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LGP 80 - Lure CIgars Brown E-Trout
20 Plays12 days ago
This week, we're reeling in some pairings with the Brown E-Trout from Lure Cigars!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Let's Get Pairing This is episode 81 And today we are smoking the Reisus Cubanas P5 Black Porte Cinco um I'll tell you all about it I'll give you all the details, why it's called that Why it's ah why it looks the way it does And who Reisus Cubanas is In case you're not familiar So grab yourself cigar, grab yourself a drink Let's get pairing
00:00:51
Speaker
The short pour and it's going to be the story. The 30 minute episodes. We could do that. So that's what we used to call it ah back in the day when John and I did. Let's get pairing. Yeah, I remember sharing our pairings.
00:01:02
Speaker
If we had like if we were short on time or if we wanted to do just a single pairing kind of thing or sometimes with a short cigar, we would call it a short pour. Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
Alright, so i was saying how one of my pairings is a very tiny pour because it's all that was left in the bottle. Unfortunately, i need to buy another bottle.
Weekend Plans and Cigar Enthusiasm
00:01:20
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. This is Let's Get Pairing episode 81 with the Reyes Cubanas C5 Black.
00:01:28
Speaker
um I'm your host, Tripp, here in the LGP South studio, and coming at you from the Dungeon of Doom, as always, is my co-host, Dennis. Dennis, how is the weekend treating you this The co-host with the mo-host, I guess. ah Yeah, man. ah Good. Good. Feeling good. Excited to smoke stuff that I haven't had before, which happens a lot on the show, but probably not as much as people realize because we're we're always smoking stuff throughout the week. We're always getting into stuff.
00:01:58
Speaker
So it's sometimes really hard to find something that it's like we haven't had before. I haven't had before. It's nice. I'm excited.
Reisus Cubanas Origins and Collaborations
00:02:05
Speaker
And this particular cigar – has a lot going on this is a wake you up in the morning cigar this is yeah arguably this is a cigar you should not be smoking in the morning unless unless you are seasoned and or you're on the day three of a you know six-day trip to nicaragua and you're feeling froggy yeah as we've done yeah of course um all right so racist cubanos let's start off with talking about racist cubanos um
00:02:34
Speaker
It's a name you may or may not recognize. It's a brand you may or may not have heard of. The races Cubanas was founded as a factory in 2003 by Romay and Domano with his wife, Maria and their son, Hugo and Donley, Honduras.
00:02:50
Speaker
um Pretty soon after they launched, they became the main factory for Alec Bradley. So if you've ever smoked an Alec Bradley, odds are it came out of this factory. um For the last 20 years, they've been making cigars for for Alec Bradley.
00:03:05
Speaker
They have also, over the years, this isn't all of them, but I put down some of the big heavy hitters that they've made cigars for, like Ellusione, Viaje, La Polina, and HVC, among other brands. they've They've been in a factory for a long time. It's made some pretty well-regarded cigars, stuff like the Ellusione Rothschilds and the Epernay.
00:03:28
Speaker
They've made a ton of stuff for Vyaje. They made some of the finest La Polina's, in my opinion, in the Kill Bill. the The remake, the... the lining The full line of Kill Bills.
00:03:41
Speaker
Originally it was just a size, but it's now its own line with with normal sizes, not just the Coronas. um And they're all they're all made races Cubanas. um Some of the HVC stuff, the Pan Caliente is the one there.
00:03:55
Speaker
So after Alec Bradley was purchased by STG, Ralph Montero, who had formerly worked with, ah or before this, he worked with Alec Bradley.
00:04:06
Speaker
For a long time, he did a lot of blending, and he was kind of their, he was one of the people that came up with new brands for them and came up with the blends to go along with those. So he has worked for decades very closely with this factory.
00:04:21
Speaker
After the purchase of Alec Bradley from STG, um he decided, i want to i want to be on the ground floor something again. So he went to the factory and worked with them to start Racist Cubanas Cigars 2024. So they launched in late 2024.
00:04:41
Speaker
um We met them at the trade show last year. That was the first time Racist Cubanas has ever had their booth. ah their own booth because like I said, they were a factory for 20 years before becoming a cigar company.
00:04:53
Speaker
um And I've smoked a couple of cigars. They're they're on point, man. They're good cigars with good
C5 Black Cigar Profile
00:05:00
Speaker
construction. um If you hate Honduran tobacco, which I know some people do,
00:05:06
Speaker
they may not be for you but if if you like me are open to enjoying honduran tobacco i like some i i dislike some honduran tobaccos and some honduran cigars but i like a whole lot of them um and racist cubanos i think has generally always done a ah very good job with honduran forward blends um and that's what they're that's what they're doing now so tonight as i mentioned in the intro we are smoking the c5
00:05:31
Speaker
So that is ah it is a, I love the band on this because it's kind of like intimidating. as it should be for this cigar so this is their strongest offering yet um right now they have four lines i assume they'll have at least something new at the show this year we'll find out in a month um this is one of the first four brands they released though and is the strongest so far like i said the name c5 comes from the term uh which is printed on the bottom here el corte cinco short five um
00:06:07
Speaker
which refers to the fifth priming, the final priming in Honduras of the very highest leaves, um which are...
00:06:17
Speaker
I'm trying to think of the most concise way to explain priming for anybody who's kind of unfamiliar. Um, it's the process of taking the leaves off of the plant. Uh, they start with the bottom, they wait a couple days, they go to the next row. They wait a couple days, they go to the next row. There are five of these levels that they do in Honduras.
00:06:35
Speaker
And in, in some state, in some countries, it's only three, um, But the longer those leaves stay on, you pull the bottom leaves off and the plant goes, oh shit, I'm dead. And starts working to pump nutrients into those remaining leaves to get healthier.
00:06:50
Speaker
um So by the time you get to that C5 priming, ah it's been a week or two and it is pumping everything it's got into those last remaining leaves.
00:07:02
Speaker
So you end up with thicker, stronger, more intense flavored leaves.
00:07:09
Speaker
And for this cigar, they use that for the wrapper. The wrapper on this is essentially a a upper lejero priming, as some would call it. But in like I said, in and Honduras, they call that El Cinco Corte, the short five.
00:07:30
Speaker
Short fifth, I guess. All right, so wrapper is Honduran, Gronan Trojas, and it is the fifth priming. They don't say anything about the primings for the rest of the tobaccos, but I'll still tell you what they are.
00:07:41
Speaker
This has a double binder, which has been longstanding thing that Reyes's Cubanas has done um for Alec Bradley. Most Alec Bradleys have always been double bindered. yeah And this one is Honduran, Hamistran, and Esteli Nicaraguan double binder.
00:07:57
Speaker
Fillers are from hond all from Honduras, from Tomastron and Trojes. We are smoking the Toro of this, which comes in at $11.50 and is a 6x52.
00:08:11
Speaker
With all that out of the way, Dennis, what are your first impressions of this cigar? Oh, my. i I mean, let's talk about the C5 priming because it is at the forefront off the light. It's in your face, man. it's Again, one of those cigars, if you don't know within the first 30 seconds smoking this thing that's going to powerhouse, you probably should put it down.
00:08:31
Speaker
ah it's It's energizing. And I was just about to say, as you were talking, i almost interrupted you and said, man, this is like slathering your body in Red Bull. It just...
00:08:43
Speaker
You get it. you My whole body is just energized. And I love it. wakes you up a little bit, man. It does. It really does. And I love these kinds of cigars, and that's kind of what I tend to smoke anyway. So thankfully, my body can handle this kind of this kind of strength. But I think there's a lot to it. And beyond the strength, I think it's not just ah a sledgehammer.
00:09:06
Speaker
I'm getting a ah lot of really nice – maybe it's a little bit different for you, but for me, it's very much classic licorice, black licorice. Mm-hmm. It's retrohale, especially. i think the the black licorice is coming out.
00:09:20
Speaker
It's got a lot of flavor considering how strong this is. Really. It has a lot of really nice flavor, which is cool. And going back to what you said about the construction, this thing is built.
00:09:31
Speaker
It's solid, man. It it is a, so if I threw this at you ah from across the room, you would feel it. You could do some damage. It's really well constructed and, and just really solid, man.
00:09:43
Speaker
you You can't, it it just feels good. if When you pick it up, it feels good in the hand. And, you know, i know a lot of guys, people that smoke cigars, generally look for that kind of a construction where it's kind of solid, can maybe take a little bit of a beating if you're out and about, you're working, you're doing something, you're putting the cigar down, you're picking it up, you're moving around.
00:10:03
Speaker
You're not sitting in a shop necessarily. And I think the construction on this one really speaks to to that ability. you can You can do that if you really wanted to. Yeah, this is a tough-feeling cigar.
00:10:16
Speaker
Very thick wrapper. like It's a very dark,
Cigar Pairings with Beverages
00:10:20
Speaker
mottled, kind Maduro-colored wrapper. Like Dennis said, this thing is right out of the gate. It lets you know it is going to be strong.
00:10:28
Speaker
And if you're not ready for that, this is not the cigar for you, because this is going to be a strong cigar. Yeah. Black licorice is exactly the flavor that I'm getting. Ah, cool. And it's like, but it's not just black licorice like star anise. It is like candy.
00:10:47
Speaker
There is like a a hard candy kind of sweetness to this cigar. Uh, that's really nice. That goes along with that, that kind of licorice note. Um, there's like a really intense kind of earth with a little bit of minerality, but not overpowering minerality.
00:11:06
Speaker
Um,
00:11:08
Speaker
I'll tell you soon, ah Ed. Ed Ryan's asking, what's in the glass? and He's always loved racist Cubanas. um He says, greetings from the People's Republic of Portland. Oh, my. Yeah. it's you know Things have been going on there, I gather, from ah what i've been what I've been reading about. Sounds like Elephant's Deli is no more.
00:11:28
Speaker
No. um Anyway. uh yeah those are most of the flavors i'm getting it's kind of a simpler profile there's not a ton going on a ton of layers but i think part of that is just because of the power of this thing like the flavors that you taste are very intense and i expect that as it calms down a little bit more flavors will make their way into the mix uh Oh, absolutely. Absolutely agreed. I think halfway through, once we hit hit the halfway mark, I think we're going to start seeing flavors develop, get a little bit more complex, more variety of flavor, if nothing else. But also the fact that, listen, it's going to warm up a little bit. It's going to get a little bit more full in the sense of on the palate. It's be a little bit more, i don't want to say moist. Moist is a weird word, right? it's a Nobody really wants to hear moist. It'll get more humid.
00:12:21
Speaker
But the humidity of it, as it heats up, as it smokes, as it develops, that's part of the experience. And I think this is going to be awesome halfway through. I'm really excited for it.
00:12:33
Speaker
Me too. um'm I'm excited ah to get through with this cigar experience. Yeah, and I know, I was joking. ah So, a deli in Portland was, was arsonized this week.
00:12:47
Speaker
um Oh? Yeah, a very good one too, which is a bummer. But it was all over Portland subreddit that, like, people were like, I can see it from my apartment and the building's on fire right now.
00:13:02
Speaker
But they have multiple locations. The other locations are...
00:13:06
Speaker
Never fuck with a place. He says coincidentally it was the location that was already rescheduled to be remodeled. So, you know, I know they caught the guy that did it, but wow maybe he's a patsy. Good timing. Good timing. Good timing. You never want to fuck with a place that makes your pastrami sandwiches. Ever. It's true, man. Never, ever, fuck.
00:13:25
Speaker
That or like your tuna salad sandwiches, you don't fuck with those people, all right, because you're going to feel it for a long time and your family is going to feel for a long time. And I say that as a longtime bread New Yorker, you just don't mess with certain people, man, because you never know what's going happen.
00:13:43
Speaker
It's true. All right, let's get into some pairing here. As we're pairing, I'll try to talk about the Great Smoke a little bit. There's not a whole lot to talk about. Mostly, it's I get to hang out with people in the cigar business um in ah in a different context than normal, which is nice.
00:13:59
Speaker
like When you go to an event compared to PCA, PCA is like everybody's busy, everybody's burnt out. You don't really have a lot of time to just chat. like you You chat with people a little bit.
00:14:10
Speaker
You don't have time to get like into a conversation, really, because everybody's got something to do as soon as you're done with that conversation. um And being in this context was nice because you know I got to actually talk to Carlito, who's like at the show. He's swamped all the time.
00:14:23
Speaker
But ill I'll chat about it a little bit in a few minutes. For now, let's get pairing. about that? um So first up, I have one that i I tucked it in the back of my fridge and kind of forgot about it. But luckily, the kind of beverage that will ah will stand at the test of time and should still be okay at this point, even though it was brewed in October.
00:14:49
Speaker
um And that is... Tripping Animals Jungle Pop. Dennis had this on a couple weeks ago. I haven't tried it yet since we we had it at the at the brewery.
00:15:01
Speaker
At the tap room, I guess. um So, a little bit about Tripping Animals. There's not a whole lot of history about them, but they're a very good brewery that we're huge fans of in Miami.
00:15:11
Speaker
um It started in 2011 when four friends in Caracas, Venezuela started homebrewing in their garage. And They just kind of fell in love with brewing. They started, ah it went from, hey, we should try making some beer to let's go to Belgium and check out how Belgian beer is made.
00:15:30
Speaker
And they were traveling all over the world going on vacations together just to check out beer. um In 2018, they all moved to the U.S. together and ended up in Miami and decided to start a brewery. So they started tripping animals in Doral, Florida.
00:15:46
Speaker
They have become very well-known for their sours, in particular, um but as with any great brewery, they do a little bit of everything. They've got a barrel-aged stout or IPA or Pilsner's Moirier Speed. They got those.
00:16:02
Speaker
um They got just about anything you could think of, but they're particularly well-known for their sours, especially fruited sours, i'm kind of dessert-y beers. So I am drinking Jungle Pop.
00:16:15
Speaker
haven't even taken a sip of this yet. It has got... Some junk in the trunk, man. Like, there is a lot of sediment to this that looks like ah like fruit pulp.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, it is a bit pulpy. There's a lot of fruit going on in here. You can even kind of like see it from the consistency that it's got all that pectin in there because very fruited.
00:16:41
Speaker
So this is a sour ale that is that they then add pineapple, strawberry, and yuzu to. It's 6%. I'm curious how sour it is because I haven't tried it in a while.
00:16:53
Speaker
um But we'll see. Let's see how it how it pairs.
00:16:59
Speaker
What do you got up first, Dennis?
00:17:05
Speaker
I was trying to time it to get my cigar back back up and running. Yeah, I know. me one second here. well I'll go through comments. um Ed says, not a bad idea to let the insurance company help out with the new project. And he says, the person who did it, I i must have ah either misread or misunderstood what I read.
00:17:23
Speaker
um But he says it was an old lady trying to stay warm. because She feels really bad that she burned down the deli. She wasn't trying to do it, which is, you know, that's kind of nice to hear.
00:17:35
Speaker
Man, this is a good sour. It is a fantastic sour. I really, really love that beer. I think i I probably have one can of that left, and it's it's such a great brewery.
00:17:47
Speaker
I love everything about them, and what I'm having for my first pairing is not a beer, but it's it's something that I think, and and probably you may have seen them somewhere, may have heard of them. Yeah.
00:18:00
Speaker
Tripp, have you heard of Blake's Hard Cider? Do you know anything about Blake's? I know zero about them. Never heard of them. right. Cool, man. So Blake's heart Hard Cider is what I'm having for my first pairing.
00:18:11
Speaker
And this brand has been around for really, really, really long time. it's a wild. 1946 is when they really kind of started, the history began for Blake's.
00:18:22
Speaker
um So I'm on Blake establishing Apple Orchard in Armada, Michigan in 1946. and And this is kind of an area that may be surprising, but a lot of people don't realize it has a lot of really interesting soil. This is glacial soil. It's really fertile, but you're dealing with intense winters, right? so you have to you have to time your your growing season. You have to time everything you're doing.
00:18:47
Speaker
But if you do it right, you can get some wild flavored apples in that area, which is really cool. And that's what they did. So today, the orchard includes... About over 1,000. It's about over 1,000 acres of land.
00:19:02
Speaker
And they have something like 45,000 apple trees. And they're growing a bunch of different stuff. It's not just one varietal. They've been growing a bunch of different stuff since the beginning. And when they started, it really wasn't a, hey, let's make some cider. It was more of a we're going grow apples. We're going sell them, right? Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
Really, most of the time, they've they've kind of focused on they they' focused on the apples, and then they got into cider mills, and then they started talking about like what would now we know as agritourism, or agritourism. So agritourism is getting people to get out to your farms, get out see what what you know see what you're doing, share the product.
00:19:42
Speaker
ah in In South Jersey, where I live, we have that a lot with seasons, growing seasons and summertime, especially where they have hay rides, they have events for like come pick your apples.
00:19:54
Speaker
They have all kinds of things. So they're involving the local communities in a lot of different ways, and and they've leaned into this as
Craft Alcohol Trends
00:20:00
Speaker
well, which is really cool. um And know for them, as I mentioned, different kinds of apples, Ida Reds, Honeycrisp, Macintosh, all all the classics kind of what would you would think of from an apple standpoint.
00:20:13
Speaker
But what I'm drinking tonight is this very exciting, very unique, When I saw it, and I think, Tripp, you'd probably do the same thing. If you saw this, you'd want to buy this. Let me show you what it looks like.
00:20:25
Speaker
That's very likely. this is This is the El Chavo Mango Habanero. 6.5% cider. And, goddamn, it is not just hot.
00:20:36
Speaker
and godam it it is not just hot Like, it's it's got some heat to it, but it tastes like habaneros. It tastes like you bite into habanero, you get the fruit, you get the citrus, you get the intensity. The the fruit quality, people don't realize, it's not just about the heat.
00:20:56
Speaker
And I think in a lot of ways, that gets lost on people that don't really eat hot chilies. They don't eat super hot. You know, we talk about biting into like a... Well, ghost ghost pepper aside, but...
00:21:11
Speaker
We talk about biting into a habanero. We talk about biting into something like a ah even a Reaper. Reaper is a really great example. If you bite into a fresh Reaper, it has this intense, fruity quality. It's so fruity and sweet. They're delicious.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then they're then they're hot enough to take off your head, man. like It is very intense. yeah um It is... in You can't even... you you can't even It's hard to describe the intensity of eating a Carolina Reaper. Like, that is a one of those out-of-body experience kind of moments.
00:21:49
Speaker
It's very intense and very exciting, but also for me, it's very exciting to see, you know, somebody somebody like a cider company go in and push that limit a little bit and get people to try something different.
00:22:02
Speaker
So the mango, I get it. They want to bring in a new crowd, but also they want the crowd that likes hot stuff. and they want they want to shoot they want that They want to break the veil, if you will, between people love hot stuff and people have no idea about hot stuff and just go, well, it's not a jalapeno. I guess I'm not going to eat it. that's right that That's the baseline for most people is, oh, I've had a jalapeno. It's kind of hot and shitty, and I don't like it.
00:22:25
Speaker
Then you get to habanero territory. And if you do it right, the habanero has so much flavor, so much citrus. there's There's a lot going on beyond just the heat. And goddamn, I think they really nailed it. So they officially got into this market making ciders, alcoholic ciders, in about 2013. Oh, wow. So they were they were grown apples forever. They did the the old racist Cubanas.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, man. they've been doing that for a really long time finally decided, because we had the Kraft Cider boom in the 2000s. And at the very end of that, and I think the Kraft Cider boom really, i think, ended in 2011, 2012.
00:23:07
Speaker
There was a lull period, and then I think cider started to come back, or is coming back now, post-seltzer market. So we had our seltzers, went back to the seltzers. We had our phase of, I think, probably like mid-2010s. We had our phase of pale ales. Started to come back a little bit.
00:23:25
Speaker
Some people were talking about sours. Sours were coming in as well. And then the cider market just piggybacked off that and said, hey, man, we're doing this cool stuff. Check this out. Have you had a hard cider that's not Angry Orchard or, you know, some of the larger names that people see?
00:23:40
Speaker
And now, today, we have... So many different people producing, different companies producing cider. And say companies because sometimes you have just farm to to can, and other times you have a brewery that also does cider. So I just want to make sure that everyone's aware it depends. The market's kind of diverse in that way.
00:24:02
Speaker
yeah Not everyone's just making ciders, and the ones that are just making ciders are really killing it. and you know It makes sense. Mango with habanero. Classic. like That's classic Mexican. Little tajin. Lime.
00:24:14
Speaker
Some chili powder. You want those flavors because they work really well, and there's a reason for that. It's the acidity, it's the sweetness, and the heat brings out both in a really cool way.
00:24:25
Speaker
And you get those floral notes from the chilies as well that I think a lot of people that don't really eat chilies, they never really experience that because they only experience you know going to Buffalo Wild Wings and getting hot wings, and they go, wow, all right, let's tie chili. Okay, well...
00:24:42
Speaker
The Thai chili at Buffalo Wild Wings tastes nothing like Thai chili's taste. Yeah. um i So this was when we lived in Oregon, we had a ah Thai chili plant that we we bought it you know we at some garden shop kind of place.
00:24:58
Speaker
um And we that was one of the very few plants that we kept alive for four or five years straight until a freeze finally killed it. um But my son, when he was about six...
00:25:11
Speaker
He saw these little chilies that they stick straight up like a little finger. Oh, yeah. they grow just sticking straight up. And he saw them and was like, i want to try those. And so I let him eat one.
00:25:24
Speaker
And that he became hooked on it. Like every year it became like once the chilis are the Thai chilies are ready, he just wanted to go eat them all. Just fresh. Because he loved it and man, I felt i feel bad immediately after But the neighbor kids that would hang out, because we had a a ton of neighbors that were the kids' ages um in that neighborhood. So these these two two neighbor kids that he knows really well, that I knew their parents would be cool with it. I was 100% sure their parents will not be mad at me.
00:26:05
Speaker
He convinced them to try Thai chilies, and they both cried. They were not fans. Hey, now, so Thai chili on the scale of chilliness, it's maybe not that hot, but also it's punchy.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, they they're tiny. and like they're They get about this long, and they they're very intense for how small they are. it's the It's the astringency of the chili and the dryness that you get on the palate. When you finally experience it, it's not a palate-coating kind of chili. I would say arguably like a Buccia lochia would generally have more of that that coat.
00:26:45
Speaker
Scorpion peppers also have that oiliness to them that's really unique. But Thai chilies have this dryness. And piri-piri peppers are weary-weary depending where you're from in the world. Or they call them bird's-eye chilies, right? Mm-hmm.
00:26:58
Speaker
those chilies, they, similar to the Thai chili, have this dryness to them that, like, it kind of sits in your throat. and you You almost, you want to cough. You want to cough a little bit. Yeah, exactly.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's that feeling. Yeah, it messed these kids up, and I felt terrible. Because I was like, i didn't i didn't know you'd get it would I didn't know it would be that upsetting. I thought you'd be okay. They were like, i don't know, eight or so probably.
00:27:23
Speaker
and But anyway. Listen, man. It could have been chocolate habaneros. And then chocolate hobs, if you've never had, if you've had a habanero, you're like, oh, that's hot. You get a chocolate habanero, and you go, god damn all right this is the Chocolate anything, man. Chocolate Habanero, Chocolate Ghost, duck Chocolate Reaper. Brain Strain. i mean, you have the White Peach Ghost.
00:27:44
Speaker
or i think i call Yeah, it's a White Peach Ghost. There's so many different strains now. I've had Peach Reaper, and it is the best pepper I've ever eaten. it's It's wonderful, but again, also the heat level, right? So going back to the cider, cider, I think, just really lends itself well to to heat.
00:28:02
Speaker
It's the sweetness from the apple. You get the apple, the the the sweetness, the juiciness, the crispness of the apple. And then if you can find a way to balance it out and get some heat in there, it's really cool. And I think it's one of the avenues that we're going to see a resurgence of ciders probably in the in the next couple of years.
00:28:19
Speaker
Craft cider is going to come back. I really think so. And we're going to see things like craft ciders adjunct with different fruits, different natural kind of And, you know, natural ingredients, processing is going a little bit different.
00:28:33
Speaker
I want to see that happen. I want to see them take the next step. And we'll talk about, like, brewing and distilling. And we'll talk about, like, secondary casks, aging in casks, aging on woods, um even aging on fruit.
00:28:47
Speaker
You take a thing, you sit it on fruit, sit it on peppers, whatever it is. that I want to see that happen. And I think we're getting to that place where people are saying, hey, what what do you have for a cider? It's not enough anymore. I don't think with the new demographic that's drinking today, it's not enough to just have cider from apples and that's it.
00:29:06
Speaker
They want that thing because they're so used to going to a beer, you know, they go to brewery in the tap room and they go, what do you have? And they don't, they're not asking for Pilsners. They're asking for the hazies, the milkshakes, the,
00:29:19
Speaker
What funk do you have for me? And I think the cider industry is really catching on to that. And they're realizing to step up their game, they have to start doing different things. Whether that's like adjuncting with with peppers or even barreling. I've had some great barreled ciders. And no other flavors. It's just take cider, put it in a barrel, done.
00:29:39
Speaker
And even that's really exciting. and that that either You have so much room to find that interesting because like you very rarely see a barrel-aged pale ale. yeah But I think pale ale is probably the closest comparison to a cider in the beer world.
00:29:53
Speaker
Like, there is no stout of ciders. Not that I know of, at least. Oddly enough, I actually understand exactly what you mean. um It's a vehicle. It's a really great vehicle that gives you an opportunity. It holds flavor really well.
00:30:08
Speaker
and And again, the sweetness, too. It's not added sweetness. Not necessarily. Sometimes it is, but not always. And... Depending on where you live, there are different laws. Like, for example, here, if you produce in in the state of New Jersey, if you produce a cider, you have to have winery.
00:30:26
Speaker
I guess it's a license. It's a license to make wine. you If you're a brewery, you can't just go, I'm going to make cider. You can't do that. Interesting. interesting In New Jersey. you You have to have a separate license that allows you to make cider. But if you make cider, you technically have a license for wine. If you make wine, you technically can't really make beer unless You play nice, nice, and you get the right permits in place, and it's very strange.
00:30:49
Speaker
Weird. All right. A couple of comments before we get into my first pairing. Yeah, let's do it. ah Ed said, speaking of elephants, did you see what Kevin Shahan was rocking it yesterday at the Great Smoke? I was there. I talked to Kevin for like 20 minutes, and I was racking my brain like, was he wearing anything interesting? um And I went to his Facebook. No, he was not wearing that. It was Dior.
00:31:11
Speaker
When I saw him. No, it was a ah an inflatable elephant costume. It's hilarious. Yeah. it like It looks like he's riding an elephant, but the the elephant's trunk is in a specific location of his body that makes it very funny.
00:31:32
Speaker
His dong. Oh. um Like, you know it's you got the elephant trunk coming right out of your waist. No, I get it. I get it. Okay. Gentle. The lips are gentle like a horse. Exactly. Exactly. By the way, the nerve endings by the nerve endings in a in an elephant's trunk, very impressive. So many muscles, and I would argue I think an elephant's trunk. i mean, they can, like, grab, like, a hand with that thing. It's crazy.
00:31:56
Speaker
In Elephant's Trunk, I believe, I could be wrong, but I believe they have the most muscles per meat space. Per square inch. Per square meat.
00:32:08
Speaker
Per square meat. Yeah. But it's a very, very complex system and so many nerve endings and... Yeah, that's how they experience the world. That's really what they take care of themselves. That's how they feel things. That's how they interact with the world around them.
00:32:23
Speaker
It's just a like a really fascinating thing. And, you know, I joke around. It's like horse with the gentle lips. we You can get the the little hairy lips of a horse. um He also had another comment that says that mango habanero sounds pretty good.
00:32:40
Speaker
But why would you choose that for a show about pairings? Because your palate is now fried. I'm going to you respond to this one, Dennis. So yeah normally, yes. I'd say yes, absolutely. For most people, yes. For me, because I regularly consume spicy things, I consume very intense things. I think to a large degree, my palate's kind of used to it. So for me, it's not that abrasive. It's not like, ah man, i I blew up my palate.
00:33:06
Speaker
I tell you what, if I had a Dr. Pepper right now, And I don't really – I like dark pepper. I don't drink it very often. If I had one right now, I would not be able to do the show at all. Why? Because would just kill – it would kill my palate for the whole show.
00:33:19
Speaker
Oh,
Sour Beers and Cigar Pairings
00:33:20
Speaker
interesting. Which is one of the reasons why certain things I don't consume when I smoke cigars. um And then other things you go like, well, that's weird. Sours. I do sours.
00:33:31
Speaker
Normally, most people have sours with – and you're drinking a sour right now. Most people have sours. uh don't really think about having sour with the with the cigar because they don't normally consume sours and cigars and it can you know can kind of conflict a little bit uh but yeah i don't i don't think it's too bad i mean it's a spice to like and like a lot of things it's a spice tolerance thing right like your gets used to that um It's not that your palate is dead.
00:34:02
Speaker
Like, a lot of people think if you eat a lot of spicy food, it it messes up your palate so you can't taste things oh anymore. yeah But what it actually does is it makes it so you can't taste capsaicin as well, which is, which is you know, to some people, a good thing.
00:34:18
Speaker
Like, I can eat crazy amount of very hot hot sauce, but, like, I have to be careful because when I'm cooking and i I make something that has any amount of spice whatsoever, a little spicy is very different to me than it is to the rest of my family.
00:34:36
Speaker
So I always have to have like a taste tester, taste it and say, is this going to be okay for everybody? Because for me, Sometimes a level of heat that is unbearable to like my mom, for example, she's extremely sensitive. A level of heat that is unbearable to her is almost undetectable for me.
00:34:57
Speaker
Interesting. My mom is the same way. And generally my family doesn't really eat spicy in in to to the level that I do and the level that you and I do. But again, it's pretty. time it's it's the experience it's the you're building up this tolerance and you know tolerance to capsaicin for those of you that don't know it fades very quickly so if you stop if you take a week or two off going to notice the difference it fades so quick it's very different than tolerance to like nicotine tolerance to caffeine and other stuff capsaicin tolerance it fades so so quickly and when i was competing and doing
00:35:35
Speaker
different hot challenges and things and traveling and doing all that stuff. I always had to keep that in mind. i always had to make sure that I was practicing and eating things and I would pickle fresh ghost peppers and just eat them whole. And I'd have one or two of those with every meal just to make sure my body was used to it in advance of doing a competition.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, and ah at a certain point, um like the like something like Habanero has a Once you're used to it enough, it has a short enough half-life that it's not really impacting your palate for more than a minute or two at most. That's a good way to put it, too. Yeah, it's it's the half-life. It's not going to linger. Certain peppers really do linger. their i mean, like, Szechuan chilies, I think, is ah is a really good example that. Szechuan peppercorn.
00:36:23
Speaker
and And similar chilies there, like that will last for a while, especially if you really get down hard on the peppercorns. Your mouth is going numb for a while. going have a lot of different things because it has an analgesic effect.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, most stuff, not bad. last Last comment before I get back into my first pairing here. Jordan says, Angry Orchard got him into beer because he couldn't get used to the taste until he started drinking Angry Orchard. And, ah you know, that's kind of, that's the story for a lot of people, specifically with Angry Orchard or Strongbow and some of those, um you know, first wave ciders. love Strongbow.
00:37:00
Speaker
um Look at you. First wave. We're getting fancy it. mean, you know, like it was the first wave of craft cider in the U.S. and Yeah. The first experience most people had with like widely available hard cider.
00:37:13
Speaker
um That wasn't just like a you know, a gimmick for fall or something like that. right.
00:37:21
Speaker
This beer is as intense as it looks. Ed said it looks like something Diddy would serve at a party. um And yeah, kind of does. it um If you're not used to drinking funky beer, this looks nasty.
00:37:36
Speaker
It's kind of like a... I mean, it looks like pineapple juice with a little strawberry juice in it. So it's kind of got that brownish... niss um And that's mostly what it tastes like That little bit of yuzu There's like You know there's definitely a a sour beer-ness To it But this really mostly tastes like a juice cocktail you would get for breakfast At a fancy hotel um Like it's very pineapple forward with a little bit of like the rounding out of that sweetness and rounding out of those like citrusy flavors of the strawberry.
00:38:12
Speaker
And then the yuzu, which yuzu is like, ah it's basically like lemon. Like it is very, very sour. It's a little less
Alternative Drinks and Pairings
00:38:20
Speaker
sour than lemon. a little more palatable, I guess, than a lemon. You know, a lemon, you if you bite a lemon, it's, like, intense.
00:38:28
Speaker
um A yuzu is kind of like a lemon you could actually bite without puckering your face off. And it has a bit of a pithiness to it as well, which is great, because it brings the bitterness out, um which, in this case, I think with a yuzu, it's a really exciting bitterness. It's not like a grapefruit you bite into grapefruit or pomelo or something similar to that. It's different than that.
00:38:49
Speaker
It's less abrasive, certainly more approachable, but it's kind of that amalgamation of those two worlds. Yeah. Which makes it kind of fun. And as far as the pairing goes, this is like, this is almost, it's close to the contrastiest contrast pairing I've ever had.
00:39:06
Speaker
Where... all of the flavors in this beer are super bright. Like, there's so much citrus, so much acidity there um that it's got a real brightness to it on the palate. It kind of like, i don't know, every time I taste it, I feel like it's lighting my palate up.
00:39:22
Speaker
Like, turning it on, you know? Like, ah it's just, it's not super intensely sour, but it's enough to to kind of, like, the strength of this cigar. It's enough to wake you up a little bit.
00:39:34
Speaker
um But, like, Man, i'm going I'm getting back into the thing where I talk about like color or sound pairing. Well, that's what it is. This is all treble in this in this beer, and the cigar is all like lower mids and bass.
00:39:52
Speaker
So it's like two halves of the same thing that are working really well together. Like a sip of this beer makes the brings out more earthiness, ah more of the minerality, more of the kind of chocolatey flavors in the cigar.
00:40:09
Speaker
What about you? How's your first pairing been? and So actually, similar to your point, I was going to say the brightness that I'm getting from mine. it's Well, sorry, the pairing is giving me a brightness. which is really nice. And you would think the pepper is not going to work. that The heat's not going to work. It's not that much heat, but it's enough.
00:40:26
Speaker
I would say, honestly, if you don't like heat, this is not to be the cider for you. You're going be upset. You're not go have a good time. But for me, this is very much a cozy meal. I've had a nice meal. There's little heat lingering on the on the palate, on the tongue. And then I go back to the cigar, and it it it almost like kind of illuminates the cigar.
00:40:45
Speaker
And it's those flavors that maybe, and again, to your point, maybe that I wasn't getting before. It's bringing out those more subtle flavors in the cigar in a bigger way. That's really cool. And, and dude, i I'm really enjoying this so far. I'm actually. Man, we both have had success with what I thought were not going to be good pairings.
00:41:04
Speaker
I thought neither of these pairings would work great with this cigar. And both of them working great. I think, you know, listen, part of it is is because you and I have a particular, and I think our palates kind of share a similar vein.
00:41:17
Speaker
Of adventurousness. Like, we're willing to push the envelope a little bit, I think. For us, this is a this was a good test of our regular palates. How do they work with something like this kind of a cigar that has really a very intense punchiness off the light?
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah, um this is actually stronger than most of the stuff I smoke these days, which is interesting. I don't smoke a ton of super strong cigars anymore. I still smoke them some, but...
00:41:46
Speaker
To their credit, double binder, absolutely fantastic. I'm um um' very happy they want the double binder for this. I think just what it brings to the table, and often we don't – we say double binder, and it's only really talked about in a way that's – like if you're nerding out and go, oh, man, thing is a double binder. It's got this stuff going on. Cool. Cool.
00:42:07
Speaker
But actually, the double binder does serve a really great purpose, and i love that it holds the cigar together in terms of the the flavor that you're getting on your palate. You're getting a little bit more, but it's also the vehicle for something like this wrapper, which is very intense. Without a double binder, i think the cigar would be very hard to smoke and very hard to enjoy.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think i think the Nicaraguan binder adds some... um brightness to the cigar for lack of a better term like not to get back to my pairing but um it adds a little bit of like kind of that baking spice aspect i think uh it's hard to hard to say for sure though anyway um what are we talking heat level on that cider i'm very curious is that like singe your mustache like habanero sculpin was back in the day or is it closer to ah you know a ah more reasonable spice that's more approachable
00:43:07
Speaker
ah So, no. So, not like a habanero scalpin a little bit. Just before that. you'd like bring it back just a touch. Okay. So, this this is going to be intense for most people.
00:43:19
Speaker
But it's not like... Habanero scalpin was truly like... If you weren't ready for it, that thing will blow your head off. Like, that was a hot, hot beer. Yeah, this is this is a touchback.
00:43:32
Speaker
But also... Let's not forget, carbonation and spice, it's a whole new level, plus alcohol, right? So capsaicin is alcohol soluble.
00:43:43
Speaker
So what you're getting is going to be very, very intense. You have to very careful when you make, when you brew, whatever you do, when you infuse, you have to be really careful about that. okay And it's hot enough to where I think was somebody like you and i you or I would really dig it.
00:44:01
Speaker
But if someone picked this off off the shelf that was not expecting, they're like, oh, yeah, habanero, fine, whatever. No big deal. They might have a bad time. I suspect. Okay.
00:44:13
Speaker
Like, I can see people buying this off the cuff and then throwing out the whole case. Yeah. Yeah, that I could see that if it's that hot. All right. On to my second pairing. We're, like, all halfway done with this cigar at this point, and we're only on to our second pairing.
00:44:28
Speaker
We're talking a lot tonight. All right. On my second pairing. They're back. I should probably see if I can get in touch with somebody about a sponsorship from Freem. Fuck yeah, dude. um'm I'm loving Freem Family Brewers, man. i always I've loved them since the since the beginning.
00:44:46
Speaker
um But now that I can get them on almost as far away as I can while staying in the same country, um I'm very happy. And so I've got a surplus of it all the time.
00:44:58
Speaker
And always something super cool to try. um so I'll give you the short version as I have been lately. ah but Founded in 2012 by Josh Freem. He worked for a bunch of breweries and really like cemented his place as a expert of making loggers.
00:45:16
Speaker
and specifically Pilsner's. Then he started his own Freem in 2012. And ah after after proving that Freem was a force to be reckoned with when it came to lagers, they decided to start going funky Belgian and barrel-aged.
00:45:34
Speaker
So they're doing a ton of barrel-aged stuff now. They have a full-time blending team. All they do is blend beers. ah And that's where this beer comes from. This is the Blenders Reserve from Frame. It is one of their club exclusives, so this was only available um to people in their their barrel-age club.
00:45:55
Speaker
And ah it's a very special beer. So basically, during the barrel selection process and blending process, or the barrel selection process during blending, when they're blenders are going through and tasting and saying, right, we need to add this much from this barrel and this much from this barrel, or this many barrels of this, this many barrels of this stuff.
00:46:18
Speaker
um Once in a while, they find a barrel that they taste and they go, this is too good to put it in with the rest of the... This is too special. So they toss it back in the rack and just wait for something to come up that they think is going to work with that.
00:46:35
Speaker
Last year, in 2025, they took their three top-tier, most exceptional barrels. They just dumped them in together and bottled them.
00:46:47
Speaker
They didn't do anything fancy. They just went, these, this is, it's blended. Like, technically, it's blended, but they didn't do measurements. They just did the whole barrel, the whole barrel, the whole barrel of three different barrels.
00:46:59
Speaker
So this is 32% barley wine aged months in bourbon
00:47:06
Speaker
32% Imperial Stout aged 13 months in bourbon barrels. And 36% Imperial Brown Ale aged 10 months in vermouth barrels. So this is... Goddamn, that's a choice. This is three full barrels blended together, uncut, unmessed with, unrebarreled.
00:47:27
Speaker
um They just blended these three barrels together, stuck it in enough bottles to... to sell to their club members and rolled with it um and what you end up with is a what's the abv 12.4 um i mean it looks like what you would expect when there's when it's 60 stout that's 12.4 yeah god damn dude that that is it's a heater yeah and Man, on the nose, it's all like it's all flavors from the cigar. It's like licorice and earth and... That raisin. Yeah, raisin, that kind of barrel note. like You smell the bourbon, but then you also smell like a little bit of that sweetness of vermouth, um which is really nice.
00:48:16
Speaker
it's um And you can see, I poured this 50 minutes ago, like right as we were getting started. And it's still got a little bit of head on there, which is kind of impressive.
00:48:29
Speaker
so i'm go look Looking at it, that tells me that that has very sharp bubbles to it. Let's find out. Yeah, I'm curious, man. Sharp bubbles.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really cool. There's like such a creaminess to the texture of this. Well, I think it's really genius. It's genius. When you have a beer like that, that the nature of that that kind of a beer with the barreling and everything else, the flavors are concentrated. You have this viscosity to it that's um inherent and in kind of like what you're doing.
00:49:08
Speaker
It's built in. You have the viscosity to it. And it's a viscosity that's flavor-wise, not viscosity in terms of the classic sense of like the liquid itself. But then when you add the bubbles like that, and I think it's really cool they do this because those bubbles...
00:49:22
Speaker
When you first sip it, sharp bubbles like that will kind of hit your your tongue, your palate, the sides of your palate, everything else. They'll hit it real quick, scrub it for a moment, and then you have that viscosity comes in, and those flavors will stick better. And it sounds crazy.
00:49:39
Speaker
I probably tell a lot of people ah that don't really experience this on a daily basis, don't talk about it. But think about it the next time you drink something like that. The reason why they do that is because if it wasn't like that, and let's say if it was like classic barrel aged but then also um lower carbonated and just put in and you had a thinner a thinner carbonation, you would end up blowing out your palate completely. You'd take one sip and you'd taste nothing else after for the next hour.
00:50:08
Speaker
But the bubbles in that allow you to keep tasting it again for almost like the first time every time. I think also the fact that, I mean, um I don't want to get too into talking about it, but the fact that like it's a barley wine and brown ale and a stout is like there are those three hit your palate in three different ways.
00:50:29
Speaker
So the
00:50:33
Speaker
the barley wine hits first with that like malty sweetness. Then you get that brown ale where it's like a little more beer-y, you know, um like more classic beer flavors, like dark... It's the center of the kind of Yeah, center of the tongue, roasted bread, hops, and then you're hit with like that deep, dark, black metal bitterness of the stout and sweetness, I guess, but it's a different it's a very different kind of sweetness.
00:51:03
Speaker
Yeah. Man, Freem, honestly, Freem, you've shared so much Freem stuff with me over the years that I'm so thankful that I've had a chance to try. and and I love Freem. This might be one of the ones that we had in Miami, but I can't remember. No, I got this in December, so we didn't have this. No, no, no, no. We had something else, but but also really fantastic.
00:51:24
Speaker
I think just what Freem is doing is really great. And the fact that you're in Florida, but you're getting Freem beer. i I almost... um i want I might subscribe, man. I want to get this stuff. I would recommend it.
00:51:37
Speaker
Especially because then we could do like matching pairings once in a while, which is something we very, very, very rarely do. Well, the you know, the other problem is I think with that is my pal and your pal, we lean in a similar direction for a lot of our stuff. So...
00:51:55
Speaker
If all three of our pairings were the same, it might be kind of repetitive and boring. It it it could be um But again, you know here we are, Sours. and And you have a beer that I had on not long ago that we both love, and it's really exciting. The Sours really fun.
00:52:10
Speaker
Let me tell you about my second pairing because it's going to throw some people off, I think. mit well um First, I forgot to mention that ah tam Sam Fennel is smoking a Falto. His first pairing was a Guinness.
00:52:23
Speaker
Second pairing is a Guinness Black and Tan with Smithwick's Ale. Oh, yeah, Fantastic choices for for St. Patrick's Day week. I got yelled at, by the way. I said so i said i said that once at a bar like Smithwick's, and I almost got kicked out of a bar New York. Did i say it wrong? I've never never heard this. Smithicks? Smithicks. And I no don't know. i didn't know that I didn't know his shit, but...
00:52:48
Speaker
um But the older I get, the more I realize just how much I love Guinness and how wonderful it is and how versatile it is. Because people go, Guinness, it's just some stout shit. Fine.
00:53:01
Speaker
Guinness is a really versatile beer that you can mix with other things. You can do so much with it. You can add it into a cocktail. If you want just a little bit of funk, throw a shot of Guinness into a cocktail and...
00:53:13
Speaker
it doesn't make it stouty at all. It makes it different and it makes it really interesting. And yeah, man, i anytime
Whiskey Histories and Preferences
00:53:20
Speaker
I hear about Guinness, it's always, the we always have something to talk about.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, we're big fans. All right, what do you got up next? Oh, boy. Well, let's let's go back into the world where this ready-to-drink cocktail thing exploded in you know what recent years, but people don't realize this has started in the 1990s, roughly. We had like coolers back then. I think they were called coolers. We had stuff like Zima.
00:53:48
Speaker
We had different flavored malt drinks back then. right And then 2010s, it shifted into What were those wine coolers called? Uh-huh. What? The Breeze.
00:54:01
Speaker
I can't remember. It's okay. Don't worry about it. They were those wine coolers. Yeah, and then you know we had Smirnoff Ice and similar kind of drinks like that that that were really popular back then in the 90s into the 2000s. Bartles and James. That's what they're called.
00:54:18
Speaker
The what? Bartles and James. i don't b and j you never you never saw those maybe they were too far before your time they were they came in these funny little bottles they were very bright colors um oh yeah i i know i mean i know nd40 mad dogs yeah it's kind of like a mad dog 2020 it's a similar it's a similar thing but they were more of a 20 that's what it was they were more of a malt beverage than like a a liqueur substitute Yeah, it was an interesting time. And then, you know, we get into 2010s pre-COVID. So that the decade right before COVID was really interesting because when COVID hit, we had this like resurgence of of rated to drink cocktails. And that was almost ah exclusively back then. It was like local bars that were making that stuff. And you can go pick up and you take home. And you had like a vacuum sealed pouch and you build your cocktail at home and, know,
00:55:12
Speaker
Different. What I'm talking about is very different. this was like can' This is canned stuff is what I'm talking about now. um you know the The craft cocktail culture changed in a lot of ways. They wanted to be very approachable and very portable.
00:55:26
Speaker
Now, hard seltzers came out, and that changed the world. White Claw came out in 2016 and changed everything about everything. It's a multi- multi-billion dollar category. It changed the landscape of the alcohol industry.
00:55:42
Speaker
Like not it was just fucking wild not just wine coolers, not just beer. It changed wine, liquor. It changed drinking habits entirely across the board.
00:55:53
Speaker
was wild. Not only that, but also it also changed marketing. It also changed ah the way that we as consumers interacted with brands and the way that we as consumers interacted with what we would thought you know is what we wanted.
00:56:09
Speaker
Like the concept of, hey, drink this thing. You're going to really love it It became ingrained in our minds. Like now, you know, we go out with our kids. We go out to a thing, birthday party or something. We expect certain things to be in the cooler.
00:56:24
Speaker
And almost always we're going have like the macro beers, fine. But there's going to seltzer in there, no doubt. Maybe you get a cider. But really the focus is you expect the seltzers to be there. And it's not just white closets, all this other stuff.
00:56:36
Speaker
And now the company that I'm drinking tonight is mom water. Have you heard about this? I've heard the name. Okay. So I haven't tried and founded They were founded in 2021 by Bryce Morrison.
00:56:50
Speaker
And the idea behind this was kind of a, like, Oh, excuse me. it's a It's non-carbonated, but God damn, it's making me purple up. Um,
00:57:03
Speaker
he was It was birthed from this concept of like what moms like to drink, to like the sort of stereotypical, ah like stressed out moms. What do they drink? It's going to be wine or it's going to be this stuff kind of thing, right? Like what do they really like to drink? They're to mix something at home and go to a a soccer game or whatever it is.
00:57:24
Speaker
And so, like, the concept behind Mom Water really was low sugar, low carbonation, easy to consume, portable, slim cans. sli You know, I think Red Bull changed the world when it came cans. Yeah, with those cans. For sure.
00:57:40
Speaker
Wild. Like, they really, people don't realize how how much Red Bull has influenced what, not just what we drink, but also how we drink and how we consume insulin. How we carry things. Some cans really change a lot of things.
00:57:54
Speaker
um So what I have tonight for my second pairing is this mom water. There it is. Pineapple Nancy. Pineapple Orange.
00:58:04
Speaker
And this one is called Nancy. And good for them on their marketing. Going back to the marketing thing I mentioned, what they do for ah all of their stuff is they they they kind of pick names, like stereotypical meme names, you know, like suburban mom names. So it's like Karen, Nancy, Sandy, Linda, all these ah fun names. Good for them on the on the kind of strategic marketing on that.
00:58:31
Speaker
But the concept behind this was accessible accessible drinks. This one is 4.5%. I think they all are actually 4.5%. But it's basically vodka water, more or less.
00:58:46
Speaker
It's little you know little flavor. Little vodka thing going on It's accessible because it's not really strong. And it's slim, and you can put it your bag and and and go.
00:58:58
Speaker
So we had this back in the day. We had this in, like, the nineteen eighty s and, you know, degree. Where people said, oh, I'm going to have a vodka soda with lime.
00:59:10
Speaker
I want a diet or whatever. I'm just, i'm not going drink heavy. going vodka soda with lime. Cool. Thanks. little spritz. Spritz of lime. Very simple. And dude, this exploded all over the Midwest to the point where it it it grew to the the full market of the U.S. Um.
00:59:31
Speaker
It is very clean. It's it's very clean. it's It's low alcohol. It's got a little flavor to it, which is really nice. And again, I mentioned the Slim Can. It's portable. So it kind of hits all the boxes for your typical like suburban mom going out.
00:59:46
Speaker
It's kind of like that, and I really wanted to try because I'd seen it in the store, and I've never had it. There's a mom water, and there's also a dad water. Of course. I do believe they are related. I'm not 100% sure.
00:59:58
Speaker
I think they are based on the branding and in the cans and everything else, but the mom water thing. Yeah, man, you just want a little little bit of something. You don't want it to be too heavy. You don't want it to be too heavy on flavor.
01:00:10
Speaker
You don't want it be too heavy on the alcohol. Yes, let's do it. And so I really wanted to try this as a mid-pairing for a almost like a palate cleanser. They are the same company.
01:00:22
Speaker
Dadwater is tequila-based. Oh, that's what it is. Okay. Okay.
01:00:30
Speaker
And they have very similar names, Gary, Rodney, Thieve, and Tom. Like, just just just white dude names, right? Yeah, just it's it's interesting that they leaned into this memography of of you know the culture over the last 20, 25 years, 30 years of memography of it.
01:00:52
Speaker
Really Really interesting But ah Yeah I think listen I think it works And it's not carbonated so Take that for what you will Maybe you'll drink more maybe you'll drink less I mean for some people that's great I know my brother-in-law can't burp Physically unable To burp So he he can't drink anything with carbonation It's just a no-go What is he a pigeon Yeah Jesus, fuck.
01:01:23
Speaker
Okay. Half human, half pigeon. Pigeons can't burp either. They die. i mean, most birds can't. That's that's the whole Alka-Seltzer thing. Yeah, yeah. But if he drinks a couple of ah of carbonated drinks, he's going to turn into a seagull with a couple of Alka-Seltzer tablets.
01:01:42
Speaker
I'm pretty sure vultures can belch. Maybe. That would make sense with with all that fermentation going on inside them. Yeah, well, I think i think there's i don't think they fart. so the things um I don't think birds can fart, but I thought think some can belch. Okay.
01:01:58
Speaker
Okay. uh anyway how's your second pairing for you oh it's fantastic uh it's really interesting because i have gotten through pure like uh coincidence i guess like i just picked stuff that i thought might go with with this cigar in a way and i got like a full-on contrast pairing in a full-on complimentary pairing. Like, the flavors of this beer go together so well with this cigar that it almost covers up some of those, like, darker flavors I was talking about. The chocolate, the earth, oh yeah that licorice.
01:02:39
Speaker
And it turns into, like, a spicier, more, uh, kind of like a fruity, sweeter kind of cigar um than it was before.
01:02:53
Speaker
There's even a little citrus to it, which is crazy because my first pairing is so citrusy that I couldn't detect that even a little. Yeah. But now that I've got this deep, dark, um three different barrel-aged beers, I can taste kind of that little citrus note that's there that I didn't even realize was there before.
01:03:17
Speaker
So what do you think? Now you're you're a little bit past halfway through the cigar. Yep. What do you think? How do you feel about this? I have thoughts and I want to share them as well, but tell us what do you think? um I think this is kind of a palate wrecker of a cigar.
01:03:31
Speaker
So if you do smoke it, be very careful you're not over smoking it. If you smoke this too fast, it is going to numb your tongue. For the rest of the month.
01:03:42
Speaker
Like, uh, this is a very, very intense cigar. There's very intense flavors here. So be careful that you don't overdo it. You want to be making sure that you're not, you know, puffing on this thing like a chimney.
01:03:54
Speaker
Um... But I really enjoy the flavors that are there. This is the kind of cigar that I kind of expect to taste super under-fermented, like almost un-fermented and just be like super brash in your face, yeah giving you a sore throat and a sore tongue almost.
01:04:11
Speaker
um And there is a little bit of like that palate fatigue on the tongue from it. um But it's not necessarily a bad thing. This is probably a... If you want something to finish off the night with a bang, or if ah you're only having one cigar that day, that'll be fine.
01:04:31
Speaker
I don't recommend you smoke this as your first cigar of the day, or maybe even your third or fourth if you're going to keep going. um this should probably be your last cigar but the flavors that it's got are i'm really enjoying this is a type of cigar that i haven't had in a while um i feel like there's not a a lot of companies doing like the powerhouse thing anymore it's kind of falling out of style um so this is kind of a nice throwback to when those were were all the rage like your punishers and your um i don't know the one i'm talking about that uh
01:05:07
Speaker
the god I can't remember the name of the company.
01:05:11
Speaker
What, the spicy cigar? No, it wasn't the spicy one. Wasn't that the Punisher? I thought it was Punisher. That was the Punisher. It was like spicy and super intense. But there was a one that had a warning label on it. You know the one I'm talking about, Ed. If you're still watching, come leave a comment and let me know what cigar that is.
01:05:28
Speaker
The one with the warning label, you still have them, I believe. The last time I was at your house, you had them in the humidor still after, oh my I don't know, eight years of them not being on the market. The company that made the...
01:05:40
Speaker
the ah in two bar that had like, it was ah a 6x60 wrapped around a Lancero. it was like it was a wild company man and it sounds nuts it was like a 6x60 wrapped around the lancero but the lancero was 7x38 the last inch of the lancero sticks out of the 6x60 it was a wild cigar dude nuts dude okay if if i'm still watching he'll chime in and let me know because he knows it's something and something but i can't remember the name
01:06:16
Speaker
Like, it's killing me. But i'll I'll forget it for now. Anyway. I didn't know that Punisher was spicy, by the way. When I lit my first one many years ago, I didn't know. I didn't i you know i i didn't look at the flavor text. I didn't talk to people about it. I was just like, my lips are burning.
01:06:34
Speaker
What's going on? And then it got to a point where was like, very unpleasant. And I was like, what what happened? And, yep, laced, very laced with spice. So, yeah, dude, my so my second pairing, I think it's nice as a palate cleanser.
01:06:49
Speaker
You know, really really like flavor pineapple orange. It's, i listen, I think it's really easy to put down because it is not carbonated.
01:07:01
Speaker
So I'm drinking this kind of like, oh yeah, it's just water. It's fine. And, no, man, it's got some alcohol to it. Nice.
01:07:13
Speaker
umm I'm glad it's it's working. I'm trying to figure out what this cigar is with Google, and ah Gordo wrapped around in Lancero is not coming up with anything. So I'll give up.
01:07:24
Speaker
Thank you, Coop. Burger and Argenti is the the company. Oh, wow. Okay, yeah. co like I knew it was an an old company yeah that that that wasn't really in the market as much these days.
01:07:38
Speaker
ah But yeah, they had the N2 Bar brand. Which was Oh it was a Robusto But it had a short cigar in the middle That like the last quarter inch was sticking out It was It was interesting um
01:07:57
Speaker
Hold on i gotta I gotta hit the Google for a second Because I gotta figure out what the strong ass cigar they did was It might have been that N2 bar It was probably that one um But, you know, the those were the days where theigar's strong cigars were like uppercut strong.
01:08:17
Speaker
Like, they were strong, strong. Anyway, I'm gonna move on to my last pairing to what ah Ed was asking earlier, what's in the glass? And now I'm going to tell you. So this is from Ardbeck in 19. 19. What am I talking about? Something in America? In 1798. Yeah.
01:08:36
Speaker
Duncan McDougal rented a farm ah called Ardbeg and half of the farm called Lagavulin and started distilling. um he he rented the farm started farming there uh doing barley and stuff like that and started distilling whiskey um in 1815 he decided to start a distillery and called it ardbeg eventually um he he stopped renting the lagavulin part and that eventually became lagavulin um
01:09:11
Speaker
But he began to still distill legally a couple years after 1815. I think 1815 is what's on the bottle. Yeah, established 1815. That's when he officially started the distillery. um As you can see up there, the top of the bottle.
01:09:26
Speaker
um When he died in 1835, he had been running both the farm and the distillery as kind of the the boss of everything there. Once he died, his sons, John and Alexander, split the duties.
01:09:40
Speaker
of Of running the farm and the distillery So John would run the farms Alexander would run the distillery Um
01:09:48
Speaker
Within just a couple years, the brothers sold their ownership of the farm in 1838. um Actually, they sold the whole thing in 1838, but Alexander stayed on to manage the distillery. So he was still managing the distillery. Eventually, years later, after his death in the 1920s, his, think it was his children, might've been his grandchildren, ended up buying the farm, but or buying the distillery and the land back.
01:10:18
Speaker
So came back into the company with the Alexander McDougall and Company. um The records show that during the eighteen thirty s the distillery was producing 500 gallons of whiskey per week, which was a lot in the 1830s. God damn. That is a massive amount even today.
01:10:36
Speaker
By the 1880s, they were producing 5,000 gallons a week. um Ten times in 50 years. um So for most of the history of the Ardbeg distillery, their whiskey was used exclusively as a blending ingredient.
01:10:56
Speaker
um So they would distill the whiskey, you know, they would drink it, they would sell to some of their friends and townsfolk and stuff like that. People who worked there and lived in town probably mostly drank Ardbeg whiskey because it was ah readily available.
01:11:10
Speaker
But most of what the distillery made was sold to blenders, you know, Johnny Walkers and and such. um
01:11:18
Speaker
In 1905 is the earliest record I've seen of it. um Shops around the world would, you know, a liquor store was not the liquor store you see today where you walk in and they got a bunch of bottles.
01:11:32
Speaker
A liquor store was a place where they had A couple but barrels of rum, a couple barrels of whiskey, a couple barrels of wine, a couple barrels of this, a couple barrels of that.
01:11:44
Speaker
um And you would come in, you would maybe bring your own bottle. You might buy a bottle from them. You might return a bottle and get a and get a brand new bottle from them, or freshly cleaned at least. um But as early 1905, I found a shop in, i think it was in New York,
01:12:00
Speaker
that was selling, they were advertising. They had an ad in a paper that said, come buy Ardbeg whiskey from us. We've just got a fresh cask of Ardbeg whiskey. Bring in your bottle. We'll fill her up.
01:12:12
Speaker
God, seems so exciting. I would love to do that today. and Dude, right? like So this was like, you would just walk into your ah your bodega and get a a fresh from the cask, single cask,
01:12:29
Speaker
task strength ardbeg what would that be like um like it what a time to be alive um because eventually so there this was in 1905 that i saw that that happened until about the 20s then of course prohibition came along and uh the u.s was not buying any more whiskey um at least not very much from Scotland because you would have to smuggle it in.
01:12:56
Speaker
um And so throughout the 1900s, demand for those peated whiskeys in blending capacity has ebbed and flowed.
01:13:08
Speaker
So there have been a bunch of closures, mostly I think during World War ii I don't even have this in my notes, but I'm pretty sure during World War Ardbeg was used as a gunpowder storage facility. Yep.
01:13:19
Speaker
um As were quite a few distilleries, just because of where they were located, and they had big empty warehouses because they hadn't been making much whiskey. Getting bombed and stuff like that nearby. There's nothing better than storing gunpowder and cast-strength spirits. we teach Seriously.
01:13:36
Speaker
ah um and So for for most of its history, it was it was a blending whiskey. um One of the most notable closures was in 1981, they closed due to no demand. Like, you know, the blending companies weren't buying anything.
01:13:54
Speaker
They didn't have enough. they didn't They weren't making enough money to keep the doors open. So they just kind of let what was in the rickhouse. that what they call it? A rickhouse there? I know that's what they call in the U.S. But what they had aging, continued to age, of course, um and they would sell barrels as needed.
01:14:11
Speaker
But they were selling so few barrels, they didn't need to make any more. In 89, they finally opened back up again, and they were running for... How many days a week was it?
01:14:26
Speaker
Oh, they were producing whiskey. They would open for two months a year. they'd be open for two months, and that would make them enough whiskey to last them all year. um So they were just kind of barely surviving.
01:14:39
Speaker
You know, that's that's not enough to pay your employees or anything to stay on, so you'd have to get new employees every time, um and you'd have to have other means of income for yourself to survive as the owner or owners of that place.
01:14:54
Speaker
um So in 1997, it was purchased by Glenn Morangy, and that completely changed what the company was it relaunched in 97 as a single malt first distillery um of course as as they always have they provide whiskey for blends um all kinds of blends have a little bit of aardbeg in them because you need that intense smokiness um but they finally launched relaunched as a single malt company um and since then
01:15:28
Speaker
In the last 20 years, their popularity has, like, completely changed. They dude they went from being a nobody to being one of the most sought-after distilleries in the world.
01:15:40
Speaker
um They have a literal cult following. um Like, there are people who the only whiskey they drink or the only scotch they drink is Ardbeg. Yeah. They have hardcore followers in the single malt crowd. It is, to this day, a very divisive whiskey. You either love it or you hate it.
01:16:00
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of in-between. There's not a whole lot of people who are like, yeah, I'll have ah i'll have an hard bag if somebody offers it to me, but I'm not really a fan. Yeah, you don't have that. It's either if somebody offers it, you slap it out of their hand, or you absolutely love it. There's not a whole lot of in-between there.
01:16:19
Speaker
um Last year, they opened the Ardbeg house, which I'm dying to make enough income to stay at someday. Ardbeg, if you ever watch this... It's gorgeous. I would love to come make a couple of videos there. Maybe we could shoot an episode live we get an invite.
01:16:35
Speaker
But I'm assuming that's never going to happen. It looks like a very cool hotel to to stay at. um and And the bar at this hotel, they have every Ardbeg you could imagine.
01:16:48
Speaker
Like, if you can think of an Ardbeg that existed one time and there are three bottles of it, they have two of them at the bar there. um It sounds like a very magical place.
01:16:59
Speaker
Happy land. Yeah. Dude, for real. The one I'm drinking tonight that, as I said, i you can't really tell because it's a dusty bottle that's dark and green. um It is now unfortunately empty, but this is Ardbeg Oogdol.
01:17:13
Speaker
Oh, but it was great expression. Yeah, and in my opinion, Oogodul is the ultimate expression of Ardbeg. It is there their partially sherry age, no age statement, whiskey that is almost cast strength. I'll tell you all about that in a second.
01:17:30
Speaker
or actually right now so no age statement as I mentioned so this isn't you know this is somewhere between four and infinity years old um it is a combination of both ex-bourbon barrels and they say older sherry barrels so these are um they that explanation to me that description doesn't tell me much about whether these could be Old, old sherry barrels that held sherry for 30 years or something like that. They could be, ah you know, fifth-use sherry barrels. I'm not sure.
01:18:03
Speaker
um But either way, it's Ardbeg with a little bit of sherry influence, and you know I'm a sherry guy. Oogdell, as difficult to spell and pronounce as it is, you can see it there.
01:18:15
Speaker
For those listening, U-I-G-E-A-D-A-I-L.
01:18:20
Speaker
Oogdell is how you pronounce it. It is named after Loch Oogdell, which is located about four miles from the distillery, uphill both ways. Actually, only if you're going towards the lake. If you're coming back, it's downhill.
01:18:34
Speaker
So it's up the hill from the distillery, about four miles. It's interesting because this lake is filled only with rainwater. There's no water income to this lake.
01:18:45
Speaker
When it rains, the lake fills up. If it doesn't rain for a long time, the lake's empty and dry, um which I find super interesting. The Lach Uglul feeds into the stream that is actually used as the water source for the distillery.
01:19:01
Speaker
It is bottled at near cask strength. um It's not quite cask strength because I assume they're doing some blending here. And I think my guess is that the ABV they chose is because it allows them just enough room to be able to cut it with water so that it can be the same ABV year after year after year after year, which is 54.2%. That's
Scotch Distilleries and Prohibition
01:19:25
Speaker
very high for a whiskey that has any water in it whatsoever. Oh, yeah. For a lot of distilleries, 54.2 can be a cask strength.
01:19:33
Speaker
um So for this one, it's definitely a heater. I love that because that really allows those sherry notes to shine. I'm very curious how it's going to work with this cigar.
01:19:45
Speaker
ah This is, i had just a, like I said in the beginning, a short pour available for this. Got some little floaties in there. Non-chill filtered, baby.
01:19:57
Speaker
um All right, I'm going to take a couple sips of this, see how it pairs with the cigar as I relight it because I talked about Ardbeg for so long. Dennis, what you got for us last up?
01:20:10
Speaker
You know, Trip, it's so funny. Man, let me tell you. It's so funny that you're drinking that right now. Oh, is it? Oh, it is. it's It's very funny because we're going back to Scotland for my last pairing.
01:20:25
Speaker
Nice. Not planned, and I think this speaks to kind of the, the you know, the proclivities that we have. We share a love for for certain things, and I think our brains kind of matched up thinking about this cigar.
01:20:41
Speaker
What could work? What should we pair? My final pairing of the night is is it's a Scotchman that I – I absolutely love, I'm a huge fan, and i have been for a really long time, but really it was the first, oddly enough, it was the first scotch I've ever had in my life, which is not typically the kind of the the first thing that people go for. I'd never had scotch before. and The first scotch I ever had, in comparison to whatever you're about to show us, was Johnny Walker Red.
01:21:15
Speaker
Oh, boy. oh I liked Johnny Walker Red for a little bit, and then i tried Johnny Walker Black, and I was like, wow, Red is awful. Then I tried Single Ball, I was like, Black's not awful, but it's not what I thought it was when I first tasted it.
01:21:29
Speaker
Oh, God. Yeah, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan that. I'm like... Actively burping and in disagreement with the flavors of that.
01:21:40
Speaker
Good Lord. ah All right. um So what I'm having tonight is actually, it's it's really cool. It's something that you and I both love, and a lot of people love.
01:21:51
Speaker
Very, very popular Scottish whiskey. I'm excited. You do? You do? i think so. Oh, God. The you're talking about it, i'm I'm looking forward to it, and I'm excited to find out if it's right.
01:22:05
Speaker
You know when they talk about primings and tobacco, and certain certain primings of tobacco you should never touch your eyes when you smoke? And I kind of did that, and now I'm i'm in pain.
01:22:18
Speaker
I'm struggling. Yeah, this is a very high priming. Do not touch. Careful around the eyes. i touched I touch my eye, and now... Oh, God, that's really bad. um I like how you just keep touching it. You're like, if I keep touching it, it'll get better.
01:22:31
Speaker
It... God, it's still burning. um I want to bring you back to Scotland in 1815, which is a really interesting time because a lot of stuff was going on A lot of distilleries were popping up. Things were changing in the country, which is really cool. And there's some some fun stuff that happened.
01:22:51
Speaker
Now, I'm going to show it to you first, and then we'll talk about a little bit. think I want to do it kind of reverse a little bit. So i'm gonna show you what it is. Exactly what I thought it was. Oh, really? That was the first scotch I fell in love.
01:23:04
Speaker
Dude, the Laphroaig tent, by the way, I love this this paper, this label, the bottle. I love everything about Laphroaig. This is a proper cork, actual cork, so it will dry out if you just let it hang out on the on the counter. My eye is really hurting, actually.
01:23:25
Speaker
ah Laphroaig 10 is what I'm drinking. And now I love Laphroaig and I love quarter cask. I love a lot of different expressions from them.
01:23:39
Speaker
But the 10 is the one that I always go back to. And it's really affordable. And it's just it speaks volumes about what the distillery is all about. Laphroaig was formally founded, officially founded 1815 brothers.
01:23:53
Speaker
Donald and Alexander Johnson, Johnston, excuse me. And back then they were just farmers. they They were kind of like, hey, we have all this extra grain and we need some extra income. What do we do?
01:24:05
Speaker
So they started distilling back then. And the goal was really just kind of sell locally. It wasn't it wasn't like a hey we're going to make a distillery. We're going to sell to the world. It's going to be this big thing.
01:24:16
Speaker
They just were making stuff because they had extra grain they weren't doing anything with, and they just wanted to make some money and fill that gap that they had. And now back then, distilling licenses were really hard to get, and they're very expensive.
01:24:30
Speaker
um Now, a lot of the farm distillers were doing it illegally at the time because they couldn't get a license too expensive to afford it. They were just making stuff and selling it locally under the table kind of thing.
01:24:45
Speaker
Now, what changed was the Excise Act ah ex act reforms of 1823, which essentially lowered the taxes. It simplified all the licensing. It gave people a chance to kind of legitimize what they were doing.
01:24:59
Speaker
with whiskey production in Scotland. And that was a really big deal. It was a thing where, like, just up until that point, distilling wasn't, like, super illegal. Yeah.
01:25:10
Speaker
But you couldn't sell, you couldn't really run a business officially. Exactly. You were doing things under the table. You could brew for personal use, and you could give it to your friends and stuff like that.
01:25:22
Speaker
um But you couldn't full-on, like, you couldn't be exporting and stuff like that that point. Without the proper licensing. Yeah. And now on top of that also. Talk about back back then.
01:25:34
Speaker
um Single malts were not really a thing. Nobody was really doing single malt. they just They were using whatever they had. right So they they weren't really thinking about single malt. And Lafroig was actually doing single malt.
01:25:45
Speaker
At that time. Which was wild. well it was they were So Lafroig was one of the first ones. That actually did single malt. Yeah. Single malt was a thing before that, but it wasn't like, it wasn't a thing that you talked about. It wasn't a widespread that It was like, either it comes out straight out of the barrel into your glass or bottle, which technically makes it a single malt, or it's a blend.
01:26:08
Speaker
But blends were what were thought of as as the proper way to drink Scotch whiskey at that point. Yeah, it was it was really interesting. And, you know, the the the story about Donald, and I'm not 100% if this is Actually true or I haven't been able to find like a ah good resource on to to validate this. But apparently around 1847, Donald fell into a vat of boiling mash and died.
01:26:39
Speaker
oof That is a rough way to go, man. So, no yeah, it's not great, dude. It's not great. So, you know, the distillery was passed down to his son, Dougal Johnston.
01:26:50
Speaker
He ran the distillery until about 1877. But really, the family kind of ran it for for quite a while, several generations.
01:27:01
Speaker
Right. um They've been around for a long time. Now, going back to sort of what happened during prohibition in the U.S. during prohibition, ah everything kind of shut down. Right.
01:27:14
Speaker
Now, Laphroaig was one of the very few, certainly outside of the U.S., s that was able to continue to produce for the U.S. market. It's very interesting. do you know about this? that No, I haven't heard this.
01:27:26
Speaker
Oh, man, it's it's very exciting. So they used a loophole. Basically, when LaFrogue was making stuff, they were kind of shipping to the U.S., s it wasn't a big deal, not a whole lot. It wasn't a big part of the business.
01:27:36
Speaker
But then Prohibition hit, shut everything down. So what they did was it was it's wild. They sat down with the with the the kind of the powers that be at the time and said, well, listen, we're not actually – ah our whiskey is a little bit different.
01:27:53
Speaker
Taste this whiskey. Let's talk about it. This is a medicinal whiskey. And they convinced them to be labeled as a medicinal whiskey. because they were label labeled as medicinal and whiskey, they were able to sell during Prohibition under doctor's orders. And the doctor's order said...
01:28:12
Speaker
general tonic use, stress, digestive issues because of the iodine from the peat. I did not know. is fucking wild. So my my understanding until this point was that only U.S. distilleries were given medical licenses.
01:28:32
Speaker
Yes, they were. and i did not know there were any distilleries that were given an import license during those times for medicinal purposes. They are, I think, only one of – probably one of two or maybe three distilleries overseas that were able to get that.
01:28:48
Speaker
And, I mean, really, from Scotland, I think they were the only ones from Scotland that were able to do this. and I mean, it does taste like medicine, so they got that going them. It's got some intensity, man.
01:29:02
Speaker
ah You know, peat – the quality of the peat is like – it's really interesting. It's a very different flavor than what the American palate was used to. for a long time with a lot of the whiskeys they had. What what was I going to say?
01:29:18
Speaker
They a brain fart now. um
01:29:22
Speaker
So what, Pete? um Yeah, so after World War two You know, our soldiers came back to their respective countries, and something happened, and just changed, where where Scotch whiskey suddenly exploded around the world. People were talking about it. People were curious about it. It was different. It was interesting.
01:29:41
Speaker
And that was part of the boom that allowed Laphroaig to survive post-World War II and a lot of other distilleries to survive post-World War II. Obviously, now we're we're we're drinking. They've been around for really long time. We're drinking now, but ah Like a lot of distilleries, they struggled through change of hands, ownership, and ah crop issues, the things that you know we we hear very commonly, where at some point they had stock but they couldn't sell it or they they were struggling where they couldn't make enough to meet demand.
01:30:17
Speaker
And so a lot of these distilleries in Scotland died out in the 80s and early 90s and came back or even before then. They came back, you know, post-war. They died out. And then suddenly, hey, we're doing something right. I think a good example of that is, think.
01:30:33
Speaker
It was a Brooklady. Yeah, Brooklady was dead for like were they died in the 80s and didn't even come back until um early two thousand s or late ninety s Yeah, yeah. They they you know they they came back in in in a big way. And so LaFroix kind of fought through that same same kind of situation, certainly from from natural resources and other things.
01:30:59
Speaker
But, man, Pete was around for a lot of different other things. They they were not really making whiskey with Pete back then. Pete was meant for fuel. It was meant for heating.
01:31:11
Speaker
the The smoke... It was just there. It was always there, and they decided to take that smoke and use it to naturally dry the barley for the distillation. And today when we drink Lefroy, when we taste that, and we go, oh, man, it's got that iodine quality to it. It's got that – some people say hospital fire.
01:31:29
Speaker
I get it. It's got that iodine quality to the Band-Aid. We talk about this tire fire Band-Aid thing. it's It's really unique and really interesting, and that paved the way for a lot of Isla Scotches to come out.
01:31:44
Speaker
And just the, you know, I think the history of of what Isla is when it comes to Scotch. And there are a lot of great Scotches from other regions. Speyside stuff is fantastic. I like everything.
01:31:55
Speaker
But specifically the Highland malts. Highland Distilleries were like really exciting and and different. And man, i I got in. It was there was the first thing I tasted. And I thought, same way probably you thought when you had it for the first time. This tastes like a burning Band-Aid.
01:32:15
Speaker
I don't know about this, but I took another sip and I took another sip, not just any bandaid, like one of those like vinyl band. Yeah. The vinyl bandaid. Um, and I kept taking sips and eventually I kind of realized, well, I'm doing this because there's something about this I like, and I don't know what it is, but I'm going to keep taking s sips until I figure it out.
01:32:35
Speaker
And so that was the progression for me getting into scotch, a single malts, and certainly Isla whiskey specifically. Um, it it was For me, it's a very personal journey and and and very exciting, and I wanted to pair it with this cigar for the final third because I thought this is a powerhouse cigar.
01:32:54
Speaker
What better thing to pair it with than than than a scotch and the scotch? Powerhouse scotch. With a peated background. To your point, you you have Ardbeg. That's got some power to it, man. I love that flavor, and it's so cool.
01:33:06
Speaker
But I think what it does also in a lot of ways, especially with a cigar like this, is that it brings the flavors back. Like it almost kind of pulls everything back together. You have the cigar, and you have your pairing, but then you have this moment where for for a very short period of time, you have the flavors come together.
01:33:23
Speaker
And you can suddenly taste the whiskey in a different way. And you can taste the cigar in a different way. And they're evocative of their they kind of bass notes. And then it fades. And you go, a man, I'm to do it again. I'm to take another puff and take another sip, get back together. And for me, that's exciting experience. have no more Whiskey Lacks because of that that reason.
01:33:43
Speaker
Yeah, man. It's it's really cool. um you know And with LeFroy, I don't know about this. i don't know if this is like confirmed. That whole, you know the history with the Mackey family, Peter Mackey and all that stuff?
01:33:59
Speaker
Not off top my head. So... o yeah It was this like strange period of time in Laphroaig's history where, so Peter Mackey was the owner of of a White Horse Scotch Whiskey, which was really successful. was a blended Scotch Whiskey in the late 1800s.
01:34:16
Speaker
And at the time, Laphroaig was actually a huge component of that blend because of the smokiness. But there was
Cigar and Scotch Pairing Discussion
01:34:24
Speaker
some kind of tension that built between them. There Johnson family at the time, right, and the Mackey family.
01:34:29
Speaker
but Whatever. Something happened. It was like almost what we experienced in our modern times. We experienced with ah a Trip. Help me out with this.
01:34:41
Speaker
I don't know where you're going. I can't. play fun hoi fog and Oh, with Sriracha. Sriracha. Thank you. It was kind of a Sriracha situation with with like supplying and getting stuff and putting it together. and Who agreed on what? Who didn't agree on anything else?
01:34:56
Speaker
Handshake deals, man. They can bite you in the ass. They're fucking every time, dude. And so, you know, Mackie at some point, because of the tensions, they were're like oh were like, we're going make our own. We're going to make our own whiskey profile based Laphroaig.
01:35:09
Speaker
ah And it didn't really work particularly, but they changed their name to Malt Mill Distillery. And they tried to copy everything, but they failed. And because they tried so hard to be like Laphroaig just to fill that bill in their blend...
01:35:24
Speaker
They closed down in 1960. They're like officially dead in 1960. So it speaks volumes about you know the quality of Laphroaig, the flavor profile, the uniqueness of that type of single malt scotch that was peated.
01:35:41
Speaker
Back then, not a lot of distilleries were doing that, right? And so for them to go and try to run through this, they burned through all the money. They died trying to to replicate the magic that is Laphroaig.
01:35:53
Speaker
And, you know, I think it's it's kind of an endearing part of Laphroaig history and the lore. yeah Yeah. Dude, it's it's such a good it's such a good whiskey. And I think this is, and and I want to hear what you want to say about Ardbeg, but I think Laphroaig really works well, and I think Ardbeg is going to work really well at this cigar.
01:36:15
Speaker
I think Uggdall is as close to Ardbeg or as close to Lafroigue as Ardbeg gets. Because they're very, like, there the they're very similar on paper, I guess. Like, they're both, they're right next door to each other. they're using similar ingredients, both with peat, both highly peated.
01:36:34
Speaker
um But Ardbeg, to me, has a lighter quality to it. It's got a similar amount of smokiness,
01:36:45
Speaker
but the core flavor of the whiskey is much lighter. um When it comes to Ardbeg, it's a much more... um
01:36:56
Speaker
It's less full-bodied. It's medium-bodied whiskey to me, even though it's got that heavy peat element that really throws a lot of people off. um But Laphroaig is much sweeter.
01:37:10
Speaker
It's kind of got those more fruity kind of qualities to it, I think. um And a little bit more of like the the kind of baking spice qualities.
01:37:21
Speaker
Got a little more bourbon influence than Ardbeck does Sure. ugdell kind of bridges that gap and that sherry aging um adds a lot of those sweeter flavors in there um it's still got a similar amount of smoke of course being almost cask strength it's ah a little more intense in flavor than um than most ardbeg is your typical your ardbeg 10 um um
01:37:53
Speaker
Man, it goes really well with this cigar. I'm like i'm at the point where um I'm normally done with a cigar at this point, but I'm still going on this one, and it's still fantastic.
01:38:05
Speaker
I'm really enjoying this cigar. I don't know about you. Same. um I'm the same way. I'm about... yeah I'm getting to the end, close to the end, but I think this is the point of the cigar where I'm really digging it, and...
01:38:16
Speaker
I'm so happy with my final pairing. I think it sits so well with the profile, of the flavor, where it's at now, the intensity, the the iodine cuts through a lot of that and elp brings back the flavor of the cigar in so many ways.
01:38:29
Speaker
That's one of the things that Ardbeck doesn't have. Ardbeck doesn't have that kind of iodine-y band-aid-y kind of flavor it's yeah man to me ardbeg is a cleaner profile with a similar amount of smoke um it's got a crispness to it i think yeah crisp is a way to put it it's weird when you say crisp and you you talk about scotch people kind of go like that's weird what do you mean what what is crisp Scotch is not crisp. it's It's more of a comparison thing.
01:38:56
Speaker
like Compared to everything else on that island, Ardbeg is a very different whiskey. Yes, absolutely. and I think crisp is the right word. I love Ardbeg. a huge fan. I think I still have some... What did you send me? you sent me ah I think I sent you a little little sniff of scorch.
01:39:15
Speaker
score Oh, yeah, score so so I haven't tried it yet, but I'm so jazzed to get that on my lips because I thought that might be what you were going to have tonight. But then when you were saying it was the first whiskey you had and how special it is to you, I knew was going to be Laphroaig 10.
01:39:30
Speaker
um It's been a couple years since I've had Laphroaig 10. Laphroaig 10 tends to be one of those ones where if I get a bottle of it, I end up grabbing it every time I drink whiskey, and then it's gone.
01:39:42
Speaker
Um, in like, I mean, ah I think to a lot of people, a whiskey lasting a month, is is ah pretty a pretty long time. To me, a month is a very short amount of time for whiskey to last because typically I buy a bottle and it lasts me six, ten, twelve, maybe sometimes a year and a half or two years um because I like to rotate around through whiskeys and have just, you know, I'll have like a glass a month of each one kind of thing.
01:40:13
Speaker
ah But LaFroig ends up being all I drink for a month and then it's all gone. yeah, Man, i you know I have a whiskey library, and it's these are the bottles that i every now and again I go back to. and But I want to keep them. The goal is to keep them. But the Lefroig 10 doesn't make it to the library. It makes it to the shelf.
01:40:32
Speaker
It's that thing that it's kind of like, yeah, man, what am going to drink tonight? I don't I have this. i have that. Lefroig 10 is always on that list, and I'm always so happy to share it with people when they come by. I think
01:40:45
Speaker
other... Other than maybe like Pankarae or Plymouth Navy strength, I think Lafroig is probably the liquor I've gone through the most bottles.
01:40:58
Speaker
Because typically all like Buffalo Trace, for example, I've gone through ah handful of bottles of that over the many years. um But they tend to last a while. Lafroig never lasts that long because I run out and then...
01:41:12
Speaker
i I usually hold off on on buying it again because I know it's gonna be all I want to drink for months. I'll tell you what, man. The the bonded, old granddad bonded.
01:41:23
Speaker
um I'm going through. oh I know. You're a big fan of that one. Two bottles a month. like Just easy. And, you know, it's we're talking different different kind of, it's bourbon. It's a totally different beast altogether. But, you know, I go through that stuff and I love sharing that. I love kind of,
01:41:41
Speaker
talking to people about it and and what it means to be bonded. I think it's really cool piece history. And it's kind of like Laphroaig and a lot of Scotch whiskeys, especially when you go into the Pita territory.
01:41:53
Speaker
It's really exciting to share that with somebody and say, hey, this is why this tastes like this. And it's so unique and so different and so cool that it's almost like even if you don't like the whiskey, you get a history lesson and you walk away with some kind of piece of cool knowledge.
01:42:09
Speaker
and yeah i like being able to do that i'm sure it drives some people crazy because i anytime i give somebody a glass of whiskey i gotta i have a story that have to tell yeah that i'm the same one i'm sure it drives some people crazy but uh you know i i'm a storyteller i guess at heart even though i i don't really even like talking but i like having a story to tell it's the classic dad thing of of like well hold on sit down let me tell you Let me tell you about this. Back in the day, and it's always these really great stories of how you experience it for the first time and these interesting stories of I was there at this one place in the world at this one time and in history, and in you know I was drinking this thing, and I made a friend.
01:42:52
Speaker
Oh, that friend, by the way, is your uncle, and you know we're here, and and it's like it's that kind of stuff. Yeah.
01:43:01
Speaker
It's not just drinking booze to drink booze. it's It's got a story to it, and it's got a feeling to it. and Yeah, you got to connect, right? Dude, cigars are the same way. And I think, like this going back to the cigar...
01:43:13
Speaker
It's really exciting. i I really like this cigar, man. And I like it a lot more now than I did in the first third. I didn't dislike it in the first third, but I think letting it develop, letting it warm up, get to that place where it's a little more humid, I think really did well for it.
01:43:30
Speaker
It kind of... um It definitely maintains that strength all the way through. This cigar is intense. I'm definitely not sleeping now.
01:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah this this this gives you a little loaf burst of energy, you know. um But it does it has changed. it's um Those flavors kind of come together a little bit. It starts off very sharp.
01:44:00
Speaker
And, you know, very spicy, very earthy, like ah a very sharp kind of earth, very pointed, spiky kind of earth and mineral.
01:44:11
Speaker
And like I mentioned, that chocolatiness. And then over the course of it, kind of around the halfway point, I think, is where it really started to... open up a little bit as far as flavors are concerned. It's still got that intensity. Like there's nothing you can do about that intensity with this cigar.
01:44:27
Speaker
Um, but it opens up a little bit and becomes a little more layered with kind of, uh, for me, the chocolate really started to come out kind of those, um, earth earthy flavors stop being quite as aggressive
01:44:47
Speaker
And ended up more like that, that, that wet mineral kind of earth going on. Spice is still high. Like the the black pepper, red pepper on this cigar really is ah the star of the show. I think if you don't like spicy cigars, this one is going to kick your ass.
01:45:09
Speaker
um that That being said, this cigar is just an ass kicker. If if you can if your ass can be kicked by a cigar, this this will be one to do.
01:45:20
Speaker
Dennis and I, I think our tolerance is high enough that you know that's that's not usually a concern. There's been a couple cigars that have, like, in the last 10 years that have that have hit me like that, but not very many. They've got to be crazy strong cigars.
01:45:38
Speaker
for me to feel it in that way because I smoke too much. But, you know, that's ah that's a personal problem. ah I would, if if you like strong cigars, I would recommend this this one.
01:45:51
Speaker
um If you don't like strong cigars, maybe check out one of the other blends from Reyes Cubanas. um I know we have the Liga de Reyes.
01:46:04
Speaker
which I think we should try on an upcoming show because that's kind of their that's kind of their medium-bodied cigar um that that they came out with. I think it's their flagship as well, no? Yeah, yeah. yeah It's kind of the the flagship cigar. this This one is one of their... It's kind of a niche thing that's like, if you want something that's going to break your jaw...
01:46:27
Speaker
if you want to If you want to smoke a cigar that feels like fighting Mike Tyson, try this one. I would say also, quick thing about the cigar, we talk about how strong it is, but also it is not unbearably strong. It's not strong in the way that is, like strong to be strong, it's not like that.
01:46:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's kind of the the main takeaway here. is that it's not, it's not just strength for the sake of strength. Um, it's got very intense flavors. It's super, super flavorful.
01:47:03
Speaker
Like there is so much flavor going on in this thing. Um, yeah, Liga de Reyes is there, is a similar blend, but it's kind of in the, more in the medium plus.
01:47:16
Speaker
Um, so maybe in a couple weeks, we'll, we'll try that one out. Maybe next week, we'll see if we want to do back to back on these guys. Um, Yeah, so so check out Races Cubanas, guys. you've You've almost definitely smoked a cigar from them, but you might not have smoked a cigar that has their name on it.
01:47:33
Speaker
So check out Races Cubanas. I highly recommend this one, the C5 Black or the Liga de Reyes. um they're They're both squarely in my wheelhouse.
01:47:46
Speaker
um So check them out. Do we want to do pairing of the night? What's your pairing of the night, Dennis? Oh, baby. LaFroigton.
01:47:58
Speaker
Easy. mine is like Mine is kind of a toss-up because all three were oh very good in very different ways. um Like, the Ardbeg was kind of in the... um As far as the intensity component, really matched well with the flavor.
01:48:14
Speaker
That sherry sweetness worked really well with this cigar. But then the the sour, like, surprisingly worked super well with this cigar. The stout, well, not stout, the blended stout worked really well with this.
01:48:27
Speaker
um I'm going to go with the Ardbegdell, Bugdoll. If you've never had it and you like peated scotch, check it out. it's It's a fantastic expression of peated scotch, I think. um I may need to go sometime soon and pick up a bottle of this and Laphroaig 10 so I can restock.
01:48:49
Speaker
Alright guys, that brings us To the final segment of the show This is one for the road We tell you about some kind of media We've consumed recently And if you give you kind of a Recommendation ah Dennis, what have you got?
01:49:05
Speaker
ah
Cultural Recommendations
01:49:06
Speaker
Well, it's going to be for everybody, but there' there there's a the a band from back in the day, a Norwegian black metal band and called Windr.
01:49:19
Speaker
And in about 2004, I believe it was 2004, the band kind of fell apart a little bit. And surviving members came back together and made a new band called Vreed VR.
01:49:34
Speaker
E-I-D, Vrid, if you're into Norwegian black metal, melodic black metal to some degree. This is a really interesting band. I know it's not for everybody, and that's okay.
01:49:45
Speaker
But if that's your thing, it's worth a listen. They just came out with a new album. I think it was last was the last yeah last week came out. The album is called The Sky's Turn Black. Yeah, man.
01:50:00
Speaker
ah lost my notes in the album the album is called the skies turn black and yeah man Listen to it. It's fun. It's interesting. If you're into this kind of stuff, great. If you're not, give it a listen anyway.
01:50:14
Speaker
I think you might really dig it. It's just a different, sonically speaking, it's just different than what most people listen to today. And certainly when we talk about black metal today, it's very different than what black metal was, Tripp, when you and I were coming up and we're listening. Yeah, I i really liked it We listened to some little snippets before the show in the green room. Yeah, man. The melodic quality, is i think it's more approachable.
01:50:38
Speaker
it's It's certainly not just the music for people that like this stuff or the people that play this kind of stuff. I think sonically you can enjoy it even if you don't listen to this kind of style of music.
01:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. um and And certainly it's not like when you hear black metal, you think people are being sacrificed on the altar and that kind of thing, which is cool. There's some bands that really do that. Like Behemoth is one of my favorite bands that does this kind of vibe. This is not that. I think it's much more approachable in that way.
01:51:06
Speaker
um Macro black metal, if you will. But yeah, check it out. It's really interesting. What did I say the album was called? sky The Sky's Turned Black.
01:51:18
Speaker
by Varela. Just came out. ah I'm going to recommend, as I almost always do, a movie that is available to rent now, but I don't... I have a hard time recommending, even though ah it's it's kind of the way to watch the movie now.
01:51:35
Speaker
um I never... I have a hard time saying, go spend $20 to watch this movie. i'm more I'm more putting seeds in your head for when it lands on Netflix or some other streaming service that you already pay for so you don't have to pay extra money to watch this movie. ah So it's the latest movie directed by Gore Verbinski.
01:51:55
Speaker
Cool name, Gore. um Yeah. The Gore Verbinski, if you don't know who he is, he is directed. ah He's like one of the most, not necessarily award winning, but one of the highest grossing directors of all time.
01:52:09
Speaker
um He directed The Ring. um ah At least two, maybe three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. ah His his ah career kind of hit a Stop, stand, stop Stop still Roadblock His career kind of hit a roadblock When he made The Lone Ranger Years ago with Johnny Depp Which was a ah Questionable film I don't know that movie But his latest movie is called Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
01:52:46
Speaker
Oh, I heard about this. Everyone's telling me how good it is. This movie is incredible. Oh, wow. This movie has big weirdo vibes, which I'm super into. It is about... So to give you a small summary before I start telling you the kind of the weirdness of it and the the the vibe of it, the short summary is that a diner full of people, a guy...
01:53:13
Speaker
who looks very homeless, runs in, played by Sam Rockwell, and says, I'm from the future. I'm trying to save the world. I've done this. I can't remember the number, but he's done this like 150 times.
01:53:27
Speaker
And every time he comes in here, it's always the same time. He knows what's going to happen. He knows what people are gonna say. He's yelling at people, calling them by name. They're all confused. And he says, I need to bring combinations of you guys with me until I figure out the right combination to save the world.
01:53:44
Speaker
Things are different every time, but the same people are always in here. And so he gets some volunteers, and they make their way out of the diner to try to save the world from the future.
01:53:58
Speaker
This has, like, a mix of...
01:54:03
Speaker
It's like a mix of kind of road trip movie and even though they don't really go very far but it's got a kind of road trippy vibes where you're meeting all these weird characters along the way um mixed with the Terminator in a much more comedic, satirical kind of vibe.
01:54:22
Speaker
um This is one of the most darkly satirical movies I've ever seen. um it's So each of the characters that he's brought with him this time is their backstory of the last day or two is given in the form of kind of like a vignette.
01:54:41
Speaker
So it's kind of got these almost short films. Where there are things happening in these short films that don't appear to have anything to do with the main story. Like, ah one of them is almost a zombie apocalypse kind of story that apparently happened the same day.
01:54:59
Speaker
But nobody seems to be talking about that. Like, it's it's weird because it feels like an anthology film where you've got a couple of small movies inside this big movie.
01:55:10
Speaker
And the tone of it is... Just kind of crazy ah Because it's Crazy funny It's so funny to me Like this movie had me laughing The whole time And also kind of terrified, there's there's a whole plot about, like a whole plot line about how normalized school shootings are in this world.
01:55:36
Speaker
Like, they're normalized enough that parent pickup is just picking up kids from the school shooting. It's like, it's very dark. Damn. Very dark. But not as dark as it seems at the same time ah in a weird way.
01:55:50
Speaker
um And then of course, in the end, everything, all of these weird little vignette stories end up leading back into the main story eventually. And everything connects and everything makes sense at the end. And it's, it's just a riot, man. Like this movie was so much fun to watch.
01:56:09
Speaker
um I think it is some of Gore Verbinski's best work ever. And like I said, he's done huge, huge movies. um But this might be my favorite out of everything he's ever done.
01:56:20
Speaker
It is just so much fun. And the characters are insanity. There's one character who is a, her job is a party princess, but she's allergic to Wi-Fi.
01:56:36
Speaker
She gets a nosebleed if Wi-Fi is near. That's fantastic. like it it's It's a crazy movie. um But it's just so much fun. And I can't recommend it enough.
01:56:48
Speaker
Sam says his one for the road is Best Medicine. It's the American version of Doc Martin. I haven't watched that. I'll have to check
Conclusion and Farewell
01:56:55
Speaker
it out. um Alright, well I guess that brings us to the end of the show. um We'll let you guys know what we're smoking next week as soon as we figure it out.
01:57:05
Speaker
um He minus five weeks until we're at the PCA, which is very exciting. Yeah. So we'll talk to you guys from there. we're gonna We're going to try to change it up a little bit this year with our coverage, um and hopefully hopefully people enjoy it Everybody, have a great and safe week.
01:57:24
Speaker
We appreciate you guys hanging out with us, watching, smoking cigars, drinking with us, whether it's water, whiskey, wine, or soda. Doesn't matter. But remember, as always, Dennis, what do you want him to do?
01:57:41
Speaker
As I inhale the end of my cigar. yeah Not the right cigar to inhale, man. No. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.