The Science of Cigar Selection: Connecting through Signals and Frequencies EP110

Swell AI Transcript: Choosing Cigars in the shop and PCA's final.mp3

00:00 Devin Zip it up. Zip it up. I'm zipped. All right. And Bob, what are they doing? I'm always afraid to do any kind of countdown because you're just gonna fuck with me. And you're right. What's better than having your girlfriend change your flat tire in the middle of the city hood? Smoking underground Episode of the Movie Night. You got a light.

00:37 Gary Hello and welcome to Smoking Underground. Hola. I am joined today by the sultry and amazing Gary. What's up? How are y'all? I hope you're doing all right today. And the vivacious Johnny. John Viviani. Johnny the Freak. Johnny the Cigar Freak Viviani. I don't know if I like that one. I don't know if that should catch on unless John likes it. Oh, John loves it. John's not listening today, by the way. He's not. He's catching up on news for today. Anyway, he's locked in. It's quite all right. So today we are going to be smoking something pretty amazing. I have not had a bad one yet. I don't know about you, Gary, but I have not had a bad one yet. This bad boy is the Placencia 149. Kosheeta? Kosheeka? We'll go that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, we'll go with that one. Yeah. This bad boy. I looked it up and I was surprised to see that it's completely Honduras.

01:44 Devin Yes. Yes. It has got all of the right ingredients for yours truly. And that has got all the man's got Criollo rappers, Santa Gusto. And then the homestrong Corojo, which I'm a huge fan of the homestrong Corojo is where Mr. Mr. Iroa gets his stuff. So, yeah, I'm a huge fan of homestrong Corojo and also of the Delonga and Alancho Criollo and the homestrong Corojo. Yeah, that's what. Yeah. So all of that right there in Honduran terms right there spells good. And we're doing four and three quarter by 60, which is the honcho. Which is the honcho. Yeah. Santa Fe, big dog. And yeah, so that's what we're doing so far.

02:42 Gary It's still I mean, I know there's the the green placentio, which is kind of octagonal in nature. This one's still it's not technically octagonal, but you can feel where it's in the similar vein. Like I can feel like where they tried to do it or they wanted to do it. And they're like, yeah, I just took yours.

02:59 John I always took this one as a kind of a soft box press. I never even got the octagonal feeling out of it.

03:07 Devin Well, I mean, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'm just I'm putting my own spin on it because I really like the octagonal one except for scanning the barcode on it, because I always have to remember the octagonal will get your attention, man. It's nice.

03:22 John Placentias are the absolute worst for scanning for anything.

03:28 Gary Yeah, I can't stand it. That drives me up the walls. I have to peel it off and scan the dang thing every time. It's annoying as hell. Anyways, this thing, placentia in general, but this one in particular and most aroas, give me a better taste. So we're going to be talking about why go ahead and make a choice of a cigar, you know, before ever smoking it. We just you know what? What's the criteria? Excuse me that make you look at a cigar when it's on the shelf and go, you know, I've never had that, but I'm going to try it. I'm not just talking somebody's recommendation, which is a big factor. It helps definitely. But what is it that you're looking for on the shelf that gets your attention? Now there's multiple factors. I would say a big one obviously is what it looks like and what the wrapper looks like. Just the visual aspects of everything. John, when you go into a humidor, do you have any particular thing that you notice first above anything else? Like a part of the wrapper, color, what is the first thing you notice?

04:40 Devin Well, because you're dealing with me, it's a long, complicated situation. Boil it down real quick. I will break it down.

04:50 John Well, when I walk into the humidor, I'm in the mood to smoke something. Am I in the mood for a dark cigar, a Connecticut? That's the first thing. And the second thing is what size, how much time am I going to take? So that comes into play. Now once those two things are sorted, when I walk into a humidor, I look around and my preference is always to lean to cigars that are not in cellophane. And that is primarily, I don't know, I like the, I've always said I like the rougher edge type looking cigars, more of a traditional cigars. Now, of course, just about everything's in cellophane anymore. And then at that point, it's a matter of just looking at the cigar, feeling it. If there happens to be some sort of description, maybe I'll read that. But a lot of times it's kind of how I live my life. I just go with my gut and go, that one looks good. I like that size. I'm going to give it a try. Of course, there's always brands that I normally will always avoid. And it doesn't matter what they're doing unless somebody tells me to smoke something by this company or it is extremely interesting. I will totally eliminate that. And then, of course, there's always my fallbacks that, you know, you walk in and you go, oh, so and so has a new cigar out. I want to try that. That's kind of how I work, unfortunately, because I do spend a lot of time around cigars and listening to various cigar podcasts and creating a cigar podcast. Right. There's not much that slips by that I'm not aware of. I might not realize, say, our shop has got it in stock, but there's a lot of stuff that I'm not necessarily aware of, you know, things that slip under my radar. Like best example, the M81 Blackened. I hadn't heard of that, hadn't paid any attention, saw it when it first arrived. Blackened, I was in the mood for a dark cigar. It did. It doesn't come in cellophane. The packaging was kind of rustic. So I tried it. That, you know, just grabbed me, came in on the right day, right color. That's how I work it.

07:11 Gary Well, you weren't joking, Gary. That's the short version. I know. That's why I was like, yeah, that's probably John's short version. That's the summary. Yeah, you're right. I have not heard of that one before of your eyes going to go to non-cellophane cigars. I had not actually, that's not a consideration in my head until now. Thank you. I can see that.

07:38 John I am an earworm from hell. An earworm. You know, like when I sing a song to you and it sticks in your head.

07:44 Gary Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can see that. 100%. So the criteria that I would say for anybody new is just use the straight visual. Does it look good to you? Do you think it's going to be good? And then pick it up, check it, make sure it's not hard as a rock and kind of go from there. That would be your baseline. Now, I don't know. There may be some aspects of being in cellophane that are actually more hygienic. I mean, if you want to go down that route, I don't really think that's an issue. But a lot of people I've heard at the shop, they're like, if it's a brand new cigar, I want it straight out of the box. I don't want it to be sitting on the shelf for a while and it looks like it's been touched a million times.

08:29 John Now, the cellophane is a consideration and that's why there's very few cigars that are no longer sold without cellophane. Right. And especially after COVID. Heck, even Padrone went to cellophane on just about everything they sell.

08:43 Gary I know. Sad day. So for me, I would say that the visual appeal of it is the absolute for me. It's, I'm, what's the word I'm looking for, Gary? I'm very shallow.

08:57 Devin Oh, shallow. Yeah. I'm very shallow. It's going to look good. If it looks like nonsense. Well, at least you confessed it. That's all right.

09:04 Gary If it doesn't look good when I'm looking at it, then I'm probably not going to give it a chance. And so you've got, you've got about a two, three second window. If I look at you and notice you and I'm like, maybe, and I grab it.

09:17 John We're not talking about you looking for a date.

09:19 Devin That's what I was thinking. Fuckin' heck. Grab it, smell it, roll it up. Yeah. Are we still talking about the cigar? Is that what I'm saying? Well, depending who you are. That's right. Right.

09:34 Gary That's right. That's right. Now, I would say that this Placencia 149 sitting in the box is gorgeous. It is. What about that band, buddy? I was just about to say copper tone band on off white and matte black. It's got two bands on it. And it's got the shorter band or the smaller band actually closer to the tip, which is usually the other way around. And I really enjoy this. I think it is absolutely visually appealing and Placencia has done nothing but good stuff anyway. So it honestly matches the criteria of it. And you know the great thing about it, Gary? The matching of the pair. The matching of the pair. Today's pairing brought to you by Whiskey Tobacco Fellowship is Bottle and Bond Heaven Hill, Kentucky Bourbon.

10:25 Devin Oh, Heaven Hill. Is that what I heard? Oh, my goodness.

10:30 Gary It is a wonderful one. It's got this caramely flavor to it. I wanted something that wouldn't overshadow, but had the similar compliment to one another. They both have flavor in their own way. And both looks like my ex-girlfriend.

10:45 Devin Oh, there you go. Now, Heaven Hill, isn't that Four Roses as well? Is that right? I believe so. I think so, too. I think Heaven Hill. Let's see, Heaven Hill. And what is the name of that one? Oh, shoot. Oh, it's Everybody Drinks. I can't remember what it is. Anyway, yeah. We've got Heavenly. We've got Pass. Pass. Four Roses. Four Roses. Four Roses and Heaven Hill. Yeah, I figured. I think those are. I think those are hand in hand there.

11:24 Gary And it goes really well with the Placencia because being all the hunder and through and through, it's got a nice dark, deep, chocolatey flavor. But I would say that cedar that's built into it kind of adds a bit of tickle back your throat when you're when you're smoking it.

11:40 Devin It does, doesn't it?

11:42 Gary It does. It's good. I'm not going to say it's bad, but I am going to say I would love to have the same stick without that little bit of bite on the end. Like the exact same without that small bite to have like, you know, sweet and salty, you know, like smooth and rough, you know, kind of have two of the two, two of the same pair.

12:03 Devin You know what I mean? I do. I do. Yeah, that's that's that's a good one right there. I like that. I'm not too much of the side. I don't I'm not a Gordo dude. I don't too much like a Gordo, but this right here for the draw. I'm getting off of it and the flavor characteristic I'm grabbing here is very nice. I would get this size again just for the draw and the flavor because it seems like it's it does. It's doing really good for the type flavor profile.

12:35 Gary So we've got those aspects of just choosing one off the shelf. Now, Gary, you've heard mine. We've heard John's. Do you have anything different to add as far as what you're looking for? You have a the oldest man here, the oldest smoker here. What is your what you look for? What does the master look for when he looks for a cigar?

12:58 Devin Um, you know, it sounds cliche and I hate saying it, but any, you know, anything new, you know, you've got that surface, you know, that shallowness there. I like the way you said that you do have that shallowness there, which is which is kind of cool. But you also you want to you want to make sure that I've got particular brands out there that I look for to see if they have anything, you know, on the shelf. You may have read about it or whatever else. And then you want to see if, you know, it's on the shelf and so on and so on. But really, I like going to old faithful stuff and seeing what's beside it. You know, seeing if there's a new shape, size, blend, whatever it may be that's come in that I maybe read about or either skipped over and all of a sudden I see this box going, hey, hello. And, and of course, you got your you got your standard brands that I look for, you know, Steve Saka, Skip, all of all of that brand, you know, Pete Johnson. I like all of that stuff right there and I'll sort of gravitate towards that way. Prud'homo is good, but normally Prud'homo was just sort of Prud'homo and Prud'homo brings out new stuff. And even though they are good, I like something that, you know, somebody has a twist on has a spin on it. Sometimes it has a story behind it. It's kind of neat to me. You know, I like the mystique or the drama of the cigar a little bit. Unfortunately, being in the industry, as long as I have sometimes that particular instance right there, you just got to go. You got to overlook sometimes. But nevertheless, anyway, that's what I that's what I kind of look for. Just see what you know, what's new. And I also have a favorite color. I like, is that right? Yeah, I like I like a risotto. I like a good Cuban Colorado risotto type color. And if that cigar has that particular color, it'll reel me in and I'll just go straight to it. The quality of it, too. If I pick it up, I smell of it smells like a barnyard. Well, we're on the right track. And number two is if it's got a smooth wrapper, it's got three caps, even four caps on there. I know something's done right with it. I like a good I like a good Rosada or good Rose reddish brown wrapper. And, you know, that normally just catches my eye right there. And I have to get it just about every time I'm a point, the risotto guy. I like what the risotto stuff, the risotto is good.

15:54 Gary I'll tell you, you said something and then it caught my eye. And it was the smell like no joke. When I first started getting into cigars, I thought this was the stupidest thing. And then as I got more and more into it, I understood it. And like you take a cigar and you start smelling it and you definitely smell like a barnyard off the tip of it. You may you may turn your nose up. You may have that look in your face because, you know, it's a barnyard smell. I can almost guarantee you from my personal experience, that's going to be a good cigar if it smells like that, because it's not going to taste like that. It only smells like that. And that is a great indicator. Absolutely wonderful indicator that it's going to be a decent one, even if it's hard as a rock, too. I mean, even if it's hard as a rock and it's the only one left, you're probably still going to enjoy it.

16:47 Devin You know, and the funny thing about it is people's not going to people's not going to believe this, I'm sure. But it's like cigars are like wines, to be honest with you. I mean, not only are they aged and blah, blah, blah, blah, but you will know by the smell of the cigar. If it's uncellifying, right? If it's uncellifying, you will know by the smell of cigar. If you're going to halfway enjoy it or not, you really will. You really will. You know, a cigar can go from all the way. And I don't, you know, people up north or overseas or, you know, are listening to this. We're in Alabama and we're kind of rural down here, believe it or not. But we have a chewing tobacco here. Okay. And that's chewing tobacco is called Red Man. And Red Man has been around for ages. A long time, a long time. So, but if you get a, if you get a cigar and you smell the end of it and it smells like a barnyard, that's, that's all right, right there. But there's oftentimes when you start getting on up towards the small batch and the special series and the Davidoff's and the Opus X and so on like that. Once you start getting up to that area right there, you start, you start smelling some Red Man in there, which is going to have a nice little sweet ambiance to it. Almost a musky, a sweet musky type smell to it that is very, very delectable. It's very attractive, man. And you'll smell that and go, Whoa, that's kind of nice. But you'll also understand that that's how the, the rowers, or I'm sorry, how the, the blenders, that's, that's how they blend is by smell. So they'll smell a leaf and if that leaf smells good or if that leaf is rich enough and they can smell that in there, they've been doing this for years. So if you stuck one in my face, I won't even know what I'm talking about, but they stick these things in their, in their, in their face and they smell of it. They're like, okay, let's try this, you know? So yeah, smell man gets you, that gets you, you know, a good, you know, personality of the cigar and how it's going to, you know, how it's going to flavor up. Now also the spices in there too.

19:18 Gary I have another one for you. This one's a little woo woo. It makes me think of the dude. It makes me think of, you know, tapping on crystals, knocking on the sky. And I kid you not, I have done this and I still do this today. Having smoked enough cigars, having, sometimes you're having analysis paralysis. You can't make a decision. You're in the humidor. There's too many to choose from. You don't know what you want. I walk in, I close my eyes, put my hands up a little bit and I go, speak to me. What am I smoking today? I like that. And I just stopped for a minute and I just, I kind of, I kind of go on instinct and turn my head left and I go look over the left and I go, there you are right there. Cause I kind of let it, I let the vibration, I know it sounds kind of woo woo and out there, but it's worked a few times. Now I have to always, I always have to put aside my, my love affair for a ROA recently because I have just been killing them. Like they going out of style. So I always have to tell myself besides a ROA, what am I feeling today? Cause I can always smoke in a ROA. That's cool.

20:28 Devin I mean, I, I've literally got to try that because there's oftentimes I will. That's one thing, not jumping track, but, but, but just sort of getting over another lane a little bit. That's one thing that I thoroughly used to thoroughly enjoy doing. I actually still do not as much as I did at 280 though at 280. I thoroughly enjoyed it because the humidor where Johnny is over there is just stupid, big, stupid. 900, I don't know. Freaking 940 square feet. Something like, I don't know. Anyway. And, and what I used to do when I, when I ran that store right there, I'd get there first thing in the mornings and I would, of course you walk in. Get everything prepped. But one of the things that I would do as a geek and as a, as a passion of these things myself, I would open that humidor up and that humidor has been closed up all night long. And man, you open that thing up and the Spanish Cedar jumps out at you. And of course, dude, you walk in there and I just closed the door and I just soak and you just sit there and I just sat there with my hands on my hips and just take a big old cool. But I've never, I've never done a sort of telepathy like you've done and said, okay, talk to me. Who, who, who needs to, who needs to get smoked?

21:55 Gary Come on. But I will, I will definitely try that. To get a little scientific, not really scientific, to get a little more credibility to that methodology. I think of like the Electric Universe model and how everything's connected through electrical signal and frequency. Very good. And so I'm trying to stop and send a signal out and be like, I'm, I'm pulsing here. Who's pulsing back? You know, who's, who wants, who wants to be smoked today? What, what flavor, what, what mindset am I in that the cigar that I want is going to fit this criteria? Now, obviously I'm going to go in with a lot of biases this way and that way because yours, the brand that shall not be named that I won't smoke any of. And there's a row that I have to keep myself from smoking because that's all I'll ever smoke. And I just stop and I go room 1141. Was it 141, 121? Oh my gosh. I just forgot the name. 101. 101. Thank you. Room 101. I remember doing that at 280 one time. I walked in there hanging out with a buddy of mine. I just walked in, put my hands up, closed my eyes for a second. And it just, that's what I wanted. I opened my eyes was looking right at it and I had to have it. It was, I just had to have it. It's what I got. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

23:12 Devin How about that? That's neat. That's, that's pretty cool right there. Yeah. Yeah. That's a try if you can't make a decision. It is. It is. And that's the thing too, man. You, yeah, that's the thing. You can, you get some feedback on what you're going to, going to smoke there, which is awesome. Yeah.

23:29 Gary And then, yeah, man, you don't want to be too judgmental too. You may pick one that you just did not like, but if it's the first time you've had it, yeah, you can give it, give it some grace. Just think to yourself, you know, maybe I need to buy another one and let it sit in my humidor at home in a smaller environment for a couple of weeks. Because I'm not a big fan of Liga Provada. Not a big fan of them. I have, I don't enjoy them that often. To me, the, the pig is the worst cigar I've ever smoked in my life.

23:57 Devin Yeah. No, it isn't.

23:59 Gary John's like, I remember the one that was the worst you've ever smoked in your life. And you're right. It's a, it's, it's not my favorite, but I will say I had a Liga Provada. I can't remember which one it was. It was probably the T-52 or it was something else that I had one in my humidor and forgot about it. Came back to it and I had nothing else to smoke and I didn't want to smoke my really expensive one. So I chose that one and I didn't hate it because it had been sitting there for like two, three months. And it was better. And I can only attribute that to the fact that I bought a second one in that same mindset and just forgot about it. Came back to it and it was better because it had time to like settle in with my cigars and all the ones that I buy and the flavors that are in there, mixing together.

24:46 John Well, there's definitely something I've become really aware of in the last couple of years, especially with this cigar boom of the last couple of years that we're just getting out of and the back orders and stock coming in and it immediately being put out on the shelf and immediately being sold and immediately being smoked. It doesn't have the time to acclimate. I mean, it comes off the boat, gets put on a truck, goes, goes to a warehouse, gets put on another truck, comes to the shop, gets opened and put on another truck. Comes to the shop, gets opened and put on a shelf all within two weeks. And from the time it's loaded into that, well unloaded from that first container in the summer, it's just exposed to horrendous heat in that. I mean, tobacco is a living, breathing organism. I mean, granted, it's at the end of its life because it's no longer growing, but it needs some time to relax. It's just like you don't take a steak off the grill, slap it on your plate, cut it up and eat it. You need to let it rest for a few minutes for the juices and the and I'm finding that no matter how bad I want to smoke this cigar that just came in the door, I might want to wait a week. And I was recently, I say the Blackin's the one that's the most recent in my mind. I smoked it literally. The truck dropped it off that afternoon. They cut the box open. I might have smoked it before it was even in inventory and it was horrible. I agree. Absolutely horrible. But when we had it recently and now I've went back and had one or two more now that it sat for a period of time and we've had restocks in that. So it's not like it sat for six months, but it's not that rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. And that's the problem cigars have in the last couple of years, especially every we talk about five thousand hands and taking your time and enjoying and respecting the creation. But we got to a point where once it was created, how quickly can I get it smoked or get it lit? Not necessarily smoke, but lit. And it just ruined a lot of potentially good cigars to me because it needed to rest and relax. And something I've been paying attention to even more recently is certain cigars need to be stored certain ways and will get into humidity and things. But I recently learned Davidoff does not use Spanish cedar. And if you take your Davidoff and put it in a Spanish cedar humidor, you will totally change the taste of your Davidoff to a taste that was never intended to be.

27:39 Gary Interesting. You know, I'd never, never thought about that.

27:42 John I've just heard it in a couple of places that I want to research a little bit more and I want to talk to our rep next time I see him and ask him about it. But I'm kind of going, you know, you're right, because all of a sudden this and this and this, those aren't so, you know, Spanish cedar stored and things like that. It's always a learning process. And even even the experts of the experts always are learning. You know, you've got to learn something new every day.

28:11 Devin Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You say you're talking about your you're talking about Davidoff. Of course, Spanish cedar there. Davidoff's, Davidoff's humidor are not Spanish cedar. They're they're an oak. They're almost like an ironwood, if you will. Very durable, very they don't they don't have a whole lot of breathing room when it comes to a to porous. You know, they like they like things to stay just like they are. And let's see our humidify themselves and let them naturally what I call soak. And that's that's what they enjoy doing. And that's what they you know, that's what they do that particularly because they have a you know, they've got a science that they follow when they follow to a T and they're very meticulous about doing that. Yeah, that's definitely that. Your Spanish cedar stuff, of course, your humidity for your Spanish cedar stuff is made for made for the cigar to breathe. It's made for to age, if you will, and made for just to mellow or smooth, you know, except for, you know, if you get extremely low brands like a short filler or sandwich fillers or midfiller or something like that. You know, good luck with that. But but nevertheless, if you get some good thick Nicaraguan stuff, then you're you know, you're talking some some stuff that can actually breathe. It can actually do something for you.

29:44 Gary That's a fair point about Davidoff. I'm going to have to tell a few of my friends. They're big Davidoff fans and that could that could change the name of the game. That could change. They would make somebody buy another humidor just for Davidoff's. I could see that. I'm trying to read because we should transition to the other half of our topic tonight. We're ready.

30:04 John Let's do it. The one of the things being introduced to PCA this week now, it's been known for a while, but they weren't quite ready to take orders. Actually, it was kind of originally shown a year ago, but they're not telling me what it's made out of. And that's what I was really curious about, because Atabay has this absolutely gorgeous humidor that's now available for orders. Well, starting tomorrow, I think, start on Friday. They're four grand. They come with 60 Atabay cigars in it. But it's this multi-tiered, multi-drawer thing. There's the lid opens and you've got a display of Atabay. And then there's a drawer on the front that opens and you've got a display. And then there's two drawers that open out from the lower sides. And like I said, there's 60 Atabay cigars in there and there's five of each or 60 Atabay cigars in there. Five of each each size that they produce from the eight by fifties down to the four by forties. Five of each.

31:10 Devin Wow. That's crazy. And they'll be available tomorrow. That's going to be January. It's going to be January 7th, 2023 there. July 8th. July. I'm sorry. Wrong J. You're in the wrong month completely.

31:26 John Well, and you've got to be at PCA and you've got to order it. So knowing Harris, he usually orders one or two of these things. So we might be able to see it. What did he order? Five of the Padrone 50th humidor's and he ordered that ungodly Monte Cristo one. I don't know whatever came of it. I don't know if somebody bought it or not. I was going to kind of end with the Atabay stuff, but I may as well jump in since I'm already there. Yeah. We talked about what makes you want to smoke a cigar or buy a cigar, et cetera. And Atabay at PCA this year is if this pop up gets. Oh, you go to these cigar sites. They always want to make sure you're 21. Atabay. Well, Nelson Alfonso, he's introducing the Atabay limited edition humidor. And then he's see here he's introducing the Atabay Black Retos, which if you remember back when we were now, we were still smoking underground about a year, year and a half ago. Atabay was the first to come to market with the NFT cigar. Twenty twenty one. It was limited to twenty five single cigars and one hundred boxes with unique. They were a unique digital cigar. Well, now he's actually brought it into the real world. And now you're going to get an Atabay Black, which is Ecuadorian Maduro over over the standard Atabay fillers, which, you know, Nelson's always been real quiet about. But some people have pushed him and, you know, he's kind of said that it's a lot of it's a Peruvian tobacco, which guess what? Now that he said that lots of luck buying Peruvian tobacco. Well, Rockies use Peruvian tobacco for a long time. The Atabay Black is Ecuadorian Maduro wrapper binders undisclosed filler undisclosed in Peruvian Lajero. It'll be available in a six and a half by fifty five MSRP fifty dollars. Five thousand boxes or five thousand cigars.

33:43 Devin Two hundred boxes of twenty five will be the product. I'd like to taste one of those. Man, man, that's good.

33:51 John Well, to throw that one up or to go along with that, he has the 10 year extra aged Ataboy Atabays where the standard Atabay is aged five years before it's released to market. He took a small selection of the Deos's and aged him an extra five years. Well, small selection. He's got ninety two hundred and fifty cigars available, three hundred and seventy boxes of twenty five. And he's kept the price the same. So there are thirty seven fifty suggested retail. That would be something to buy even if you don't want to smoke. You don't want to smoke. I say you don't want to smoke it right away, but you really want to smoke it.

34:35 Devin But that cigar I can see appreciating and having some markups in the after sale. Yeah, big time.

34:42 John And the other thing that Nelson's doing is he after having the Alfonso Grand selection, which was a smoking underground cigar of the year, budget, no budget restraints. He's now introducing the Alfonso on on Yeho. It debuted a little bit last year, but it's now finally coming to market. And it's just like I like oily, rich Ecuadorian Habano wrapper over Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. So you get a darker profile Alfonso looking forward to this one aged in French oak for five years. And price on that guy is supposed to be. No, I don't have a suggested retail on that one, guys. How dare you? You're going to have to suffer on that one. But that's one of the things coming out that I'm hoping Harris is going to bring back in his little satchel. I was going to start off with because we all know I like agonosa leaf. Good stuff. Where's my agonosa? They outline their new releases here. We've already talked about their big one. No pun intended. The lunatic 10 by 140 bucks comes in its own coffin. Twenty five hundred per year and is supposed to become a production cigar. It is a torpedo so that the end does come down to a smokable size. I mean, if you're thinking the nine by 90 asylum or the eight by 80 asylum, six by 80 asylums, those are, you know, blunt ends. You've got to wrap your mouth around 80, 64 of an inch or 90, 64 of an inch. This one at least. What do I want to say? Tapers a little bit.

36:35 Devin I'm kind of OK. So it's more about more about perfect.

36:40 John So you might call it bellicose. So but bellicose is small. Now, I think it's more of a torpedo where it I mean, the majority of the cigar, I'm a bed and nine inches of this cigar is a hundred sixty force.

36:55 Devin But then it tapers down that last inch tapers down to maybe a 60 ring gauge. OK. Wow. Sounds like a sound like a bellicose of Gordo's was about that special figurado at least about that.

37:11 John They're they're introducing a premium line. What's it called? It's actually all word it not a premium line, but they offer a cigar called the new Cuba. And this is called the new Cuba, new Cuba superior. So it's been something it's a high end budget cigar, long leaf tobacco is all of that. Really good. Cigars and more doesn't carry this one. It's to me probably a competitor of your lot twenty threes and that a little bit better than a fresco, but not not a real mainstream cigar. Right. I can't find information, but I've heard about it. Asylum is actually supposed to be introducing a infused competitor to acids. We know that the three of us aren't a big infused cigar people, but it's something asylums looking to do. And they are also introducing a PCA exclusive twenty twenty three, which there's so many different exclusive asylums. You know, the Asylum 13 and the Asylum and the Asylum pandemonium and the Asylum. Everything is exclusive, then nothing's exclusive. Yeah. Well, what makes these exclusive is you place your order at PCA and that's the only time you can order. If you're not at PCA, you're unable to order these cigars. Right. Unless, of course, they probably have eight thousand billion left over and then they'll just read label. No company wouldn't do that. Oh, one of the podcasts I listened to, one of the hosts has a really viable, in my opinion, a very, very viable opinion, in my opinion, on limited release cigars. And that's we only can make two thousand of these cigars because we only have enough tobacco to make twenty one hundred cigars. Right.

39:14 Gary We're just cleaning out the warehouse. This is scrap stuff that we couldn't use on our cheap cigars. Yeah, no joke. That is a that is a practice that is done more often than you might think. And when you get some cigarillos to some of those cigarillos, that is that is the floor sweepings. I mean, it's not bad. Those are definitely floor sweepings.

39:35 John And for Devin, yes, let's see. I'm trying to see if I've got a name of this cigar other than the Aroha PCA twenty twenty three exclusive. Only three thousand cigars per vitola were created in this blend and contains or contains Christian Aroha's trademark authentic Aroha.

40:01 Devin Come on, Daddy.

40:03 John Complex Bland offers a rich and leathery smoking experience with undertones of spice via the authentic Aroha, Aroha tobacco. Oh, are we going to get some of those like CLE's PSA? I like this. The binder and filler are composed of tobaccos from CLE's new farm in South America. These will be priced between a five by fifty seventeen up to a six by sixty at nineteen with his trademark eleven by eighteen and then the fifty two by six. Right. Both at eighteen dollars. Are we going to get some of those at our stores? I will bet because just the way we I can't promise anything. I wasn't able to sit down and see if Christian had a shopping list and the other one that I'm hoping we get. And I commented to him on Facebook today because I'm I am a huge Christoph fan, kind of the way Devin is his padrones in that. And this gentleman was smoking his new Pureo Christoph Nicker, Nicker, a rock one. Oh, but it doesn't have the loose tobacco foot and it doesn't have the big tail, which immediately is a turn off to me. Right. So he better be sending me a sample because that's not going to be one that I rush out to smoke. Really? I like the rough edge of this. I like the loose foot. I like the pig tail. I like the rustic boxes. I like the loose tobacco, just like we spoke of earlier in the show. This one does not sound like a cigar that I would smoke. I'm sure it's good, but will it become a regular? I question. I question. That's just the simple and there's five by 50 Robusto, nine fifty six and a quarter by fifty four Toro, ten fifty six by sixties, ten seventy five. Very simple. Nicaraguan Pureo. And then they are leaning into a I'm doing my information backwards. They're doing a PCA twenty twenty three signature series, which everybody does. We just talked about a rose and a side. Six and a quarter fifty four box press Toro that uses a Brazilian Maduro wrapper, Dominican binder and filler of Dominican and Nicaraguan. Twelve bucks a cigar. I mean, it's not bad. Limited to a thousand boxes. And that should be called. It's the PCA signature series PCA signature. And then they betrayed compradors. Unfortunately, I don't read Spanish nor speak it. Hell, I barely speak English. This again is a Nicaraguan Pureo. No specifics on what's making it different than the standard Christoph Nicaraguan. Tobacco is our source from Estelle, Hopla and Candega. Yeah. Or the binder wrapper and filler. Just say it with an accent. You'll always sound. Yeah, that's right. So they're saying all three of the new releases are produced at Tobacco Lera, Vaniqa, and Vaniqa. The Dominican Republic, formerly known as Charles Fairmore. No shipping date is set, but August or September. And the nice thing about PCA this year, everybody's reasonably certain that these cigars are ready to ship because what's happened in the past is you go in July and you order your cigars and they might get to you by December or January. But PCA changed their date for 2020. And there's a March. The next PCA is in March and possibly not in Vegas, possibly within driving distance for some podcasters. I know. Really? Everybody's people that are thinking that stuff that wasn't going to ship until later in the year, you know, normally would ship until later will just be introduced in March and be ready to ship as soon as it's ordered. Cool. Cool. And the only other one that I'm going to add, and I don't know too much about it. I just remember that we don't stock them anymore. As far as I know, maybe they're struggling in some stores, but Casada is relaunching their Oktoberfest 2023. Wow. I can't wait to taste that. Huh?

44:40 Devin I can't wait to taste that. That's going to be good. I mean, all their Oktoberfest so far has been great. Yeah.

44:47 John I've always liked the Oktoberfest and I saw that come across and I go, might have to seek out that. I've kind of got a list of cigars here that I need to order because your local retailer doesn't necessarily stock all of them. Got to give them the benefit of the doubt and got to spend money with them. But every now and then, I mean, you said earlier in the show, you know, the size of 280s humidor, it's one of the largest humidor's in Alabama. 2200 facings, probably more now. And that's maybe one fifth of the cigars on the market. I mean, it would be virtually impossible to have a retail shop that stocked absolutely everything. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that something, man?

45:29 Devin Just, you know, that small little bit right there. And yet you still got a humidor. It's just stupid big. Right. Wow, man. The industry just keeps growing. Keeps growing. Yeah, we got five stores.

45:42 John We could stock every single cigar on the market between all five stores. Yeah. Yeah. It's in each store. Man, that'd be great, wouldn't it? You'd have like a Harris could do like challenge coins.

45:54 Gary And you have to you can only purchase it at the store once you've smoked through everything in that store. We had a guy who was doing that. He was doing it. He was doing it. You had to it.

46:05 John We had a guy who was doing that at two eighty. He wanted to smoke everything in the store and he would come in and every well every almost every day and would just, you know, smoke bottom shelf, top shelf and, you know, and then he eventually learned that things change quicker than he can smoke around the humidor. Because then you have to go back and get something and get back and you literally would have to go in and buy one of everything on one day and then smoke all of that. And then probably by the time you're done, eighty percent of what's in the humidor will have changed. The drone won't change. Fuente won't change and Davidoff won't change. They might have a couple of new ones, but everything else, who knows?

46:53 Gary It would be kind of interesting between the five stores if I don't know, maybe not everything in the humidor, but like have an exclusive to Trustville, an exclusive to Mountain Brook, an exclusive to Patton Creek, you know, exclusive like one or two cigars. And if you went through and did got all of them and smoked them and got it signed off by the manager, the person working there, you could then get the challenge coin or something like that.

47:21 John Yeah, right. Yeah, you could just track that by utilizing the cigars and more of I told a fine cigars point system. That's right. You have to purchase it. I guess you have to smoke it and more than just purchasing it. But and you could do that.

47:37 Gary You get the smoking underground challenge coin. Like if you tried to ring it up and in your inventory of what you've purchased, you don't have all five of them purchased. It'll say it is not eligible for purchase and it puts it in like two hundred dollars the coin. But as soon as you've got all five of them purchased, boom, it drops down to whatever the challenge coin costs.

47:59 John Yeah. Yeah. And what do I get to do with the challenge coin? Every time you see Harris in a shop, you lay it down next to him. And if he doesn't have his on him, he buys you a cigar.

48:09 Gary You know, that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea. I would love that. Also being like a forever five percent off or forever 10 percent off or something. No matter what.

48:22 Devin Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. If we had that challenge with Harris, he would make the thing into like an African cougar and necklace and be wearing that thing around his neck all the time. Right. Oh, he'd have that thing embedded in the shoe. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

48:40 Gary Without a doubt. He'd start wearing a name tag and it would be just like part of the name tag. So it's always on him.

48:45 Devin Yeah, that's exactly right. Oh, yeah. You would get him. Oh, I know what he would do.

48:50 Gary You know, watch made where the front of that face is the challenge coin and where the watch everywhere. Nice.

48:58 Devin That'd be cool. That would be cool. It's your wood. This is your wood. Man, that'd be nice.

49:04 John Well, good deal. Oh, and the one cigar I forgot to mention. Well, there's two cigars. I forgot to mention one. The Perdomo 30th anniversary is going on sale on in two days on the eighth. And obviously, for those listening, we're releasing this episode out of order. So it's a little bit. You're not getting all this PCA information a month after PCA. You're just getting a week after PCA. That's it. And the other one that I hear talked about on a certain podcast and one person's betting it's going to be available and the other person's betting it's not is the Padrone Fuente collaboration. Oh, yeah. Oh, man.

49:45 Devin Wow. You got to let me know if we get those at 280. I had to go back. Man.

49:50 John The bet is if it is available for purchase and you purchase it, one, will it be delivered? Two, will they let you sample it for you? Purchase it. No. And three, how expensive is it going to be? Twenty five dollars. Because there are a tremendous number of 20 and 30 dollars cigars being introduced this week. Oh, well, and the market isn't there for 20 and 30 dollars cigars anymore. Mikhailov just introduced the Mikhailov Black. And unfortunately, we stopped carrying the Cigar. Eight bucks. And I managed to get a hold of one of those wonderful, wonderful cigar. Really? And just like the five dollar Mikhailov we used to carry, which I told our rep was what I thought should be the most expensive one. And it was the cheapest one. It's almost the same thing. This eight dollar cigar. They could probably get 15 or 16 bucks for it. You feel bad. Right. Right. Yeah.

50:53 Devin That means that that means they rewrapped it and rebanded and of course marked it from five to 15. So. Well, so.

51:01 John So that's that is the new cigars. And since you're so bored of hearing me, should I give my little news bit or should I talk about it later on? No, please. Believe it or not, it's just a quickie. Oh, please, John. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a good idea. Yeah, right. Well, a company has just been authorized by the United States Trade Association, whatever they are, to start selling U.S. cigarettes. And I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. To start selling U.S. produced cars to private individuals in companies in Cuba for the first time in 60 years.

51:57 Gary Good. That's going to be great. That's the first.

52:00 Devin So the embargo is going to go one way then, right? That's it. Well, that's what I'm saying. They can't sell to us.

52:08 John They can't. No, they can't sell to us. And they have to. The Cuban citizens have to apply for the car through this company and this company has to deliver it. They have 30 applications so far for cars. God only knows how expensive they are in that. But they again have to be a private individual and it has to be or a private corporation because Cuba is kind of going that way. And it has to be a Chevrolet Ford GM or Tesla product.

52:43 Devin Wow. Really?

52:45 John Wow. So it has to literally be an American car company that is based in the United States. Keep in mind that Chrysler Dodge is now owned by the French and Italians.

52:57 Gary Oh, good. They get to enjoy the crappily made American cars too. Yeah.

53:03 John Good for them. Wonderful cars.

53:05 Gary I won't get into that subject here. As you sit in your Toyota. That's right. Toyota.

53:11 Devin Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting on a 300,000 mile lease on Maxima.

53:17 Gary Yeah. And I'm and I'm driving a Mini because my Ford's in the shop until October. Touche. Well, I will be providing me a rental beginning sometime next week. Which might speed up the October. Well, let's do a little bit of a final review of the cigar since we're smoking it now down to the bottom. I'm going to go ahead and go first on this and say the beginning was amazing. When it got towards the middle, it kind of kind of tapered off. I was kind of not enjoying it. I mean, I was enjoying it, but it just wasn't the big hurrah that it was in the beginning. And now that it's down near the the end, kind of still enough in the on the cigar. It's not now in the no, but it's about where the band was. It's gotten better again. And I did a purge down to the center and there's there's a lot of flavor notes to it. Pretty much all the ones that they even said on their website were right there. You got kind of a darker, creamy. You have to really slow down. You can't hotbox this one at all. If you hotbox it at any point, you've lost all the flavor with it because of how you play out there. I would say how temperamental the cigars in general are when you overheat them. So overall, good stick. I would definitely smoke it again. It I think it goes good with smoother libations. I wouldn't go with a harsh one. Honestly, I know it's going to sound really strange, but I think it would go really good with tequila. Really? Yeah, I think you get that fruitiness of tequila mixed with this cedar dark chocolate kind of flavor. And I think they would complement each other back and forth like crazy.

55:00 Devin Wow. It might even go good with a gin. Yeah, gin I can see talking about fruitiness. Yeah, I can see that very much. So yeah. How about you, Gary? What do you think? Yeah. John, have you smoked this thing yet? I don't have my notes on this cigar, so I can't comment. I apologize. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy it. I really I've really enjoyed this particular size as far as you know, again, I'm not a Gordo guy. I don't like 60 re-engage at all. But I think that the four and a half has actually gotten I think it was prepared for full for good flavor. You know, I'm glad that they didn't make it any longer. I think if they made it any longer, if it was a six inch or something, that effect, in my opinion, I think it would lose a lot of the flavor off the top. I think it would probably have a little bit more of a dead flavor, not not dead one, but more of a milder type flavor to it. So I'm glad they made it in the four inch to where you could really get the nuance of the bang of the very first right there, which is great. And all those oils coat the inside as you're smoking it down anyway. So that's kind of nice. And and I think I'm about the same same distance as where you are right there. And I'm I'm definitely picking up some nice creamy and and nice creamy. And if you will, a little base of cocoa weenus in there as well. Very nice. Almost the not necessarily an overtone, but a nice little undertone of the drone ish, if you will. And thoroughly enjoying this. I really, I really like it. Nice earthiness to it as well. Good. I like the I like the evenness that proves that it's got a good roller. It's doing it too. So it's quality. It's in very I would like to taste this in a V and a V. It has I would like to taste this in a V cut. I don't think I would probably stay away from. Now, John would probably defer from this, but I don't think I would probably have this in the shirkin. Yeah, I don't think so. I think yeah, I think it would probably still a little bit more of a flavor away from it. Yeah, I think really do something with this.

57:29 Gary Yeah, I did a standard punch. I didn't have my wide mouth punch, but I really wanted to try. I really wanted the wide mouth punch, to be honest with you, because I think it would have opened it up a little bit more. Oh, yeah, a bit better.

57:40 Devin Yeah, the gear team did too, buddy. It did. The gear team brought it brought it to the front like it should. You know, I'm just spitting tobacco out everywhere, but I mean, never the less. You know, it's still got a nice nice bang from all of that flavor that's coming down. And right now, at this particular instance here, I got about an inch and a half left. And it's got some really nice flavor notes to it right now. Yeah, it does.

58:10 Gary Very nice.

58:11 John John, did you have a chance to smoke it? I had a chance to smoke it, but I lost my notes on it. I have had a couple of them over the time we have been selling them. I chose it because I do know I like it, but I can't tell you the subtleties that I like. I'm with Gary. I don't like the 60 ring gauge, but for some reason, that four and a half size makes it work.

58:32 Gary Well, good deal. Remember, everybody, if you like what you hear, share it with a friend, like, share, subscribe, all that. You can go to smokingunderground.com to catch all the latest everything that we do. And this one is, as usual, brought to you by Vitola's Fine Cigars, where you can go there and order cigars. Anything over $50 has free shipping. Other than that, thanks, everybody, for listening. Thank you, Gary and John. You as well. There you go. We'll see you guys on the next exciting adventure of Smoking Underground. Hear, hear. Later, everyone. Later.