaker
Oh, it's so good. There's a mezcal that I love ah whose name, unfortunately, you forgetting. Ma Bien. Oh, yeah. Ma Bien. They have that that, like, the tape across as the label. So it's just masking tape and That's and it's an, it's a nod to the way the families were just putting a masking tape on a bottle and write whatever it is and bring it to a party and share it. And I love that. It's so cool.
00:43:57
Speaker
That's very cool. um Yeah. so this is a I mean, as you could see from the bottle, this is a Joven un-age or un un-wood age. So this age for a few months in steel barrels, which, you know, as you know, calms it down a little bit.
00:44:14
Speaker
um allows it to just kind of, i guess we're just oxidized a little bit just to round off those harsher flavors. They do also have, of course, a, what are the words I'm looking for? Añejo. Reposado. Reposado.
00:44:32
Speaker
um Which I also tried and were very good. Damn. This is... this is ah i I like this brand a lot. um Also of note, this is made with Espadine, which I didn't know much about until... a huge fan of Espadine.
00:44:48
Speaker
Somebody was telling me about it. Somebody said...
00:44:54
Speaker
ah can't remember his name. It's the People's Agave, baby. You'll see it in the interview. Somebody... um Henderson's partner at ADV mentioned Tabola... Taloba?
00:45:06
Speaker
Tabola? I think it's Taloba. um Taloba pairs really well with one of their specific cigars. And I was like, man, I got to hunt some of that down. um But my particular liquor store didn't have any Taloba mezcals.
00:45:21
Speaker
So I went with the next back best thing, which is one I tried at the Great Smoke. um So i'm going to take a couple of sips of this. Also, it's 43% ABV. Love to see that. Just bump that number up just a little bit for that extra flavor.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah, man. And what's the distribution look like? yeah Do you know? Can I get this in Jersey? I believe so. I want to get it. um So my understanding, like I said, so part of the thing that leads me to believe that this is a distillery-owned brand and not just a guy who's having this distillery make his mezcal is not only does it have established 1920, which is when that distillery started distilling, yeah um it's also the only one that actually has this on the label. Usually it'll be on the little...
00:46:03
Speaker
The little holographic sticker. Yeah. But this one actually displays it prominently on the label. So I think that means that they're owned by the distillery.
00:46:15
Speaker
um I think this is going to pretty wide distribution. I was able to find it. No problem. um Just at a total wine. I can get a total wine. You could probably get it in Jersey. but I talked to my guy. You know, I get a couple of guys. and And also, this this isn't too expensive. This is like a $40 bottle.
00:46:32
Speaker
Wow, no shit. Which is a nice price for a mezcal. That's usually like kind of where Espadine starts. Espadine is generally the cheapest of the agaves that they use to make mezcal.
00:46:48
Speaker
um But it's delicious, so I don't mind that it's the cheap one. um Some of the other ones get a little more fruity, which I actually prefer like the roughness of an Espadine.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, even Montalobos, Montalobos comes out to about $68 a bottle where I'm at. And to your point, the fruitiness of it is a little bit more.
00:47:10
Speaker
However, ah love the finish, Montalobos. And you and I consumed quite a bit of this in Mexico together. Yes, that was several bottles that went down of Montalobos. It was so many bottles of Montalobos.
00:47:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. right, so let me tell you about my next pairing, which might surprise you a little bit, I think. Can't wait. Because you're not going to believe this, but guess what?
00:47:38
Speaker
Lo and behold, I have another I have another IPA from from Thin Man Brewing, which is, hold on, let me see if I can get the lighting just there. Love the name. we Sci-fi hamster.
00:47:55
Speaker
Look at that little hamster there, which is so fun. With the red eye, which if you any of you remember Biker Mice from Mars, that's the vibe. That is the vibe.
00:48:06
Speaker
Man, Biker Mice from Mars, 6.6% this one. which is really cool. And again, it it's so nice and refreshing to see IPAs that are lower alcohol.
00:48:17
Speaker
ah These guys were founded in 2016 by Rudy Watkins in Buffalo, New York. So I have a beer from Buffalo, which is really cool because it's quite a bit away from me and I'm excited that I had a chance to get it.
00:48:31
Speaker
um Now, so Rudy Watkins actually came from Community Beer Works and And he took all of his expertise and he brought it to a Thin Man and wanted to do something kind of different, funky and experimental.
00:48:46
Speaker
And then eventually, fun funny funnily enough, eventually what happened was the Community Beer Works acquired Thin Man Brewery to expand production. So they kind of repartnered back together to do some cool stuff, which is really nice.
00:49:00
Speaker
So their capacity today as it stands is 40,000 barrels annually. annually I thought you were going to say at a time and I was going to be shocked. No, no. I mean, at a time, I'd be wild, right? But, but, uh, 40,000, listen, 40,000 annually still quite a bit.
00:49:18
Speaker
That's a solid production. And again, we talked about the barrel system, uh, seven barrel, seven barrel system, giving about 217 gallons of beer. This is quite, quite a lot of beer.
The Role of Lactose in Brewing
00:49:32
Speaker
um now Thin Man, Thin Man Brewing really kind of gets their vibe from an old series of films from back in the day. Have you seen these movies at all? trip Uh, from 19, like I think it was 1934.
00:49:45
Speaker
I have seen some of the Thin Man movies. The Thin Man. So the original Thin Man was like a, how would you describe it? Like a comedy mystery? Yeah. Probably. Right. Yeah. That was a very popular of movie at the time. Yeah.
00:49:57
Speaker
Sort of fun. And exactly. And i think that's kind of the vibe they're going with. Certainly the label is, um well, listen, they're pandering to the Neurocrat of of of beer drinker, if you will, which is fine. It doesn't upset me by any means, but I i think it's clean. The beer itself is really nice as well.
00:50:19
Speaker
It's very good. It's an IPA. I mean, I would say certainly different than the last one in that it is a lot softer. Yeah, it looks a lot more East Coast, modern. Much, much more modern, East Coast, softer. They're doing all these extra things to to soften the profile where you're not getting hit in the face with hops. And it's just like, well, carbonated water with hops, too much.
00:50:46
Speaker
They're easing it up so somebody can walk in. i can say, if I had to pick between that my first pairing, this one, to give someone new that's never had IPAs, I would pick this one. Wow. The first one, even me as an IPA drinker, when I drink it, it's it's quite intense.
00:51:04
Speaker
it's one of those things that if I was not that much into IPAs, I would absolutely hate it. I would not want to drink any more of it. Oh man. After the first sip, it's that intense. And this one is much more subdued.
00:51:16
Speaker
And I think it's really apropos for the the, the second third of the cigar for me, which again is that sweetness, that spice has kind of died down. So i'm getting the earthiness that you mentioned earlier.
00:51:28
Speaker
And, um, really again, that like, Man, I mentioned hazelnut, and i'm just maybe it's just in my mind it's stuck. I am now getting hazelnut. I was just like trying to place that flavor.
00:51:42
Speaker
um theres There's... Yeah, like a nuttiness has come out. Hazelnut seems right with like a little bit of the chocolate kind of vibe. It's the... I think hazelnut, especially because of the astringency of the skin of a hazelnut, that's really what's coming out for me in the cigar. And and again, maybe that's bitterness. I don't... Because I'm...
00:52:02
Speaker
Smoking a pretty wet cigar and I'm smoking pretty quick. So maybe that's why. I will say mine has gone out a couple times. Have you had issues with that? sanders being Same, same, same. Wet? Okay. Well, we talk quite a bit and mine is certainly very wet at like 70%. So I'm, I'm surprised. I would chalk mine up to construction. I think because it's been in my humidor at 65 for months.
00:52:24
Speaker
Oh, wow. Okay. Which is shocking for LT town to bronze. Cause they have some of the best instruction. Yeah. in the industry, but I'm guessing this was just some thick, uh, the hero that was doing it.
00:52:38
Speaker
Um, I forgot to circle back to Sam. Sam is smoking a Perdomo double aged 12 year vintage, which is good. Maduro, uh, with a nine Oh three Sasquatch. I love that beer.
00:52:52
Speaker
Nine Oh three Sasquatch set. Is that your old territory? No. It's where is that from?
00:53:03
Speaker
I don't remember where 903 is. Are they in Texas? Let me look it up. It's not Portland, I guess. No. Portland's 305. Okay.
00:53:15
Speaker
okay But Sasquatch beers do very well in Portland, being that it's the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, Texas. 903 is in Texas. Texas. That's awesome. um Yeah, they make they make good beers, and Sasquatch is great.
00:53:30
Speaker
I've had some of their stuff. a
00:53:35
Speaker
Should talk about my second pairing? How it went? Tell me about it as I get down to this. This mezcal is delicious. It's kind of on the sweeter side to me.
00:53:47
Speaker
um
00:53:50
Speaker
Some mezcals have what I would call funk to them. You know what mean? Yes, absolutely. This one's very low in funk, so it's very approachable, but it's simultaneously very sweet up front, but then with more of that kind of smoke than you get from most mezcals.
00:54:11
Speaker
lot of mezcals out there, you know, oh, this isn't very smoky. This one could not say that. This is a pretty smoky mezcal, and it's delicious. Um...
00:54:23
Speaker
There's... I had something else.
00:54:29
Speaker
There's a little bit of that funk, but not not not a lot. um And there's like a distinct fruitiness. Like a... Lychee or ah peach, maybe. Something along those lines.
00:54:47
Speaker
That's, ah you know, very sweet, very fruity kind of sweetness. which is delicious and is working actually pretty well with this cigar.
00:54:58
Speaker
Who are you? How's the softer side of IPAs working? I think it's fantastic. And, ah you know, the softness of it allows for less of an attack on the palate. People generally, when they have IPAs, they go, man, this is a lot.
00:55:13
Speaker
I can't really eat anything with this. I can't certainly can can't smoke. We often talk about how hard it is to pair an IPA and but to their credit when we were talking about that like back when we were we were saying that ipas are impossible to pair with it was that first style that you were having the west coast style once east coast northeast ipas kind of became popular and now have become the norm um they're a lot easier to pair with for me these cats i can tell man flaked oats 100 calcium chloride 100
00:55:47
Speaker
Maybe a little gypsum to throw it in, like get it and a little bit softer. They're doing some stuff that's really mellowing out. Again, IPAs, you expect, we are kind of trained to expect that IPAs are going to be in your face.
00:56:04
Speaker
And IPAs are going to be in your face in a way that's sort of squared off. Where, when I say squared off, I mean... really rough on the edges where you drink it, you taste a very intense flavor, and then that's it. It it starts and it stops, and then that's it.
00:56:18
Speaker
This one sort of starts, and it's kind of intense, but then it kind of mellows out. And you're almost like, you know, sometimes we have certain cigars, we smoke cigars, and we go...
00:56:29
Speaker
I want to smoke it more to get what I know what that flavor was. I want to try more of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's that hint of a flavor. And that's where they nailed the hops for this beer, ah which i think is great. And again, 6.6%, I think is a really great place for IPAs.
00:56:45
Speaker
Today's world, everyone's used to eight plus. Easy. Oh,
00:56:51
Speaker
And again, it's hard, man. It's hard to come out with an IPA that's not 8% that tastes good. Very true. So a lot of people just go, okay, well, we can't really nail the quality on this. Let's just make a powerhouse.
00:57:06
Speaker
And it's just going be boozy. And it's going to be hoppy. And nobody will know. And then somebody 10 years ago decided, well, let's throw lactose into there and just use the lactose to rest on the laurels of maybe not necessarily being as tight with their process as they could be.
00:57:24
Speaker
Yeah, like lactose is one of those things. mean, we've talked it to death, but it's one of those things where like... it's still alive, unfortunately. That's true. um
00:57:37
Speaker
The way it covers things up is that if your beer is too malty, it smooths out that sweetness a little bit. If your beer is too... booze forward, it smooths that out a little bit by adding the sweetness.
00:57:52
Speaker
If you're too hop forward, it cut it balances it by raising the sweetness to fight with it. um It's, yeah. But not that it's bad.
00:58:03
Speaker
It's just overdone and sometimes very lazy. Sometimes it's fantastic. Yes. So I think it's not, again, not to knock on the use of lactose or any other adjuncts.
00:58:15
Speaker
Dare I say lactose is an adjunct. going to get hate mail tomorrow morning for this. but I mean, it sort of is. But it kind of is. And I think if you look at lactose as an adjunct when you're building a recipe for a beer, I think you're in a better place because you're not leaning on the lactose so much.
00:58:32
Speaker
You're not relying on the lactose to fix your issues with your whatever your process is whatever your hops are, and certainly whatever your yeast is. Because again, at that point, beyond water,
00:58:45
Speaker
you're really looking at like what your malt, your base malts are going to do, how much you can extract. And then ultimately what the yeast is going to make from that beer. Now, if you stress your yeast, we talk about Belgium a lot.
00:58:59
Speaker
ah Belgian beers have those great esters and those, those ale yeasts are um fermenting at a higher temperature to produce stress on the yeast or to enact stress on the yeast.
00:59:12
Speaker
And you're going end up with a much kind of, at More estuary, funky. You look at like Perrot is a great example. Duvel is another great example. where You have these like really intense, sweet, but spicy aromas, the banana quality, the spiciness to it.
00:59:29
Speaker
You can do cool stuff, but then lactose, it is or it isn't. That's the thing that lactose people don't realize when they get into brewing. you can't You can't make a brick of shit and put lactose on it and expect it to be good.
00:59:43
Speaker
Right. It has to be a decent beer in the first place. Right. It only gets you so far. And so when you we when when you and I talk about this we have a beer that's really great that has lactose and we're so surprised and happy about it.
00:59:55
Speaker
It's because they consider the effect of the lactose in the entire recipe and
Unique Beverages and Pairings
00:59:59
Speaker
not just leaned on lactose as this thing that's going to fix everything. As a band-aid. Yeah.
01:00:05
Speaker
Right. Exactly. And that's fine. i mean, there are breweries out there today that are still selling $8 pints of whatever lactose ah yeah it piss water can I even say that piss water we prefer piss Wasser piss Wasser yeah piss Wasser and you know some scheiße but we're gonna leave that whole alone but ah I just have to say because I'm a nerd piss Wasser was a beer company in One of the Grand Theft Auto games. and Yes. It it fucking kills me every time I think about it.
01:00:41
Speaker
It's just such a hilarious name for a beer company, a German beer company. Well, that's like Rusty Brown's Ring Donuts. They have them in Vegas. What is that, Pink Box?
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. Pink Box in Vegas is Rusty Brown's Ring Donuts.
01:01:00
Speaker
Which is amazing. So, you reminded me. talking about lactose.
01:01:06
Speaker
I ordered a beer today that is going to be filled with funk.
01:01:12
Speaker
It's not here yet. It'll be here in um probably a month or so. But first of all, may the fourth be with you. Happy Star Wars Day, everybody. sir um To celebrate Star Wars Day, Tavor released a beer.
01:01:28
Speaker
They've been going through this this company, RAR, R-A-R, um Oh yeah, Robert's great, I love their stuff They've been going through a bunch of their sours The Out of Order series, which is a fruited, smoother, sour series that's It's based on slush puppies A beer um Today they released a blue milk version Which blue milk, if you're not familiar Is a drink from Star Wars That's, you know it's It's a classic, it was in the first movie He was drinking blue milk, they had milk on set And they were like, how do we make this spacey Make it blue
01:02:01
Speaker
um And that stuck. So at Disney World, you can get blue milk, which is like a slushie. And it's delicious. They'll put some rum or vodka in there. I think it was ah Blanco rum that they put in when I had it.
01:02:16
Speaker
It's tasty. It's like kind of a blue raspberry kind of slushie thing with some other flavors mixed in there that you can't quite identify. You know the secret. Weirdness to it. No. Is there a secret?
01:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. so Sweet and condensed milk. Oh, that that that totally makes sense. I would expect that to be in there. um But this is a blue milk flavored, fleshy sour, smoothie sour rather.
01:02:39
Speaker
um I can't wait to get my hands on it and try it. um I'll definitely have it on the show, whether it goes great or terribly. Anyway. I'm excited, a man. I can't wait for you to have that.
01:02:51
Speaker
On to my last pairing. ah i'm I'm very excited about that. I'm a Star Wars nerd. I'm wearing my Star Wars shirt, wearing my Star Wars hat. ah ready to go for Star Wars Day here.
01:03:02
Speaker
ah Blue Note juke joint whiskey. I picked this because it makes me think of Robert Holt. don't know why. audit Blue milk, blue note. Oh, good point. i didn't even think of that. but um I don't know. the Robert Holt seems like the kind of guy that might hang out in a juke joint sometime.
01:03:23
Speaker
I realize now I probably should have gone with TX Blended, which I used in my ah apple pie milkshake today. Um, cause he's from Texas, but we'll go Memphis. Yeah. Uh, so blue note whiskey, not a whole lot of info on this one. It's sold by a company called BR distilling. They were founded in 2014 in Memphis, Tennessee, uh, shockingly making it the oldest licensed distillery in Memphis.
01:03:47
Speaker
Um, even being the oldest licensed distillery existing in Tennessee right now, or in Memphis rather,
01:03:57
Speaker
they don't make this whiskey. We don't know who makes it. It's made, it's sourced from an undisclosed distiller. um Some of their higher end stuff they're distilling. um They do say it's crafted in Memphis, which may mean something, may also mean nothing.
01:04:13
Speaker
um I don't think crafted in is a protected term at all. I think you could say crafted on Mars and nobody would really be able to tell you not to.
01:04:25
Speaker
not talking shit, just saying, you know, I don't know what that means. It could mean anything. Um, my guess is that it means they are buying barrels. They're bottling in Memphis. Um, then they might be able to say crafted. Maybe they're blending in Memphis even.
01:04:38
Speaker
Uh, but we know this is aged a minimum of three years. We do know the mash bill, which is 70% corn, 21% rye finishing off with 9% malted barley. It is 93 proof. It is unfiltered.
01:04:52
Speaker
look at that. Look goodness. This Man, you can't see it from your side, but I got little flecks floating around in there. Unfiltered deliciousness. Little flecks of flavor.
01:05:03
Speaker
um So not a lot to say about this because there's not a ton of details. um But I will say, if you've seen an episode where I've tasted this before, it is one of my favorite, like, just middle-of-the-road whiskeys. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's not necessarily... It's nothing close to a high-end whiskey.
01:05:22
Speaker
I haven't tried at any of their higher-end stuff. um But I'm a big fan of it. I'm going to have a couple sips, see how some juke joint whiskey pairs with this Decennium. Will you talk about your final pairing tonight? Oh, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little nervous about my last pairing.
01:05:37
Speaker
the All that. is Is it a blue milk fruited smoothie sour? Because that would make me nervous, too. No, but I will tell you what, as I pour this, I was outside doing some yard work, some hard labor, if you will.
01:05:56
Speaker
And I came in and I drank a beer from Double Nickel, which is local relatively to me, which was a pickle gosa, like a full-on... shit. Hold hello This just exploded. Hold on. So I had a pickle gosa.
01:06:14
Speaker
And dude, after sweating, being in the heat and like working, and like I cracked open this ice-cold pickle gosa, I sucked that down so fast, and it was... Amazing.
01:06:26
Speaker
Goza is the Gatorade of beer. I've been saying this for 10 years, and I still believe it. If you are, like, exhausted and parched, there is nothing better than a Goza, dude.
01:06:39
Speaker
But this particular pickle, Goza, that I've had casually without doing actual labor... was really hard to put down. Harder than that beer that we had, which was the the Sucker Punch Spicy spicy Goza, right? Spicy Pickle Sour.
01:06:57
Speaker
um' think I don't think they called it Goza. Oh, sorry, it was a Sour. Yeah, it was not a Goza, it was a Sour. so And there was a distinction again because of the salt quality and the the profile. But, um dude, holy shit, that beer was fantastic. So this beer...
01:07:11
Speaker
I'm very curious what this is. I've seen the color. It smells like bubble bath. I don't know. Hold on.
01:07:20
Speaker
Oh, God. Okay. then Let's talk about this. and I'll tell you about it. um Number one, have you ever had Inca Cola? Yes, I love it.
01:07:31
Speaker
Wonderful. This is a stout. This tastes like Inca Cola. You're kidding. Not in a good way.
01:07:42
Speaker
I still feel like I want to try it. Like it I'm trying to think there's a bunch of sodas that are in that same style. A lot of them are called champagne soda. If you've ever seen champagne soda, you're in a poor neighborhood. It's called champagne. Uh, I mean, that's what they sell at the store where I'm at. It's Jamaican. I'm sorry.
01:08:00
Speaker
Champagne soda. Uh, no, like a proper grocery store. Walmart sells this stuff here. Wow. It is so good. I love it. What kind of lower middle class that neighborhood would you live in? all me I mean, you know, ah down by beach boy.
01:08:17
Speaker
Oh God. All right. Let me talk to you about this for a second, please. All
01:08:23
Speaker
right. New Jersey beer company. Founded in 2010 by Matt Steinberg in North Bergen, New Jersey, which I'm in South Jersey. North Bergen is like, I guess we'll call it Central Jersey.
01:08:37
Speaker
Jersey people don't like to say Central Jersey, but I guess well it's like, to me, it's Central Jersey. People that live in New Jersey, there's no Central. There's North and there's Central. They get upset. is it Is it pork roll? Is it Taylor ham? i fucking It's food.
01:08:51
Speaker
Don't be an asshole. Just eat it. Anyway. um There we go
01:08:57
Speaker
Don't lay a finger. So is this supposed to be Butterfinger flavored? I thought so. it's It's an Imperial Stout. And this one comes in at 10%, which is quite bit. it's it's ju it's Let me read you the flavor text here.
01:09:18
Speaker
Indulge in this decadent 10% Imperial Stout. Bursting with rich chocolate, roasted peanut, and sweet toffee flavors. Crafted to capture the essence of a beloved crunchy treat, this beer is a dessert lover's dream.
01:09:33
Speaker
Perfect for those who know the value of s savoring every sip.
01:09:38
Speaker
Nice. Lovely. It tastes like... Doesn't tell me much. It tastes like swamp water and Inca cola. or if but I'm trying to think of the other. There's a couple other sodas that are like Inca Cola. I know Iron Brew is one of them from Ireland. Yes, but i okay I've had a lot of Iron Brew.
01:10:02
Speaker
Iron Brew tastes like orange paint with bubblegum. yeah Yeah. it's got a little It's got more orange flavor. It's amazing because it tastes like If the Fanta got rejected because it had too much paint in it, and they were like, fuck it, cover it up with but bubble gum.
01:10:26
Speaker
That's Iron Brew. And I love Iron Brew. And again, also, Iron Brew has a lot of caffeine, and has a bunch of other stuff in it. So it's not just like your classic cola. It's like a jolt, basically. Is it? I never knew Iron Brew had that much caffeine.
01:10:37
Speaker
Oh, dude, Iron Brew is... The shit that's in Iron Brew is amazing. I mean, I love it, but I never knew it had any caffeine. Now, i've had so I've had beers from new jersey um New Jersey Beer Company over the years, and you know some of them have been pretty good.
01:10:56
Speaker
I can't think of one that's been awful, and I'm not saying this one is awful. I think just this one is is a, I don't know. it's It's so many different things all at once.
01:11:08
Speaker
Where it's kind of like not particularly hitting the the mark. um So we talked about this on the show many times. We say stout. And then we have a beer. It's a stout. And we drink it and we go, don't know.
01:11:22
Speaker
That's a porter with too many bubbles. Yeah. um for Extra dark porter. Extra dark porter. Too many bubbles. I mean, that doesn't look like a stout on camera. It looks coffee colored.
01:11:37
Speaker
Is that accurate?
01:11:40
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's very coffee. It's very sweet, but it's not even close to a... It's not even close to a Butterfinger.
01:11:51
Speaker
There's no peanut quality to it. There's no... It's it's just like a super sweet stout that tastes like coffee. Actually, it tastes like coffee with... um It tastes like espresso with a lot of sugar.
01:12:02
Speaker
That's it. And like ah with Inca Cola added. Like a Cuban coffee that you mix with Inca Cola.
01:12:12
Speaker
That's what it is. I'm adding a can of this. If I could find this, I would try it. No, you won't. It actually sounds pretty good. I'm sending It's awful. I'm sending it to you. but It's awful. I'm sending it to you. in addition In addition to the can from last week's show that I saved... Oh, I forgot about that one....of the horse cum.
01:12:31
Speaker
Yes. You're going to get that. You're going get a can of this. ah And you might get some salacious stickers to put on your your gear. But... but I don't know that it's working well at the cigar. How's your last pairing working?
01:12:44
Speaker
ah Great. Blue Note, Duke Join Whiskey works great with this cigar. I think pretty much any whiskey would work well with this cigar. um And I've realized, i think it's the wrapper that's giving me similar vibes.
01:12:58
Speaker
This cigar reminds me of the Herrera, ah Herrera Esteli Maduro. Oh, the Maduro, okay. The blue label one.
01:13:09
Speaker
The one with that like baby blue, that beautiful baby blue label. I thought that was the Miami, wasn't it? No, that's the black. um Oh, shit, you're right. Okay, but i know I got those two confused. know they're both Brazilian wrappers. I'm not even certain that the Herrera Esteli is Araparaca, but I think it is.
01:13:26
Speaker
um But it reminds me a lot of this cigar. I think early days it was Araparaca.
01:13:35
Speaker
My cigar went out again. Yeah, that's been an issue for me. Oh, as I gagged on this beer. I think it was the... but I would think the main cause was the slightly tight draw the beginning.
01:13:47
Speaker
Because it hasn't gone out as much in the second half. I'm going back through my pairing here. Man, I forgot how good this beer was. That's the... For anyone not following along, that is the Cawaba Pearl Pilsner.
01:14:05
Speaker
a ah Japanese rice pilsner that is unfiltered with, uh, with some locally sourced rice near the distillery or near the brewery rather. Um, Sam Fennel says 903 is in Sherman, Texas, which is about 50 miles away from him. 15 miles away from him.
01:14:22
Speaker
Just for clarity. Oh, I know Sam was so close. Cool. That's pretty cool. Uh, there's nothing like a a beer that, you know, was brewed right down the road, right? Like, even if it's yeah that's a bigger beer, like bigger production, more widely distributed, like the fact that it's right there is always pretty cool.
Humor and Pop Culture References
01:14:38
Speaker
And he's using his Millennium Falcon number. That sounds right. hell yes. If I use the number more often, I might need to get one of them. I, you know, I couldn't find my shirt for tonight. My, may the Schwartz be with you.
01:14:50
Speaker
I have a may the Schwartz be with you. And ah the amount of people that don't get that reference is kind of upsetting. almost don't wear anymore. upsetting. Very sad. People come up to me and go, but what do you mean? Isn't that supposed to be made the force be with you? What are you talking about?
01:15:06
Speaker
You're like, you unconscious swine. I'm like, yes. I don't think it means what you think it means.
01:15:18
Speaker
um I'm going back through my pairing still, but what do what do you think of this cigar? Final thoughts on it? Dude, I'm really jazzed. So this is the first one that I've had, and I really, really like it. And ah off the first flight, as I mentioned, that sort of like really intense, full, full flavor, that that like sweet leather, I really liked.
01:15:39
Speaker
And again, that's something that I really love as a room note. So if someone's smoking a cigar and I smell it in the background, I really enjoy that profile. And I think they nailed it with this blend.
01:15:50
Speaker
Yeah, for for me... I'm big fan. ah I think, like, if I was scoring this cigar, I'm not going to say what score I would give it because I have no idea. But if I was scoring it, the only thing that would, like, really give it serious knocks is the the issues with relights.
01:16:07
Speaker
Yeah. Which could be construction, could be the tobacco. um You know, I'm not the expert to judge that. um But that would that would definitely take some points off.
01:16:18
Speaker
ah but the blend itself I'm i'm into man I really enjoy it do ah do you know what your pairing of the night is oh my i i you know honestly it's it's so hard I usually by the end of the show I have like a definitive yes or no tonight i can't I can't really pick it up um for me while you think for a second for me yeah The Blue Note Juke Joint Whiskey is like an easy win.
01:16:50
Speaker
It goes great with the cigar. The Zaccala Chicala is like a slightly more contrasty. um You know, the the oakiness that's in a whiskey really works well with the cigar.
01:17:05
Speaker
The lack of any oakiness in a Mezcal kind of not clashes, but contrasts with the flavors this cigar a little bit. But this Rice Pilsner, man, is working so well with the cigar.
01:17:17
Speaker
um The way it coats your palate, the way it sets your palate up to taste the but spicy, the earthy, the leathery flavors in the cigar, i I think is fantastic. And the beer is delicious on its own.
01:17:30
Speaker
The cigar is delicious on its own. um And together, they just work really well. And that again, that coating of the palate that you get from this is really what's helping it out.
01:17:44
Speaker
um Now I'll let you wax poetic about your ah you' pairing. Oh, man. and It's not the stout. I'll say this. It's not going to be the stout.
01:17:56
Speaker
um You know what? I think I would have to say, start to finish, probably this sci-fi... sci-fi hamster wheel. Okay. I mean, and that's kind of what I would expect.
01:18:10
Speaker
You had some serious funk. You had classic West Coast style IPA, which we know usually isn't great with cigars, even though they're delicious.
01:18:21
Speaker
um And then you had a modern IPA, which tend to work a lot better with a cigar. Man, the those tiny bubbles are coming back at me right now. ah So that's the one I would i would have expected out of those three.
01:18:37
Speaker
All right. Well, check out the Southern Draw Decinium in these cool little packs. I've seen them still around in a couple places. um Construction issues aside, this is a fantastic cigar.
01:18:51
Speaker
Even with the construction issues, ah this is a a cigar that I would be okay with relighting because I like it enough. It's wonderful. Yeah, I'm a really big fan. But the, you know, wouldn't score well classically because of that.
01:19:08
Speaker
Anyway, ah let's move on to our one for the road segment.
Updates and Recommendations
01:19:12
Speaker
um I have been knee deep in editing videos. I've had some family stuff going on that ah caused me to not be able to edit any videos for last three or four days.
01:19:23
Speaker
But I've been going hard at editing videos coming up with our playlist. have it ready to start posting soon-ish. Hopefully by the end of this week. um Check out Cigar Coop for all the video coverage.
01:19:38
Speaker
i am going to be I need to start putting them up because now I have them backlogged. But the shorts, the one for the road segments from PCA are going to go up on the Let's Get Pairing Instagram. So give it a follow.
01:19:51
Speaker
I may be reposting them here, but I'm not... Uh, Instagram and Facebook don't make that super easy. Um, so we'll see how that goes. Uh, but check it out. There's some, some really cool, uh, answers, some really cool people that I've talked to.
01:20:07
Speaker
And, uh, there'll be a playlist and and in a week or so that has all of the songs selected by the fine folks around at the PCA, all the booths that we talked to. Uh, I'm really excited for that.
01:20:21
Speaker
So check it out. But this is our one for the road. We talk about a piece of media that we've been consuming lately, be it podcast, music, movie, TV show, video game, comic book, book, audio book.
01:20:39
Speaker
Can't think of anything else. um Dennis, I have one in the hopper. you have one ready to go? Or should i go first? No. um I mean, I was going to say there's an album from... oh God.
01:20:54
Speaker
um Harem Scare Him came out with a new album on April 25th called Chasing Euphoria. and Now, Harem Scare Him is a band that kind of, I think, if you really were not into 80s hair metal, you really wouldn't dig it. And they're kind of really not even eighty s theyre They're sort of like the the bastard children of the 80s. They came out in the ninety s And had been in a bunch of different shows. Oddly enough, the entire Degrassi series, which I didn't realize. It's kind of strange to me, but whatever, fine.
01:21:29
Speaker
You know, Drake. Yeah, but but that's true. That's fair. But this new album from them, man, is it's super cool because it has those vibes that I grew up with.
01:21:42
Speaker
And Harem Scare'em was, you know, a band... It really kind of near and dear to me, in addition to a lot of other hair metal bands of the era.
01:21:53
Speaker
And to see that they had an album come out, I had to listen to it. It was very exciting. I'll have to check it out. My one for the road. Check it out if you want to get back to the old vibes.
01:22:05
Speaker
Certainly kind of interesting for for like late eighty s I mean, it sounds kind of of my alley. I, um, as I've talked about many times before, my music tastes are literally all over the place.
01:22:17
Speaker
I will be like in the same playlist. I'll have like air metal and a Bruce Springsteen song. And don't know, some indie rock song. The technical, technical trap metal thing, whatever you, I listened to in your car and your truck. That was awesome.
01:22:38
Speaker
I don't remember what technical trap metal I subjected to. Whatever the hell it was, it was fantastic. So, yes. It was probably Poppy. Yes, it was very Poppy. She's been very... No, Poppy. That's her name.
01:22:51
Speaker
Oh, ah okay. She has a song. P-O-P-P-Y. I'm Poppy. um She's like... She lives in the darkness between pop and metal.
01:23:02
Speaker
um And it's super fun. But that's not my one for the road. My one for the road. um is movie I saw pop up on Netflix this week. Next week we have Hard Eyes coming out. So that may be my recommendation next week. It comes out on Tuesday or Thursday of this week on Netflix.
01:23:17
Speaker
Hard Eyes. Yeah, I saw that. um I'll talk about that next week. it's not out yeah um But for now I'll talk about Talk to Me. So this is a horror film as all most of my recommendations are.
01:23:31
Speaker
I get it. I'm kind of horror obsessed. I know. I'm horrified by you. Yeah, I hope so. ah It is a horror thriller kind of movie about kind of
01:23:47
Speaker
kind of what would happen if a bunch of high school students found a small trinket that is a gateway to the life beyond, to death.
01:24:01
Speaker
um And basically they can invite somebody who's passed on to ah inhabit their body for like a minute. um And some people, as always, can't follow the rules.
01:24:17
Speaker
So things don't go so great for some people.
01:24:21
Speaker
It's really good. I really enjoyed it. It's made by first-time filmmakers, ah the Philippi... Felipe brothers. I think Philippe brothers, um, who are like, they're YouTubers.
01:24:34
Speaker
Like they were doing YouTube videos of, you know, uh, special effects stuff. Like they jump into the TV or jump out the window and come out of the television kind of stuff.
01:24:46
Speaker
Um, that's the only one I can remember fight scenes and things like that. Uh, And they decided to go all out with a horror movie. And I loved that movie. So go check it out. It's on Netflix.
01:24:57
Speaker
So, ah you know, if you have Netflix like 90% of the world or borrowing your friend's Netflix account, ah you can watch it. Check it out. It's called Talk to Me. um it's It's a little weird, but it's very good and pretty creepy if you get scared by movies, which I'm...
01:25:14
Speaker
I'm, uh, hardened to that at this point. So I have like, I always, people always ask me when I, like, when I talk about people that know that I'm super into horror, ask me like, Oh, what's a good, scary movie to watch? And I'm like, I can't tell you. Cause like, I just, I've lost the gauge for scary. Really? Yeah. I can tell you how much I enjoy ah horror movie and I enjoy from really dumb, cheesy, you know the type of movies, Dennis.
01:25:44
Speaker
Those my movies. That's where I live. I love those kind of movies as much as I love like very serious, very upsetting movies. um And it's I've watched so much that I have a hard time gauging if something will actually scare someone or not.
01:26:01
Speaker
anyway... Check out, talk to me. ah Sam Finnell is reading the Rangers Apprentice series with one of his grandsons, which is rad. Good for you, Sam. Cool, man.
Future Plans and Closing Remarks
01:26:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:12
Speaker
Nothing like reading something good with the kids, right? ah All right. I guess that brings us to the end. I will send Dennis a box of cigars that I got right here that we'll have some stuff available for next week.
01:26:27
Speaker
um I'm actually going to pull up the picture you sent me the other day, Dennis. oh so that I can announce what we're smoking and that way I can get the, uh, get the post out as early in the week as I can. Oh, why?
01:26:42
Speaker
I, man, um don't know if I still have the lure or the intemperance. Uh, we are going to go with the hot cake. The hot cake broadleaf. Yeah, we haven't done. don't think we've done the hot cake at all. We haven't really talked about it. Yeah, I think we did a hot cake back in the sharing our pairings days. And I think that was the last time. And that was, you know, eight, seven or eight years ago, probably.
01:27:06
Speaker
um We're going to do the HVC hot cake, the broadleaf one. um I'm excited about that because that's a really good cigar. I think that's going to pair really well with some stuff that hopefully I have coming in this week.
01:27:20
Speaker
everybody, thanks for thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for talking. Thanks for listening. um We will catch you next week with the HVC hotcake. um Dennis, him with that catchphrase and we will get on out of here.
01:27:35
Speaker
Thanks everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want to drink better, but we want to drink less.