Hey, it's Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, back in your feed this week. It's been a while since we had a cigar episode, so we're having a cigar episode today. I'm Pat, I do spirit stuff at Binny's. I'm Roger, I do beer at Binny's. Formerly, years ago, back in the old days, I was a cigar consultant for Binny's. Yeah, yeah. So it's good to be smoking some sticks again. It is, it is my time of year to smoke cigars. I don't, you know, I'm not a serious cigar smoker who's like out there suffering in the cold, you know, because I got to get a cigar in or something like my colleague at the Whiskey Hotline does. But this is the time where I can sit outside, enjoy a quick cigar. I have a covered porch, so even if it's raining, I like kind of sitting out there on warmer nights. So we brought Jack back in. Hey, Jack. Hey, guys. It's Jack, the cigar buyer for Binny's Beverage Depot, and I'm glad to be out of a warehouse. Nice. It's always fun to just talk about stuff instead of do actual work, right? Always. So we want to talk about cigars today. We sent you a note, just, hey, you know, hey, what's hot? What's new? What are people talking about? What are some of our cigar consultants excited about these days? And you gave us each way too many cigars to smoke on like a week and a half notice before recording a podcast. The funny thing, what struck me is, you specifically sent breakfast cigars, and I think even a serious cigar smoker normally waits until the afternoon to start hitting the smokes. I mean, that seemed a bit aggressive to me. I can't deny that enough. The last podcast that we did, we sat down and I joked about a breakfast cigar. And your first response was, a breakfast cigar, who smokes that early in the morning? However, paired with coffee, cigars are fantastic. So right when you get up, you're driving to work, a small little stick with a cup of coffee, it just play off of each other, which is why I chose those two coffee infused cigars for your breakfast cigar, Pat. All right, well, let's start talking about those then. So you gave us, what was it, a Mark of Binny's brand? What was the house brand coffee cigar? That was the Binny's Barista. Binny's Barista, okay. I had that one, and the other one you gave was a Talbuck? Tabac. Tabac. And that's made by Drew States? Yes. Okay. I found the Tabac to be particularly sweet. Both, I really liked the coffee flavor and they were mild and easy. The Binny's was very light and very easy smoking. That was truly a breakfast cigar. The Tabac, I thought, had a lot more of a sugar character to it. Both had a nice coffee character, but the Tabac, I guess the wrapper was just a little sweet for me. Yeah. The Tabac have a sugared cap, so it's going to balance that sweetness out. A lot of people who are going to smoke a Tabac Dolce, the lighter wrapper that I gave you, would actually smoke that while drinking a coffee black or something like that. Whereas, the Binny's Barista was developed with the idea of a mocha in mind, so a little bit more of that kind of chocolatey coffee sweetness without being necessarily sugar capped, but giving that impression. Okay. That makes sense. It was a good cigar. What did you think of those, Roger? Yeah, I was pretty surprised because I'm not a huge infused cigar guy. I also have an issue with the sugar tips. They really sweeten them, but I get that a lot of people love that. That's exactly what a lot of people like about those cigars. I thought they both smelled pretty exceptional just unlit, like especially the tobacco. Like it had this chocolatey-ness to it that was really appetizing. Kind of reminds me, I'll smoke a tobacco pipe quite a bit, and it's like a lot of aromatic pipe tobaccos, where like the unlit tobacco smells better than how the aromatic pipe tobacco smokes. So that was kind of my issue with both of these to some degree, was that they were nice, they're pleasant. I could see a lot of people loving these, these being a great like intro to cigars for a lot of people that aren't quite ready to like dive in two feet forward. But that having been said, for your more seasoned cigar smokers, I think they both had some really nice like flavors to enjoy out of them. I thought that the tobacco really, it threw a ton of smoke, which was kind of interesting. Like I smoke mainly only outside. So I was just picturing somebody lighting this up inside their house or their garage. There was just an obnoxious amount of smoke. Like opening the garage door and just like a cloud coming out. Now just imagine driving to work smoking that and then you get to the office, you open that door and everybody thinks you're Snoop Dogg. Yeah. Just rolling out of your car. I mean, there's something about it, man. It let off like plumes of smoke. That's funny. The other Drew Estate cigar I smoked out of this batch was also, I actually smoked it this morning and it was really smoky too. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe some of it too is that it's been massively humid. The humidity lately has been insanely high. When it's really humid out, I feel smoke hangs in the air more. Yeah. Absolutely. That might be some of it. But speaking of the humidity, the construction on both of these was great, and especially for infused cigars can sometimes be a mess, like they'll tunnel, they'll go out on it. You know why? It's because often with infused cigars, you're looking at a lower quality of inside filler or binder. But with these two products, they are actually more on the premium sides. They're using that long leaf to roll, especially the tobaccos. I want to say our barista may be a little bit of a Cuban sandwich, but the majority of the tobacco in there is high quality. I'm a big fan of Cuban sandwiches. How did we get on that topic? The old Cuban sandwich, the half short filler, half long filler blend. It's not your bottom base short filler cigar with scraps off the factory floor. I thought we were going to talk about ham and pickles. Never mind. No, it's actually a pretty cool story. So yeah, if you ever watch the cigar factory in the process, there's a lot of trimming involved. So you end up with these kind of odds and end pieces of cigars. Whereas normally you're folding leaves to make a cigar. This is going to use some of those those trimmings as the middle. And that's more for more like the bundle cigars. Yeah, the short fillers are definitely more for the bundle cigars. But when you infuse it in a Cuban sandwich, so using a little bit of long leaf and then just that peppering in of those trimmings, you're going to get some different flavor profiles than you normally would with just straight short filler. There's some there's some Cuban sandwich cigars, too, that are in boxes, usually like kind of like cardboard boxes. But you can get some that are better than your like real cheapy bundles, but they can be like a nice budget cigar worth smoking, kind of deal. Yeah. What's the Drew Estate one? The La, I forget the name of it now. They're really famous. That was always like the most common Cuban sandwich one for years. It was like a gold ornate box. La Vieja. Yeah. Yeah, along that line. I think they're actually using some of the some of the trimmings in their new factory smoke bundles as well, which are flying off the shelves. I mean, talk about a bundle brand that really grabbed the market at the right time. The Drew Estate Factory Smokes. I'm having a hard time keeping them in. Those can be good if you're going on like, you know, like a bachelor party or a golf outing with like 20 people. Yeah. And it's like, oh, we need literally a box of cigars. And people aren't sure, like, they don't realize how expensive your average box of cigars is. So, you know, you can give a box of these and they're like, what, three, four dollars a pop or four or five a month probably nowadays. But, you know, they can still rock a box of cigars, but it's not going to put such a huge dent. I'm like, as the only guy in my, you know, kind of larger group of friends who has a humidor at home and smoke cigars regularly. And I was like, oh, yeah, just bring some cigars. And these are guys who are going to like puff on a cigar for like 10 or 15 minutes and like put it down somewhere and forget where they put it. And, you know, it's just I don't want to waste good cigars on them. Totally understandable. The fantastic thing is within within our human or is there's brands like the ABCO where the ABCO is in that $3 to $4 range. But it is long filler. So it's nice light comes in variety of sizes. I think Robusto, Gordo, Toro and Churchill. And so, yeah, you can still give that kind of higher quality to the guy who's going to puff it three times and put it down. You're not going to feel bad in the pocketbook. All right. We got off on this Cuban sandwich tangent because of the breakfast cigars. So, keeping with the food theme. So, the breakfast cigars were the Tabac and the Binny's Barista. Yes. And the sizes you gave me were both like, what, like Churchill's or something? And they were long and thin. I believe I actually gave you two Lonsdale's. Lonsdale's. Yeah, a little bit shorter than a Churchill. Smaller ring gauge, too, because I really wanted you to enjoy the wrapper. You can get more of that taste of the wrapper with the smaller cigar, smaller ring gauge. Nice. Those can be nice. So, you need to kind of take your time with Lonsdale's because they're, with that thinner ring gauge, a lot of people are used to the massive fat. Cigars are not really hot, right? They're more forgiving on the big ring gauge, but the little ones are always connoisseur. Things like Lenseros or Panetellas is the extreme, right? Those can really heat up and get super hot. You got to sip on those, which not many people really want to do that. Take one little sip a minute, no more, no less. But one thing I was going to say about these is that these pair really well with stuff. So I tried them with beer, tried them with coffee. I almost think these are designed to not just be smoked on their own. If you're going to try these, have some stuff lined up to drink with them. It could be as simple as Coca-Cola or a nice coffee and espresso. I did it with a stout. I think these would be the perfect for the pastry boys that are drinking, like adjuncted stouts with coffee, chocolate, big heavy beer. Yeah. That holds up to a cigar at all much, but it helps that it's a somewhat sweeter, darker flavor profile cigar that isn't too heavy. Yeah, not heavy at all. Actually, this would be a perfect one to bring to your buddies because you're talking about our Lonsdale slash Corona size coming into like $3.95 a stick all the way up to- Oh yeah, that's great. The Torpedo, which is $4.95, so you're right in that $5 range. I mean, for a quality flavored cigar, you're not going to find much better around that price. Nice. Yeah, those were damn good. What do we have next? Well, speaking of Maduro and speaking of Drew Estate, we can just cut right to the chase and talk about the cigar that I was like, kind of blown away by. I've had Undercrowns before, and I've liked them, especially the Maduro. They've done some like line extensions that I thought were decent. This Undercrown 10 was what a phenomenal cigar. I was so pissed that I smoked it earlier today before I was making my way here, because I didn't really have time to finish the whole thing. I got through like two-thirds of it, I was like, I gotta put it down, and I have to get into the office to record this podcast. Yeah, when you're talking about really doing it up for the 10th anniversary, this Undercrown 10 is phenomenal. Yeah, what a great cigar. So what do we need to know? What are the stats on this thing that people need to know? Not many people may know that the Undercrown Maduro itself was developed on the factory floor. They were running into a problem at your estate where the rollers were consuming too much of the Liga Provada tobacco, and too many Liga Provadas, which is the highest of the high-end from Drew Estate. They gave them access to the reserved tobacco. What the rollers did is they swapped the wrapper and binder on a traditional Liga from a little lower priming than you would because that tobacco is extremely expensive. Priming meaning aged? Priming, yeah. Aged and where it was picked on the plant. When they rolled together these factory floors that they were smoking, which ended up becoming the Undercrown Maduro, the factory manager caught wind of what they were doing, and smoked it and said, okay, we're going to put this into production. So that's the story. The Undercrown Maduro was originally just brought up on the factory floor at Drew Estate. And then when Willie Herrera started with them, he actually blended the Undercrown Shade, which was followed by the Undercrown Sun Grown. But this Undercrown 10 is paying homage back to that original thought, that original Undercrown Maduro in just a truly unique way. I mean, you're talking about a dark Mexican San Andreas wrapper. You've got Connecticut, River Valley, Broadleaf for the Binder. Fillers of Nicaraguan. I mean, it's a medium to full-bodied cigar. I didn't think it was that full-bodied either. I was smoking it and thinking like, man, this is like the perfect light to medium. Like it, normally if something's described as medium to full, I expect to like get a little buzzed off it, but I didn't really with this. But also I was drinking a real sugar Coca-Cola while I was smoking it too though. Which was that tip I picked up from you. Yeah, the last time we had you on, you were like, yeah, just have sugar packets ready. That's like, well, I don't totally want to look like a drug dealer right now. So I'll just have a Coca-Cola instead. I think the story behind these is fascinating. I mean, that's super cool. Just the idea of caring about Connecticut broadleaf, and specifically they're taking these plants that are stock cut. When you mentioned priming, like there's the different parts of the tobacco plant. For ligas, they really are most concerned with the crown of the tobacco plant. Arguably, they top the plant when it's going to flower, so instead of all the energy that would have gone into flowering for seed, ends up going into these top leaves, just like agave. So it's brilliantly named to call this undercrown since they're using the other parts of the plant to make these cigars. Or one component of this blend is the other parts from this highly treasured Connecticut broadleaf. I also think it's pretty funny that we always associate cigars with South America and the Caribbean, but we're growing still all this amazing leaf in the Connecticut River Valley. I used to live out in Western Mass for a few years, and you drive by these tobacco fields, and you would really notice it when they were growing shade tobacco, which a lot of people don't realize, like it's called that because they have canvas, like It's almost like a cheesecloth, so you get little bits of the sun coming through, but it's really covering it up so it's not being hit directly, which is going to lead to that lighter wrapper that you'd find on a macadamia or something like that. But you can get some amazing broadleaf out of Connecticut. So it's super confusing because it's become both a place of origin, but also it's grown all over the place now. So you can have a broadleaf wrapper or a shade-grown Connecticut in Ecuador, in Nicaragua, but then sometimes you're actually getting it from Connecticut in the United States. But whatever you want to call them, poor man's ligas, I mean, I know they're not cheap, but I mean, they're not also super expensive and they're- I need more of these. When are we going to get more of these? So they're slowly rolling in. A lot of the countries like Nicaragua are having some issues right now after a couple of hurricanes and other things, as well as dealing with the virus and how they can actually, when you're in a rolling situation, you're sitting right next shoulder to shoulder with your partner who's helping. So they're kind of half staffed at most of these facilities. But we are starting to see some of these underground tens rolling in every couple of weeks. We're getting another Paladin from Drew Estate who's really looking forward to taking care of us. So I'm curious, did you guys find any of the spicy earthy notes or possible notes of Mexican hot chocolate? I would definitely say spicy earthy. I don't know if I got that much like cocoa in it, but there was definitely a nice spice and nice earth, but it was balanced. Even though I didn't find a lot of sweetness in it, I enjoyed it more than I would think I would on the surface. Because I like a cigar that has a nice sweet and earthy balance to it generally. And this one I thought was just like, it was really earthy and peppery and spicy. But it wasn't overpowering though. My biggest thing with Maduro's is some, I love them in general, but sometimes they have too much of a charry, tarry note to them. And the ones that I love and this one where I smoked it all the way down to the nub, there's none of that intense char. One of the other smokes you gave us, it was good, but it definitely had some of that. Maybe it's that it's also lacking the sweetness to balance out some of that maybe. Or I don't know, but this was very complex, like impeccable burn, impeccable draw, and it really did change throughout the cigar. That's another thing that I think sometimes people kind of think is like, yeah, whatever, like cigar nerds always talk about like reevaluating the cigar throughout the smoking process. And like, you know, some cigars, it doesn't change that much. But some of them, like just keep developing and getting better and better. Like, this probably was at its best, like almost towards the end. You know, a lot of the lot of cigar reviewing blogs and a lot of the media out there actually judge things on first, second and third year. You're beginning first. Third is going to have subtle notes that will hopefully transition the high quality cigar is going to transition from that first, that second, and then hopefully finish out really strong. And it sounds like this one finished out really strong for you guys. It was awesome. It was just an awesome cigar. I can't wait to have more of these. I've got to get some and keep them around and see how they develop too. What sizes are these going to be available in? These are going to be available in a Corona Doble, which is very similar to a Churchill, a nice long stick. We're going to have them in the Corona Viva, the Robusto, and the Toro. Nice. What's our price on Toros and Robustos? Our price on Toros and Robustos right now, we're going to be looking at like $10.85, $10.65 a stick. So not outrageous. Yeah, not terrible. Not terrible for 2021, honestly. No. Did you end up smoking the other Maduro that we got? 601? No, I did not smoke the 601 yet. I smoked the Cigar City, and I smoked the new four-star, maybe new four-star. The possible cigar? Possible cigar. I love you, you guys from Market Research. There was that little one in the paper wrapper with the pig on it. I did not smoke that one yet. No, you saved that one for a nice Saturday afternoon or evening after dinner. All right. Yeah, I told you that was one of the ones where I said, the segment could be called Will Pat Pute. I was like, if you don't take your time with that and smoke it slow and smoke it after you eat, that might be too much for you. All right. Back to this other Maduro though. It was a 601 Maduro? Yeah. Now, you had that one? I did. It was funny to see it again because I remember there was a ton of buzz about the cigar way back in the day because it was on one of the cigar aficionado lists, I think. Cigar of the year was not number one, but pretty high up, pretty low on the list. Who makes this one? How long has it been around? This one's been around for a while. It's actually made by Espinosa Cigars. Okay. Just the brand is 601? Yes. They have a 601, couple of different blends within the 601 line, but the Maduro has been doing really well for us, and I thought that would be a nice little counter piece to the four star that I sent back for you guys to smoke. The four star is in my car. I'm going to smoke that one tonight, I think. The Torpedo four star. Yeah. It's a Bellicoso 6x52. It's probably one of my favorite cigars that I've worked on. I mean, the box presentation is fantastic. Yeah. It's called the Sagio. It's a great price point for a quality cigar. I think it punches well above what it cost. Well, I'll tell you this much. I would much rather have the four star Maduro than the 601. If that was like what you were throwing down, it worked. Really? Let's put it this way. The four star was definitely more approachable, and I felt that it had more depth of flavor as you smoked it. Whereas the 601 was one note the whole time, and it had more of that charry deeper earthy coffee note to it. It was fine, but it was definitely like an old school bolder Maduro. It was not one of these like- The kind you trash at the beginning of the episode. Well, it's been out for a little while, Pat. Roger got used to it. It definitely is one of these things where some Maduros can be really deceiving. Some people would come in and they would love an Onyx or an Ashton Maduro or a Macanudo Maduro. Those have dark wraps, but the wrapper is just the wrapper. It counts what's in the filler and the binder. So you can have a super mild Maduro or you can have a Maduro that will literally put you on your ass and you'll get sick. The Camacho Triple Maduro? Yeah, like that or some of the- that was the other one where you gave us a whole bunch of Florida Nicaragua. I'm like, what are you doing to this guy? Throw up. Not at all. The Hoya de Nicaragua I gave you guys has the El Ambassador in that pack and the El Ambassador is a light wrap cigar. It's actually one of the highest rated on half wheel, I think at 94 points. One of the higher rated sticks. I'm really excited to start seeing those come into because we're talking, Hoya is the oldest factory in Nicaragua. Really? Yeah. At one point, it was the official cigar of the White House during the Nixon era. Back when we still had official cigars of the White House. Can we bring that back? Can somebody call Biden and see if I can give him an official cigar? Nixon's back! The 601 was a nice cigar. Don't get me wrong. It was nice. It burned well, but the four star man, I thought it was great. I appreciate that. That was about a year's worth of work. Is that four star still in the stores? Yes, absolutely. That should be an ongoing product for us. So it will be available whenever. I thought all the four stars were rotating one-off. So originally they were. God, make up your mind, marketing guy. I still have more stars to do in the small bundled projects, but this was the first time I wanted to honor somebody who was retiring from the company. And so I decided to put the four star in a box format for him. So this four star is called? The Sagio. The Sagio. Or Sagio. Okay. And is it just the one presentation? One size. It's just that it's a bellicoso. Bellicoso. So that's like a torpedo, but it narrows on both ends? It's essentially a torpedo and bellicoso can be swapped in and out. Okay. The similar thing. And that is, what are we charging for those? That you're looking at $7.95 a cigar. Good value there, Roger? Great value for that, yeah. I'm going to smoke that one tonight. Nice. Really, really nice. A little side note, sagio means wise in Italian. I'll let you figure out who that cigar was for. Yes. There's initials on the side. This was made where? The Four Star was made by Espinosa for us out of the San Latino factory down in Nicaragua. Okay. Not going to divulge too much of what's in that blend. Okay. Just let you know that tobacco is pretty top-notch for that price. Nice. Proprietary, baby. It's only available here. You know, one thing that I was doing a little bit with that, the end was really complex. It did start to get a little spicy. A trick, which I think I've mentioned to you before, but sometimes if you feel like it's getting a little harsh or a little too charry, tarry, if you blow through the cigar and blow out as you're tipping it down, that can sometimes refresh and clear Yeah. As you're pulling it through, when you start lighting a cigar, you're pulling all that smoke over those leaves. Yeah. Every now and then, just a small soft breath through will help clear that stagnant smoke that's been sitting in there. It's actually frequently used by people who put a cigar down and want to pick it up and smoke it again later. Like clearing the chamber to start over fresh to an extent. I mean, there's definitely tar and tobacco and it can start to build up. So if you're pushing through there, you can knock a little bit of it off. You'll see a little spark sometimes of it flying to the cherry of the cigar. But anyway, yeah. If a cigar is ever a little strong, that's something worth trying. But this four star for eight bucks is the real deal. Absolutely. It's going to be ongoing. Ongoing. We started with a very large order of around 500 boxes. At this point, we've only sold to around 80. All right. So this should be available in every Binny's location. Perfect. Awesome. All right, what's next on the list? I'm kind of just curious what you thought of that cutter. I am a full convert to the V-cut, by the way. I was gonna bring that up at some point. I think the last time we talked, I was mostly using a punch. You had given me a lighter with like a little punch on the bottom, and it was convenient that I only had to carry around one thing. I really dislike when I cut a whole cap off a cigar, or obviously I don't cut the whole thing off. It tends to get messy and unravel on me a bit. It just distracts me from the smoke, and I'd rather just have something that's easy and I know is going to stay put, and I am a full convert to the V cut. I had been using a cheap one that we sell in the store for like three bucks or whatever, and you gave me this Calibri V cutter. It's a Calibri. Yeah, it's a Calibri. It weighs like half a pound. It's kind of ridiculous. Quality. Yes, very high quality material. It's the tank. It's a military assault vehicle. It just like cuts through the cigar like butter. And the cheap plastic one I was using, you had to really kind of work it through and it kind of frayed up the edges a bit, but it still held the V. But the airflow through a V cut, I think is just unrivaled. It's crazy that I put a cigar down and smoke's coming out both ends of it. I guess the more airflow for me provides a more mild smoking experience usually. I don't know whether that's scientifically backed or purely just coincidental. No, it should be the opposite. Really? Yeah. You might be puffing less, which then you're not heating it up as much, so then it's not as harsh because it's not as hot. Okay. But yeah, in general, if you're ever getting it real smoky out of both the foot and the head, that's usually I let it rest a little bit. Okay. But the reason I want to get you that one in particular is how deep that Calibri V-cut is. Way big, yeah. It is very deep, but the way it's set up and the way the action works, those blades are phenomenal. They're very clean cut. It almost maintains the cap with that. So if you're cutting a round-headed cigar, you're going to have the cap on both sides stay really solid with that clean cut. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I got you one as well, Roger. Oh, you did. It has been my experience so far. Not a single cap has unraveled on me or fallen apart at all with that cutter. I've never been a V-cut person ever because they would always like, I feel they'd always damage the caps too much. You know, it would never be a clean enough cut. But yeah, I never really, now that I think about it, I never invested in a nice one. So I was always just using cheap ones, I think. I'm sure at one point though, I must have used a better one, but not as good as this. No, I think it's pretty much, I think they nailed the market on the V-cut. And with their V-cut being so deep, it's almost like having a straight cut, but still having the cap. It's easily, it's my go-to cutter right now, it's one of my favorites and I've got all sorts of crazy contraptions and $100 cutters, but I like that one. And we've got enough of those around, right? Yeah, the- We got a link to those when we post the podcast for sure. Yeah, all over, I just thought every Binny should have some. If not, just go in and ask, and we can make sure that they get some. There's a variety of colors too. The green is customer order only, so if you want a green one to match Pat and Roger's, go ahead and tell them you want a green one. Hey, come on, I thought this was an exclusive club. I also like with it that it's idiot proof for the... People are always somewhat unsure with cigars as to how much of the cap to cut off, but as long as you're using... It's not an oddly shaped head to the cigar. You can only put it in so far, so then it takes any of the guesswork out of it. It really is helpful for newer cigar smokers if it's something you want to try out. I mean, as you said, when you use a straight cut, you can easily take too much off the cap, and then it starts unraveling and you're getting tobacco bits everywhere. It's not a pleasant experience, but with how clean these are, yeah, you can't go wrong. Nice. Yeah. So, if your relative takes out their cutter and just cuts the entire end of the cigar off, like a bozo, tell them that they need to stop doing that, or if they cut it with the cellophane wrapper on it, the things I've seen, things I've seen in Yeah. Full convert to the V-cut. I'm never going to use a different one now, unless I have to, unless it's a torpedo or something where I have to use a more traditional cut. But yeah, I still like a straight cut a lot, but this thing is great. I've been using it on every cigar lately. I have actually been using it to cut torpedoes. So, the hole in the back is just enough where you can cut it, and it'll still give you that same kind of draw. It's just kind of an awkward V shape at the end of the torpedo, but I'll use it for torpedoes. And if I really, really want more airflow, halfway through a cigar and the tar's building up a little bit too much, I'll do the opposite. So, I'll cut down once and I'll cut it cross with that V cut. So, you get kind of like that cross shape in it. Interesting. The double cut. Might have to try that later. All right, cool. What was the other cigars that, oh, we got a kind of beer adjacent cigar that Roger hasn't had a chance to talk our ears off about yet? This was so me in every way, shape and form. So, it is a cigar city brewing, commissioned to cigar, and the people who do punch ended up making the cigar. And I'm a long time punch fan, and it's totally like an old school, old man, bold, spicy. Depending on the blend, there are different line extensions of punch. But in general, like punch is an aggressive, you know, it's a bolder cigar as in general, hence, you know, part of the name. There's a whole weird history with an old magazine and whatnot, but they've leaned into the whole thing, like a punch has punch kind of deal. This cigar, I thought, had some of that classic punch character, some of these like sweet spice notes, kind of like black licorice anise, cinnamon, cedar was very pronounced, but it wasn't like a super heavy hitter. It was still like medium bodies or so. Again, leaning into Cigar City, they make a brown ale called Maduro, which is paying homage to the cigar style. Maduro means ripe in Spanish. So your cigars that are made with Maduro wrappers have, you know, fermented labels. And it's very synergistic with the idea of beer brewing and fermentation. So Maduro from Cigar City, if you haven't tried it, especially if you're a cigar smoker, you have to pick up a six pack of Maduro. Yes, it's a brown ale. Yes, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of beer styles. They get no respect. Give brown ale a chance. They can be great. And Cigar City makes one of the best ones out there. It is a good brown ale. Well, I was not a fan of the cigar. I got about one third of the way through it, and I was like, well, it doesn't taste enough like the beer. And I just kind of put it down. Kill me. Actually, it's funny. This one is a pure Honduran Habano. That's it. One type of leaf for wrapper, filler, binder. Wow. You don't see that often, do you? No, you really don't. So it's very unique with that. And it's actually supposed to be kind of nuances of earthwood, black cherry and cocoa. I wouldn't put those flavor characteristics in it, but I do think that it pairs extremely well with the brown ale. And if you want to, you know, take your brown ale up a notch, pick up one of these and go back and forth and see what you do. Maybe I made the mistake of not pairing it with the brown ale, mostly because I didn't want five other brown ales I was going to have to drink. Roger. Mix of six. Ridiculous. He loves old school beer and he always razzes me about this. I think the cigar again is a world's apart from something like the breakfast cigar that we smoked. You know, that would definitely I feel is more of like kind of the modern, you know, like there's no nuances there. Like the flavors in that are really intense and pronounced and easy to identify. With something like this, this cigar city, you know, you smoke it slow. You don't want to, you can't work it too hard or it's going to be harsh. But it had some really cool nuances and it definitely I felt got better as it went on. Like it's one of those cigars that it develops some complexity at about the halfway mark that I thought was nice. But I could also totally get if, you know, somebody tried this and they're like, I was a little too intense for me. Like it's maybe something you have to kind of work your way into or maybe make sure you eat first kind of thing. And also definitely pair it with obviously this beer we've been talking about, but it would go well with whiskey. It would go well with coffee. It's a good cigar to have something that kind of freshen up your palate as you smoke it. I will say it's only available in four chains across America, and we happen to be one of those chains. Really? It's cool. Exclusive. Exclusive in Illinois, I'll tell you that much. How many sizes is it available in? Two sizes. So yeah, on this one, you really only have the Toro and the Magnum. They didn't want to, you know, expansive sizes. Yeah. Though I think they did miss out and should have rolled this in that traditional cigar city size, the little perfecto that they use on their label. I thought that would have been pretty cool. Like a punch champion. So speaking of these projects, anything else on the horizon that you can share with us at all? I know you were mentioning the Vault Program in the last podcast, that was kind of cool. Yeah, so the General Vault Program is still up and running, and you'll find some great values on a couple of things that we've mined out of the back door, back room in general, some different things. I think when you visited me at the warehouse, Roger, I showed you a CAO Criollo. That brought back some memories, man. I remember those, they had a cool box. They had one of those boxes that opens up like this instead of it's like a dual. Kind of think like, you know. The hell are you talking about? It's like a car that's doors open like this. But like this. DeLorean is what it... Yeah, it's not like a DeLorean, but so a cigar box usually just open up a lid, all right? Yeah, yeah. They open like a cigar box, yes. Yeah, so this one has two lids. Oh, from the middle. Yeah, from the middle. From the middle. Thankfully, these are not. Who cares? You're not smoking the box. Thankfully, these are not boxed anymore, so you're getting them at a much better price. So see, that box is really expensive to make. It clearly left an impression. I think I have one buried somewhere, I'm sure. It's just like everything else. If you're a hoarder like me, start collecting cigar boxes and it was a cool box. It had some nautical theme to it, so of course, I loved it. Pirate cigars. That's why he remembered them. Hey, so speaking of boxes, this is what I meant to ask earlier. I have this humidor in my basement, and the humidistat is currently at 80 percent. Am I screwing up my cigars and ruining things? Do I need to take one of my humidifier packets out of there and bring it back down a bit or is it fine? No, you want to bring that back down a bit. Your range that you want is between 65 and 75. Seventy-five being a very high end, your ideal is actually 72. I pull a Boveda out of that. If you want to protect your cigars, it might be worthwhile using one of the humidified bags that I would bring by and give you guys. Yeah. For a little bit. I've got a couple of those. How long do those last? Those humidified bags? Those can last two to three months. Okay. Now, the other thing, I just have a bunch of Boveda packs in there, so I can just pull one or two out and I'm sure it'll be fine. He's got four in there. No, I've got more than four in there. More than four. It's a big humidor and a couple of them are old and they're mostly dried up at this point. So throw those out. Yeah, I figure they're contributing something. Those humidifying bags, I kind of forgot about one. They last, man. Way last. I feel like they last way more than three or four months. I just threw that out there. I've got a box of those in the warehouse that I've had for two years now that are still good to go. Wow. So yeah, if you get the right atmosphere, those things can last forever. But yeah, you got to make sure you get that down because you can end up with mold. Then you have to redo the entire humidor, take it out, wipe it down with alcohol, re-season it once it's dried out. I just throw it away. Get another one. So here's a question for you. We don't have to keep this in, but can you salvage a cigar? There's always the debate if something's mold or plume. And usually, whatever I've been told is like, you know, plume should basically always be white. So I get if it's blue or green or yellow, like it's mold, not plume. It's better selling at that point. But if it, the other thing is usually like, if you can just wipe it off, it's plume versus like there'd be resistance if it was mold. But I have a couple of cigars where I think it's kind of iffy. I do keep my cigars in the dark all the time, and we'll just forget about something in a jar for like two, three years. So I don't know if it's mold or plume. You can wipe it off. With mold, you're right. You want to look for the colors. And the big thing is, plume is only going to appear on the surface on the wrapper of the cigar. So if you look down at that foot and you're seeing any sort of crystallization or any sort of growth in the foot, like I wouldn't smoke it. You don't want to smoke moldy feet. So that's what I was wondering. Like what would it be real bad if you smoked it and they had mold in it? Fire kills a lot of things. I mean, I would think, right, you're not inhaling the smoke. I'm going to leave that to you to experiment on. You just let us know. Let us know what happens. All right. So what else is coming up? You passed an interesting cell sheet to me when you walked in the room here for a new Cohiba. Can we talk about this? Are these in stores already? These are coming soon. These are coming soon. They may have been delayed a little bit. Their original ship date was supposed to be July 1st. But yeah, this is a partnership with Weller. So we're getting a Cohiba Weller branded cigar. Listen up, taters. It's the cigar you want. It's weeded, sweet wheat, weeder madness. Hits the cigar world. So when a cigar is bourbon branded, we've seen this before. We've seen the Pabbie Cigars. We've had Maker Cigars for years. What are they doing? They're just throwing the tobacco leaves in the empty bourbon barrels and then co-branding it. It totally depends line to line. When you're talking about the no longer Maker cigar, they can't use that. So now they're, I believe, Ted's Bourbon. But I'm pretty sure with those, he did age it either in the barrel or just poured Makers right on top of that. I'm not sure. It's very pronounced in the Ted's cigars whenever he does a spirit-infused cigar. Then you have something like the barrel-aged Pabbie Van Winkles we have in right now from Drew Estate, the barrel fermented. Where only a small portion of that has anything to do with the barrel. So that I believe is in the cap mostly, possibly the binder. But then when we look at something like the Diesel Whiskey Row, where they're using Rabbit Hole, they're actually aging the binder in barrels for a small amount of time. How are those? Those are fantastic. Rabbit Hole makes some pretty good whiskey, honestly. I actually got to go through that distillery for the first time earlier this year. It's an impressive facility. That's right in Louisville. If you pass through Louisville, it's really cool. And most importantly, it's directly behind my favorite hot chicken sandwich place. So you can really kill two birds with one stone. Shout out Royals Fried Chicken. Back to the sandwiches. I was going to say Justin Andrews from Diesel did a great job when he was working on that and even the sherry cask. As you pull it out of the cellophane, it smells really, really fruity. You're going to get all that sherry right on the nose. But once you light it up, that kind of goes away and leads to a more mellow taste in the stick. Interesting. So yeah, the diesels are good. I like those. I always hated the Maker's Mark ones. Like I like Maker's Mark bourbon, but there's something lost in translation between like them atomizing bourbon in the humidor or whatever and letting the leaves soak it up. But they always tasted real like not like bourbon necessarily, like spirited, but interesting. So these Cohibos, these Weller Cohibos, how was, what's the process here for these? You know, I'm not too sure yet. I don't know too much information on that other than they're going to be 10 count boxes. Going to retail right around $20 a cigar, come in a beautiful glass tube. And I think they're more of a companion piece with a weeded bourbon, rather than being fermented in or aged in a barrel, things like that. Though the brand ambassador for Cohiba, Sean Williams, is pretty on point with a lot of his blending, a lot of the stuff they've done at Cohiba recently, including like the Connecticut. So I'm really excited to get these in store. $20 for a glass tube Cohiba seems pretty reasonable. Extremely reasonable. That's a pretty dark-looking... It's a seven-year-aged Maduro wrapper. Honduran OSA. Wow. What's OSA? It's an area of Honduras. Oh, okay. So seven-year-aged Honduran wrapper. Binder is USA, Havana, Connecticut. Filler, three grades of Nicaraguan Astelli, Nicaraguan Ometepe and Piloto Cubano. What is that? It's a heck of a recipe, I'll tell you that. Okay. Piloto Cubano is kind of known for drying out a little bit when you smoke, so you don't have that crazy saliva going on, things like that. Nice. But I think with that wrapper-binder combo, you're looking at something that's going to go really, really well with any sip of weeded whiskey. What do you think the body... This again is just how it always preys on our instinct, I think, to you see a dark cigar, you think strong, and this is probably not that way. Then if they're bothering to use a seven-year-age wrapper, it's probably more like, would you say, medium to full? I think this one's going to come out medium, possibly medium to full. You might hit some of those fuller notes, but I don't see this as being an overpowered tank. I mean, you didn't hear any strong bits of Lajero in there or anything like that. This isn't a cigar built for strength. This is a really well-balanced cigar from what I'm reading, and just knowing, like I said, Sean, he's got a touch for balancing out cigars really well. And it's going to be the one size, the 5 1⁄2 by 50. One size, that's it. All right, cool, looking forward to trying this one. What else is coming up? Not too much coming up, but I want to talk to you guys a little bit about our top 10 lists that we put out every year, because we talked about that last time, I believe, and we didn't really get into the kind of process. You guys put a lot of work into this. Our people that work in our humidor's, in our stores, take this very seriously. Very seriously. And they're all cigar lovers, and they sell this top list that we put out every year because it's truly their favorite stuff. Yeah, this is absolutely voted on 100% by consultants and other people that work in our locations. I don't do anything but compile all the data over about a month, month and a half, come back, because a lot of people will put in a specific size of something, and when we break down the list, we'll end up with one size, but it's really the whole line that should win it. But we had a fantastic list last year. I don't want to say we had maybe 70, 80 different submissions of top 10 lists. How many can you still get of this top list? The majority of the list is still available in store. We're waiting on some shipments to come in, but our number one was Herrera Esteli Brazilian Maduro Toro. That's a hack of a stick. Hack of a stick from Drew Estate, but Willie's kind of pet project, and something he's working on, the Master Blender. Okay. What's the price range on those? For the Herrera Esteli, you're looking at $9.25 for a Toro. It's not a super expensive stick. And what I love about this whole thing is that it's voted on by all the guys who are there every day selling, smoking, and just learning everything they can about tobacco. Nice. That was number one. That was number one. Any other standouts? I gotta say, number two was the Espinosa Laranja Reserva. And that was a stick that went from being every day available to they're gonna do limited quantities so they can keep the integrity of the wrapper, the Laranja wrapper. So we will be seeing a shipment of that coming in soon. But right now, it's not readily, readily available. There's still a little bit left in the chain. You can give a call to a couple of Binny's and see if they have the, maybe the Robusto Extra Size. But that was a great stick. And then the third one was actually one we talked about on our last podcast, which was the Mac Nudo Inspirato Green. Nice. Yeah, that was an awesome cigar. Roger was a huge fan of that one. Yeah, Mac Nudo, it's one of those things where it's, there's certain products that are ubiquitous. They're like household names, but they make some really good cigars. And some of these line extensions, in particular of Mac Nudo, have been awesome. Yeah, they're doing some really interesting things right now with General Cigar. A lot of it is using experimental types of tobacco grown in different places. So they just released the new Inspirato that's a limited edition. It's only going to be out for a short time. But they're taking that Connecticut shade and they're growing it in Brazil. So Brazil, as far as I'm concerned, is always going to add a little bit of sweetness. Some of my favorite tobacco ever is Brazilian Montafina, which can actually be found in our number one and I believe our number three, the top 10 list last year. It's just got a very nice, inherent sweetness to it, coffee, cocoa. McNeil decided to take that really light Connecticut shade seed and then grow that into Brazil just to see what happens. I feel like you're going to have a much more exciting time down in Brazil than you are in Connecticut. So I'm all for that. Quite possibly, but I don't think they have any of Pat's favorite food places. National hot chicken sandwiches have taken over the world, man. You never know. Very true. Very true. All right. What else you got on this list? I asked if for any highlights and you gave me cigars one, two, and three. Yeah. Well, there's plenty more on the list. How big is this list? 10 or 20? We only do 10 cigars. Yeah. We do 10. Cigar Fishing Auto and some of the other blogs send to do 25, but we wanted to keep it a little bit more focused. Yeah. Screw those guys. So our top cigars, let's see here. We had the Knuckle Buster. We had a Pappy. We had a CAO Bone something. Bones. Bones. Espinoza. There's a Macanoodle and Spirato. Herrera Steli. That was the real winner. That was a real winner last year. Oh, from my guy Frank in Oakbrook. He's great. All right, Jack, what else is coming this year that we need to care about? All I'm gonna tell you right now is that I don't know. The trade show is coming up soon, and with the trade show means a whole bunch of new items, so keep checking in with us in the next couple of months for new things here or there, different accessories, cigars. We'll end up doing another Buyers Picks for the holiday episode, too, where we'll have you back on with a couple holiday picks, maybe some new accessories, something like that, too, anyway. Speaking of accessories, I've got to tell you guys about the ashtrays that we're having made down in Honduras. We've partnered up with Christian Oroa, CLE Cigar Company. After the hurricanes came through and swept Honduras and Nicaragua back to back, there was two hurricanes last year. A lot of people were displaced by that. Talking with Christian, he was in the process of working on a woodshop. What we did is we bought some ashtrays from him, gave him a pre-order on the ashtrays, knowing what they would look like, and we were able to get a whole bunch of people hired in Honduras to produce these ashtrays, which are now available in store. And these ashtrays are coming from recycled wood, recycled cigar box lids, have a nice metal base on it, and are stamped with either the Asylum 13 or the Aroha logo currently. It was really cool as a company, we were able to get a whole bunch of people who were displaced by a natural disaster back to work. That's awesome. That's really cool. They look really nice, too. They're cool and they are affordable, too. What are we selling those for? $15.95. That's totally cool. Nice. All right. Cool. I know you're probably always working your way through samples and stuff, and you got to evaluate cigars. What's something that you've just smoked lately that you'd liked? Just like, I want to have a cigar, I don't want it to be work, I just want to enjoy a cigar. Because as pretentious as this sounds, that's what it can sometimes get like for us where we have to always taste stuff and evaluate it. Sometimes you want to just not have to think about it, and you just want to enjoy it and not take notes and just have a good time. I was going to say the Under Crown 10 was one. It was more revisiting that for me because I had smoked it in the test blend stage. It's not to say that Drew States is sending me test blends, but they did a really interesting freestyle live release, and send some unbanded samples out and let people try them ahead of time. But actually, it's going back to a Liga No. 9. I've had a couple of those in my Hemador for a little while, and just being able to go back to truly one of my favorite cigars. And I apologize for anybody who's going to run out and try to find a Liga No. 9, because they're really hard to find right now. Just production-wise everything, I mean, it's difficult. Ligas are really big cigars, right? Not necessarily big, but you can get it in a Toro size, but they're a bold stick. I mean, yeah, I mean like big flavor. Yeah, big flavor. I find the No. 9 to be a little bit softer, a little bit better balanced than the 52, the T52. The T52 is going to smack you in the face, and that's that really heavy stock cut that Roger was talking about. So you want something really bold with a T52. With No. 9, you can sip on a spirit or something that's just a little more soft, not have it overtake. All right, cool. Did you ever smoke that, Liga? You gave us one. Is it in your humidor? Nope, it's in my humidor. Mellowing out, hopefully. Curly, curly, growing legs. No, no, nothing's moldy yet. I'll take a Boveda Packer 4 out of there and it'll be fine. Yeah, sounds good. Well, I bought the 69% ones and they didn't get it up to high enough humidity in the range. So, I started putting 73s or 72s or whatever it is in there. And I put like four of them in there at a time. Yeah, they're supposed to be a two-way humidity system. They're supposed to actually absorb. But if you've got 69% and 72%, then your 69% are going to try to absorb anything over 69. So, you might just be feeding the 72 into the 69. I'm not sure what's, the 69, I might have gotten out of there after it had dried out. I'd have to check. I'll check tonight when I get home. Just don't boost to a 75 or an 84. 84s are only for seasoning. Okay. Jack, thanks a lot, man. Once again, tons of fun. Great to be able to enjoy some of these really, really nice cigars. And it's summertime, man. This is the best time. Undercrowned 10, get them now. They're incredible. Looking forward to this Cohiba Weller. Should be fun. Yeah, I can't wait till that hits stores, but I really appreciate you guys having me out. Nice. Thanks, Jack. It's been fun talking cigars with Jack. If you like this kind of stuff, do us a favor, leave us a review on iTunes. Tell your mom about the show. We'll be back in your feed next week with something new and interesting. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Jack. Keep smoking. Okay, sorry, I lost my train of thought. I'm shocked as she's shooting a rubber band around my arm. God, ADD over here.