You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Pat, I do spirits at Binny's. With me in the room today is Roger. How you doing, Roger? I'm Dubierre. Fruit enthusiast as well. Also, our special guest today is one of our cigar buyers, Jack. Welcome, Jack. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I feel very special today. Thank you. Well, you should feel very special today. More importantly, we're like a couple years overdue for a good cigar podcast, I think, at this point. I don't think we really talked about him outside of Roger's adventures on his porch while drinking rum or something. So we do need to talk about this other major category that we sell in our stores that we all enjoy. Jack recently gave us a few samples of some upcoming releases, I guess we'll call them. Is that it, Jack? Yeah, we have some upcoming releases, some stuff that we have in the stores already, like the Clark and Sheffield, things like that, and we can go cigar by cigar, break them down, see what you guys liked. All right. Well, maybe let's start with a quick Cigar 101 on how people should be enjoying this stuff. I know there's a lot of confusing jargon with cigars, right? I never really know. People are looking for mild or full, and I was talking to Roger before we started here, and now Roger's telling me there's full flavor and full body, and they're not the same thing, and I was just instantly confused. Correct. They are not the same thing. You can have a full flavored mild cigar, or you can have a full bodied medium flavored cigar. So flavor and strength are two completely different things. A lot of people refer to the strength as the body of the cigar, and that's how much nicotine is going to be packed into the filler. And that's what gives that sensation of body is how strong that filler tobacco is? Yeah, the body is going to come from the upper parts of the plants, the leharo leaves. That's going to contain the most nicotine. What happens is as the plant is growing, the soil, the nutrients go up to the very top, and cigar producers leave that top section of the plant to gain the strength. And that's really what leaves you feeling sometimes you had a much heavier cigar than you would think about or weren't expecting. You get that kind of dizzy feeling that's going to be the nicotine hitting you. Oh, yeah. Before I was in Bureau's, I was in the Binny's Humidors. And one of the most common things that I feel I ran into is that people always said that they wanted a mild cigar. But the more you talk to them, the more you start to try to actually figure out what it is that they like. It's kind of like Pat can probably relate to this when somebody wants a whiskey and they say, I like something smooth. Yeah, everybody's definition of full bodied or, you know, mild or medium or full. They're all going to be different. I've had plenty of people come up to me and ask me to recommend a mild cigar. And then I ask them what they normally like to smoke. And they say something like the Flor de las Antillas, which is a medium to full bodied heavy cigar. But to them, it's mild. So you kind of have to judge based on each each individual's palate, each customer's idea of where their range is. So when we're talking about cigars here, if we just kind of walk back a couple of steps here for for some of the listeners that maybe don't normally smoke cigars, the cigars primarily that we're selling in our humidor are going to be premium handmade cigars. So that's made up of three main components, right, Jack? Yeah, you're going to have your filler, your binder and your wrapper. Those are the main three components of a handmade cigar. And a lot of our like shelf talkers or if you talk to some of our consultants, you know, a cigar may or may not contain tobacco from different regions. It could be from different islands in the Caribbean, from South America. The main places where tobacco is grown and harvested, the three biggest countries that we sell are going to be Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan. But each cigar is going to have a blend of different tobaccos from different regions within those countries. You're going to get different nuances from the different soil types. Nicaragua is an interesting place because you can grow the same seed on one side of the street and the other side of the street and get a completely different flavor out of the tobacco once it's been harvested and cured. Are you implying that there's terroir in tobacco? I absolutely am. There is definitely terroir in tobacco. That's really cool. So a cigar is made up of these three different tobaccos, filler, binder, and wrapper. And are those three components pulled off of a different part of the tobacco leaf itself, or are they aged in a different process, or do they have a different maturity? How do we end up with those three different tobaccos? Well, what you're really going to end up with is a master blender. He's going to be the guy who takes the different types of tobaccos pulled off of the different sections of the plant, where you have three different types, Lahiro being the strongest, Seco being in the middle. They're going to have different strengths of nicotine, different flavor profiles, and then how they're cured, how long they're cured and fermented, because all the cigars that we have have gone through a fermentation process as well. No kidding. I didn't know they actually ferment. I knew tobacco had to be cured or dried, right? It's just like hung in a barn and they just let it go, or is it they're a science of climate control around that as well? It's really interesting. Once you start to harvest the tobacco plant, it's done in different rounds. They'll get the bottom suckling leaves off and they'll start tying them on to big poles that go into curing barns. The curing barns, it can either be air cured or, for instance, the Drew Estate makes a cigar called Kentucky Fire Cured, where they actually hang the tobacco in the barns and then light small fires at the bottom of the barns to smoke the tobacco. What you're watching for there is the leaf to turn from green to brown. You want the chlorophyll to actually leave and dissipate from the leaf. Once you get this nice brown, kind of elastic, little bit playful tobacco, that's when they start taking them out of the barns and putting them into pylons. And pylons are giant stacks of tobacco. Think of like, maybe you've seen a bacon weave or something on Instagram. It's that kind of idea where they stack these weaves of tobaccos. And those are constantly rotated because the tobacco at that point is starting to ferment and it's actually giving off heat and can ruin itself or over ferment. So that's when you get to the tobacco. That's when you get the temperature control and those rooms that you go into where the fermentation room smells very strongly of ammonia. You would not want to grab tobacco right off that pile and light it up. That's one of the things that's interesting about sometimes people see a freshly handmade rolled cigar and they think like, oh, freshness is always better. Like I want something that's that was like just rolled. But ironically, that's kind of like the opposite. Right, Jack? Half of the tobacco business is about aging the leaf. Absolutely. So what they'll do is people, like you said, will see that freshly rolled cigar and think, oh my God, fresh is better. I want to smoke this as soon as it's done being rolled. But you really want to give it time in an aging room for the tobacco to marry. All the different oils from what you've put together in that filler bunch are going to blend together and to really achieve a certain flavor profile once they come out of the aging room. Talking about maturing tobacco leaf, one of the terms that you see a lot in the cigar industry is Maduro. In our last fruit episode, we were talking about Maduro plantain. Maduro, of course, is the Spanish word for ripe and mature. Can you talk a little bit about, if people come across the term Maduro and Maduro cigars, what are they getting into? The Maduro leaves tend to be aged a little bit longer in the cigar world. They tend to have a darker hue to them, but because they've fermented and they've aged a little bit longer, they actually have a slightly sweeter profile. It's interesting because the residual sugars will come up. When you see a Maduro wrap, your first thought might be, it's a dark cigar, this is going to be heavy, it's going to be strong, I can't smoke it. But it's almost the opposite where certain Maduro's like an Ashton Maduro is a very medium-bodied, smooth-flavored cigar that anybody can pick up tomorrow, whether you smoke 10 cigars a day or one, every now and then. It's the Guinness factor. People see Guinness and they always think like, oh, Guinness is such a heavy, dark beer, like I can't handle Guinness. But if you're talking about a Guinness draft, I mean, that beer is so light that it floats on top of a lager. This is where we get into the whole flavor versus body kind of thing. So the wrapper would be imparting a lot of flavor, correct, but not so much the body. Yeah, your wrapper is going to be the most important part of a cigar. That's going to inform the most flavor and the most nuance. And the wrapper tobacco is the most expensive out of all of them, between the filler, the binder, and the wrapper. But it's also a common misconception I see a lot of bigger is better. There's a lot of 80 ringgages, 70 ringgages, and people will assume that, well, a bigger cigar is going to have more value because I spent X amount of dollars, and I have this massive cigar. But you lose the nuance of the wrapper, the more filler tobacco is inside. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, it's a surface area thing. Exactly. If I'm going to choose my favorite, the tolas, which is just special word for size, it's going to be a robusto or Corona, a smaller, shorter cigar, where I'm going to get more of that more of that wrapper flavor. Now, I've always been under the assumption that people enjoy the larger ring gauge cigars because they burn at a lower temperature, those fatter, bigger cigars, and then you're getting less like burny, ashy flavors. Is that more a function of the quality of cigar? You're saying a robusto is kind of small, right? Yeah, a robusto is going to be about five inches with a 50-inch ring gauge. It's a smaller cigar. But, Pat, you're right on. With a bigger ring gauge cigar, the smoke's going to be cooler by the time it hits your mouth because of the diameter of the cigar. The ring gauge. So, it'll be a cooler smoke, but frequently when people complain about a smaller cigar heating up or smoky too much, it's because they're popping a little too often and they're bringing the fire closer to your mouth. You're burning it down and it's just heating up all the rest of the filler at an accelerated rate. That's why a lot of people aren't fans of lanceros, which are about the size of a pencil or a drumstick. They're very small, but you can get some of the best wrapper flavor from a lancero. The key is to smoke it slowly. Interesting. I don't know. It sounds a little pretentious, I suppose, but the term sipping, it can help people get a concept of like when you're smoking a cigar, you're just drawing in a little bit of air versus like really puffing the way at the thing and going crazy. Yeah, that's the idea is to keep it lit without forcing the tobacco to burn too quickly or to possibly canoe on the inside, which is another term for when you don't have a flat burn but all of a sudden the fire on the inside is pulling through almost Listen man, we've all smoked poorly rolled joints before, okay? We're familiar with the term canoeing. All right, all right, fair enough. There's 80 Ringgauge cigars now? Yes, absolutely. We carry them, and they do very well. Oh, I saw those. I was at the Geneva story yesterday, and I saw some absolutely ridiculous-looking cigars that would have a very comical look to them, I think, when being smoked by someone. I don't understand what the draw is to these things, but outside of novelty. You know, Pat, I kind of refer to something that size as the comic book villain, because I could just see the penguin chomping away on something like that, or exactly your old-time gangster. Just bigger the better. But yeah, no, I don't understand the appeal myself. It would last more than an entire round of golf. That's what I was just going to say was, I know some guys like the real big, like double coronas and stuff, because you can smoke it while you're playing golf. I've always argued, too, you can just smoke two different cigars in the same amount of time, right? How often do those guys who are smoking the double coronas, and double coronas are not going to be as big as a ring gauge as your Gordo's in your 70s and 80s. But how often are you going to leave that on a whole four or five? You're going to forget about it. So Roger's right. If you're going golf, then bring three or four cigars. That's the key. Yeah, yeah, totally. I smoke like the golf thing is pretty spot on. I smoke when I'm playing around a golf or something or occasionally. When I run into you, Jack, at a store, you always got cigar samples and I like smoking a cigar in my car on my way home from work when the weather is good. And I kind of smoke it until I get out of traffic on like I 90 or something. Then I put the thing out and I'm done with it. And I rarely ever smoke a whole cigar. But for somebody like me who smokes occasionally and appreciates a cigar, how do I how do I build up to, you know, enjoying these things and how do I build my cigar palette, so to speak? So that's a great question. And all I can tell you guys about is my journey for building my palette. And that's the fact that I'm a baker and a cook. I love to do that stuff at home. So a lot of smelling different spices, different things similar to how you guys would do if you're trying spirits out. If you're going to drink a new rum, is it going to be, you know, honey based? Are you going to get some of the sweetness from this or that? So when I go to smoke, the first thing I do is I snip the end of the cigar and take a cold draw. I'll smell the cigar up and down to see how it reacts to just, you know, just the smell, the cold draw. Sorry, technical issues. I'm picturing you running one of those giant asylums like back and forth under your nose, like you're playing a giant harmonica or something. Do not tempt me and you don't have to put it up to your nose. Okay, that's another thing. Please do not go into a cigar shop, take things off the wall and jam up your nose, especially not now. The best is when people put a cigar, like they'll put the foot of the cigar, the part you light, right up to their nose, and then like 30 seconds later, they have a sneezing fit. It's like, yeah, don't stick it up your schnoz and be like, I wonder how strong this is. We're going to get all the little bits that are in there, we're going to take them right into the sinuses. That's a brilliant idea. It's like sniffing black pepper. When you said you snip the cigar, let me interject here real quick. This is something I think people could use a review on. When you say you cut your cigar, what kind of cut do you typically use? Can you go over what the process of cutting a cigar is like? Absolutely. There's three main types of cuts. You have your straight cut, which is what everybody's seen from movies, or you're seeing a gangster movie and he's got the straight cutter, he's going to take the finger off, things like that. Then there's the V cut, which takes a V-shaped wedge out, but leaves the head of the cigar intact. So you actually have parts of the rounded edge, and then there's the punch, and the punch puts a small hole in the back. There's a couple other different types, but those are the three main types. For me, recently, I've been a V cut fan. We sell a Calibri V cut that is perfect for maintaining the consistency of the cap through the entire smoking process, but it cuts very deep, so it's almost like a straight cut. The main difference in that is how the smoke is going to funnel through the cigar and into your mouth. So your punch cut is going to be a small circle and you're going to have more of a tar build up around the edges. The V cut is going to have a little bit of tar build up, but not as much. And that straight cut is going to allow for the most air flow to come through. So your cigar is going to burn a little bit quicker. With the V cut and the punch cut, because the cap is, there's still a little of the cap on the cigar, it doesn't fall apart in your mouth as much, maybe? There's plenty of customers I see who cut way too much off the end of their cigar. And if that's the way they want to smoke it, that's fine. But the cap's there to hold together the whole roll. So once you take that cap off, if you cut a little too much, you're going to start unraveling the wrapper, and your flavor is going to start dissipating. You're going to get loose bits of tobacco in the mouth. And that's one of the reasons why I prefer the V cut. Yeah, that's why I always use a punch, just because otherwise it just falls apart. But am I a total noob for using a punch? No, not at all. It's all about preference, all about preference. Yeah, some people, I would say, stay away from the punch because, like Jack said, it can concentrate the tar into the punch area then, and then you might speed up the bittering process. A lot of people, like once they get about halfway through a cigar, they don't like it as much because the tar build up from the leaves, it kind of changes the flavor profile. That can be a shame because the cigar is blended to change in all three sections. So from that foot, you're going to have a different flavor profile than the middle as to the nub at the end. But, you know, as Pat said, you know, I get out of traffic and I'm done with it. I put it out. I, you know, that's the perfect time to to let a cigar go out is whenever you're done smoking it. You don't have to smoke it down to the nub. You don't have to get the pretty Instagram picture where you just have a tiny little chunk sitting in the ring. Or anything like that. Whenever you're whenever you felt like you've gotten enough out of a cigar, put it down, let it die its natural death, and then find an ashtray and dispose. I think there's a bit of an oxymoron there, though, when you bring up cigar Instagram pictures and pretty Instagram pictures. Like, I feel that whenever you have a cigar picture on social media, it's always just like some middle aged dudes, like gnarly hands and gross fingernails holding like a nub of a cigar. Like nobody wants to see that cigar, guys. Stop it. You know what, Pat, you're following the wrong people on Instagram. I was going to say, there's a whole different world out there, Pat. You might want to take a new fresh look at Instagram and cigar. I can agree with that. There are some very gnarly fingernail pictures and rough looking hands out there holding the cigar, snapping a picture, I'm smoking this today. One thing that Jack said that I think is crucial, that's a tip that not enough people know. Notice how he said you put the cigar out down and let it die, not that you put the cigar out. If you're one of these people that can't stand the smell, if you mash a cigar out and put it out as if it was a cigarette, it's going to smell completely different than if you just lay it down in the ashtray and let it go out. Exactly. That goes back to the filler. The filler tobaccos are long filler in a lot of our handmade cigars. When you mash that down and you spread that out, just explode the wrap or the binder, A, you have a mess. B, it starts burning all sorts of different parts and it's going to take longer to put out. So yeah, just set it down somewhere where it's not going to start a fire, let it die out, and that's when you can pick up and dispose. How bad is it to relight a cigar later after you've put it down? I did this yesterday with one of the cigars you gave us, and I was very pleased with it. It was fine. I smoked most of this cigar before dinner, and then I came in the house, had dinner, and I was just thinking about it. I was like, man, that was really good. I should go finish that. It was just sitting in the cigar ashtray on my front porch next to a chair. I just went back outside and lit it and smoked it down to the nub. When I lit it, there wasn't much left at all, but it was just that good of a cigar that I wanted to go back to it. It's really not a faux pas or anything. You can go back to a cigar. As long as you set it down, you let it kind of rest out. The one thing that I like to do is if I'm going to relight a cigar later, I'll let it burn out, stop burning, and then I'll blow through the cigar outward, and then I'll flush some of that stagnant smoke that's sitting inside out. So you get more of a refreshing taste when you go to light it up back up again. But yeah, so what you did is you had the first, the foot, the middle part, and then decided, I'll go back for the nub, right? Yeah, it was good. I think that that blowing out through the cigar can even help freshen up the cigar while you're smoking it too. If you notice that the cigar is getting a little bit bitter, if you just tip it downward, blow through it a little bit, I've found that that can freshen up a cigar a little bit. Absolutely, because as you're smoking it, you're thinking about a cigar burning, you're just putting smoke on smoke, on smoke through the leaves, pulling it through. Every now and then to just give it a little bit of a refresher and move out some of that smoke that's been sitting in there, almost, I don't want to say curing the leaves, but just caking onto the leaves. Yeah, it'll help change a little bit of that flavor for you. That's interesting. Any other tips and tricks that come to mind before we move on? Yes. The number one tip for when you picked up a cigar and you weren't expecting it to be as strong as it is, and all of a sudden you start getting a little dizzy, or you start, say, I call it the nicotine ants, because you start getting a little bit itchy or something like that, is crack a beverage with sugar. The sugar content of a Coca-Cola is going to help push the nicotine through your system, and you're going to go back to enjoying that cigar. A lot of the old school cigar smokers will keep sugar packets in their pocket, and if they feel like they've bitten off a little more than they could chew because they didn't eat before they started smoking, they'll actually just tear the sugar packet and put it under their tongue. So sugar is your friend. That's why I think Roman cigars and bourbonic cigars go together so well, is that that sweetness. Hmm, it's pretty interesting. That's interesting. I'm picturing somebody like snorting a sugar packet when they get a little too itchy with nicotine here. I don't know if I'd snort it, Pat, but, you know, to each their own. If you want to talk about retro-hailing, then you can do that, you know. What is retro-hailing? Retro-hailing is a term in the cigar industry to help you to taste the cigar a little bit better. So what you do is you take a big puff of your cigar and you blow out, I'd say, 90% of the smoke, 95% of the smoke, and then you close your mouth and you blow that last 5% through your sinuses and out your nose. And as we know, it sounds, that's why I'm the cigar guy here. But it sounds like it's going to hurt, it's going to sting everything, but if it's just the last little bit of smoke, we know how much our nose is informing our taste buds. So that's what's going to help you find some of those nuances if you really want to develop a palate. I will say, be very cautious. If you're going to retrohale and you've never done it before, you want to keep my advice 5% at most, because you will start to cry. I'm just picturing that scene in the sandlot where the kids do the chewing tobacco and then they puke all over the carnival rides. I don't know. I don't think that would end well for me if I tried to blow cigar smoke out through my nose. It's the same if people try to inhale a really strong cigar. Do not inhale a cigar. It's not meant for inhaling. You're talking about two different types of tobacco here. Cigarettes are made from a black tobacco seed. Cigarettes are made from a blonde tobacco seed. If you start inhaling cigars, it will go immediately into those nicotine ants I talked about and you will start vomiting. That is true. I've inhaled just once by mistake on a cigar and boy, it hits you instantly. Yeah, you get that wide-eyed, I know I just messed up. I know something's not right. I've seen it way too many times. All right, so you gave us a few samples, and I have smoked the, I smoked that Clark and Sheffield you gave us. I'm not sure which Clark and Sheffield that was. There's only one. Okay, I smoked the Asylum 13, and I smoked the Macanudo Inspirato. So which one should we start with? You know what, let's start with Clark and Sheffield. It's hard not to start with our own brand, but Clark and Sheffield was a passion project. I knew once we had expanded into all the different categories that a cigar had to be next. So our Clark and Sheffield is made by CLE Cigars out of Honduras. Christian is one of the owners, one of the best when it comes to Corojo tobacco, which is why we went with the Corojo wrapper. But we want to make it really approachable. So when we talk about that body, it's going to be more of a medium body. We didn't want to make a cigar that was going to turn anybody off from smoking, but I also wanted something that would pair really well with the spirits that you guys had put together. So when you say that was a Corojo wrapper, it looked pale compared to most of the Corojo. Is that just from how long it's aged for versus Corojo being a seed type, right? Yeah. Corojo is a seed type and then the aging is going to inform the color. It could be that we had a different color box, but they were a little bit lighter than some of the other ones. But I really think that the Clarket Sheffield to me is one of the most approachable cigars in the humidor. It's not going to be your mildest, but it could be enjoyed by people who smoke often or people who rarely smoke at all. The key is what you're going to have with it. I really liked it and I think the shade, I don't know, maybe it was just that I was smoked it at night and I wasn't looking at it under natural light. But I'm sometimes hesitant with Connecticut shade wrappers. I'm not usually that big of a fan of that, so I just sort of thought it was like a little bit of a darker Connecticut. But it had a ton of flavor, which makes more sense that it's a Corojo, because I think Corojo leaf is a lot of my favorite cigars have included some of that. So absolutely. Connecticut Shade is worth bringing up. You want to explain that a little bit real quick while we're on that as far as like. So Connecticut Shade is probably some of the most well-known wrapper tobacco grown in the Connecticut River Valley. When they say shade-grown tobacco, what happens is you're growing the tobacco in a giant field, and over the top, they literally shade the tobacco with almost like a cheesecloth. So it's getting less nutrients from the sun, and it leads to a paler, lighter tobacco. The regular Macanudo Cafe is a Connecticut, a US Connecticut shade. Whereas if you try the new Inspirado White, that's going to be an Ecuadorian shade. I tend to feel like the Ecuadorian shade's got more flavor to it, and leads to almost a better product. But if you're looking for your classic dad's Macanudo, that's going to be the Cafe line. And Connecticut shade wrappers are almost always very mild tasting, right? So yes, the Connecticut shade wrapper is, I'd say, 75% of the time going to be a mild cigar, though. There's a couple of different producers who like to put a lot of that really heavy leharo in, you know, just to see how you like it. Or try to trick you. So the key is when you're looking for mild cigars, talk to our cigar consultants. Those guys smoke more than probably all of us combined. For years, though, it was kind of that assumption that if you want a milder cigar, you get a Connecticut shade wrapped cigar. And I think, unfortunately, that those can be good, especially if you're new to cigars. It's something to talk about and to look for. Like Jack said, what can be frustrating is that, you know, it's what inside that's going to affect the body, not what's on the outside. But usually, if you're going to bother to put something mild on the outside, you're going to have something mild on the inside as well. But the problem with some of those is that they can kind of be a little lackluster as far as flavor wise. They're, yeah, a little milder. But if you feel like you're, you know, they can have like a papery kind of vegetal, just, I don't know. It's hard to describe them without using a corollary as to how interesting some of the other wrapper leaves can taste. So, you know, some of the things that you pick up on and some of these other wrappers are just, you know, they really can blow your mind as far as the spice, like sweet spice, not just like black pepper spice. The Clark and Sheffield, though, going back to that, I had some tasting notes from it and I thought it had this cedar-y quality that I thought was really nice and enjoyable. Yeah, almost a sweet cedar. When I smoked the first couple of samples, we got it from CLE. They provided me with a bunch of different cigars to go through. And when I smoked the sample that ended up becoming our Clark and Sheffield, I really locked in on that cedar. And for me, I got a little bit of sweetness, which is why I thought it would pair up really well with our Barrel. Yeah, it was really good. I really enjoyed it as about as casual as a cigar smoker can be. I really enjoyed that cigar. It was good. And it's pretty good value, too. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We we negotiated a very good price and passed that down to all the customers. So Clark and Sheffield. So all those Clark and Sheffields are the same tobacco blend and wrapper. Only difference is the sizes, correct? Correct. And those are running from what price range? I think I just put them on sale this month. But yeah, we're looking at around the $5 to $7 range in between there. So a nice sweet spot. Yeah. I'm a firm believer in you don't need to spend $20 for a good cigar, though there are some very good $20 cigars out there. You know, I like that. I like that five to eight range, five to ten range, because that's where I think you get some of your best, almost ingenuity from these rollers, too. These these master blenders is what can you do within that range? Yeah, that was a really nice cigar. And again, I think you did a good job of picking something that's not too plain Jane, but also not too overwhelming. Like I would put it in that medium, nice arena that a wide spectrum of people are going to enjoy it. Thank you. Since we're on the topic of CLE, do you guys want to move to the Abdullah Oblongada? Yeah, that was awesome. That was a great cigar. Holy cow. I haven't smoked a cigar that I just wanted to go back to like that in a long time. And not to diminish the Clark and Sheffield. Clark and Sheffield was very good. But when I smoked this asylum last night, I was blown away. I can't remember the last time I smoked a cigar that good. So yeah, it's a Medulla Oblongata. We currently carry it in one size, in the 6x60, but the Medulla and the Oblongata, one is a box pressed and one is a round. So it's Christian having fun again with packaging, sizes, shaping, different things he can do. And that one has a Mexican San Andreas wrapper that really, really sets off the rest of the cigar. It really informs it nice and oily. Yeah, it was really good, man. It burned really well. It burned real evenly. It had such flavor to it, but it didn't have that ashy heat to it. It wasn't bitter. It was just awesome. What size was that that we had? It was a 5 by 50? So yeah, you guys had a special sample size that I had. So you had a 5 by 50. It's slightly smaller than what we carry. But imagine that exact same smoke with just a little bit extra on the ring gauge. So it's going to be a little bit cooler when the smoke hits your mouth. And that was our number one cigar of the year. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. I thought the name rang a bell besides the Waterboy. And I then thought back to our top 10 list. And I go, oh yeah, I guess a couple other people thought this is a great cigar too, when I was smoking it. But yeah, I think Maduro, Maduro cigars. What do we sell that one for? I really enjoy. All right. So that was a Maduro. And what's that cost, Jack? That guy you're looking at about eight dollars and seventy five cents. So once again, underneath the ten dollars, Asylum knocks it out of the park. What can I say? Yeah, those guys is a no brainer for the value, right? That I thought. Yeah. What's up with all the seems to be a propensity towards craziness with the names like lunatic asylum? Is this a new trend, Jack? I don't understand. But yeah, no, I know, I know Christian fell in love with the asylum name and lunatic is coming out of agonorsa tobacco. Also fantastic, fantastic tobacco down there. I'm not sure. I think we're trying to get a little out there, a little crazy. I mean, we've got new stuff coming in from Drew Estate that's called Leather Rose and has a sugar skull girl on the box and from their Deadwood line, which is another excellent line, but a little bit different. They've got Fat Bottom Fetty and Sweet Jane and some spittracy stuff, but I think we're all just looking for a section of the market. All right, so that asylum was exceptional. The other one I smoked was this new macanoodle that's coming, the Inspirato, is it called, the Inspirato Green? Yeah, the Inspirato Green. So the Inspirato line has been a huge hit for us. There's several variations. There's the white, the orange, the red, the black, and now they're coming out with the green. The green has to be one of my favorites right off the top. I have a propensity to really love Brazilian tobacco because of an inherent sweetness and earthiness that comes from it. And this is going to be the first time that McNeado has ever used Brazilian tobacco. And that was the wrapper. So that's what gave you that kind of dark look. I've always loved Brazilian Montafina and some of the other different varietals out of Brazil. What are some of the other cigars that use Brazilian tobacco? I know I've had CAO, but nothing else comes to mind. CAO's had some, usually it gets used as a filler. I've seen that a lot. So because of the sweetness, I've seen it used as a filler in a couple of different things. Punch did a really interesting project. It was last year called the Store Press Project, where it was very similar fillers and binders. But one was wrapped in a Brazilian Montafina, one was wrapped in a classic Habano, and then they had another one in a Broadleaf Connecticut, that really heavy, dark colored toothy wrapper. But the ability to taste the difference in the wrapper, which not to get sidetracked, but if anybody wants to really see how a wrapper can influence a cigar, we have the La Rora Preferitos in, and they have the exact same filler, exact same binder. The only difference in all the different shades is the wrapper. So you can smoke it from one all the way to the other end, and get an idea of what you like in a wrapper. That's super cool. I was going to say before when you were talking about how important the wrapper is, that I had a cigar once that I think I let it get too dry and rehumidified it, and what can end up happening then is the wrapper falls off, essentially it starts coming off. So just for that, I kept trying to fix it and it was gone. So since I had always read that it was such a huge percentage of the flavoring of the cigar, I just pulled the whole wrapper off and smoked it without a wrapper. So it was still held together by the binder leaf. It was amazing how boring the cigar was. I mean, it loses, I mean, it's kind of mind-boggling, to be honest, this paper leaf thin wrapper imparts literally the majority of the flavor. I mean, it was nothing left, huh? Nothing left. It was super weird. You're spot on when you say paper thin. Some of the best wrapper leaf I've seen. You can hold it up to a light and you can almost see through it, almost translucent. I was telling Pat that I was really impressed at this cigar. I think it's cool of Macanudo to kind of branch out and and tackle cigar blends with a little more character and a little more strength. Not to say that this was, this is to me pretty much straight up like a medium body. It wasn't wasn't too full. I really appreciated how the flavor developed throughout the cigar. Like you were saying before, you can kind of think of a cigar in thirds. And the last third in particular, I thought was just super interesting. Some kind of interesting like these graham cracker kind of seat. It had a creaminess to it. It had like a cinnamony kind of warm spice character to it. Just really a pretty nice cigar. And it's amazing to think about how that's coming from just the tobacco. What Roger said, you're almost thinking dessert in your head right now. But that's just that final third of that cigar. I'd suggest grabbing some, some inspirado greens when they finally do hit the shelves, and having that right after you have a nice steak or, you know, with a cup of coffee. I think that you're spot on with it being medium bodied. I don't think it's going to hit that medium plus, to whereas I think that this could actually work as a decent morning cigar as well. A morning cigar. Absolutely. You don't get up and smoke a cigar in the morning, Pat? I leave that to you cigar guys. Whenever I'm in the office, you can smell when a cigar guy walks in. I don't need that. They can already smell me. The other thing I was talking to Pat about with the cigar is that, I think maybe it comes from the fact that General is a big company and whatnot. But if you have a good QC program, we are at the end of the day talking about a handmade product. So consistency is a real issue and this thing burned perfectly. I mean, you could take a picture of it and use as like a calendar shot or something. I mean, the most perfect even steady burn, beautiful long, like the ash held up well. I mean, you could tell this thing was just ludicrously well-made. One of those gross Instagram finger pictures. There you go. I was going to say the nice long white ash that everybody looks for. Now, that's a question I've always wondered about. Is it desirable and if so, why to avoid knocking the ash off of your cigar while you're smoking it? So, unlike a cigarette, you're looking at how well the ash will maintain, and that goes back to, in my opinion, the people who have machine-made cigars, like a Swisher versus a long-filler cigar. So, a long-filler cigar is going to burn in that those leaves are still attached, so you're still going to have that stack of ash on the end. It's a thing among cigar smokers to just let it fall off when it falls, and there's even long ash contest to see how long you can go without letting it fall off. Took part in one of those long ash contests, took part in one of those when we were down in Nicaragua with Drew Estates and had to smoke a T-52 Double Corona in one hour and the longest ash one. Yeah, you have to have steady hands. I'll tell you, I'll tell you that much, because that's a big cigar and it's pretty heavy. But it's a preference thing. Or you can cheat and put a wire through the thing. Wasn't somebody did that like George Burns or somebody, I think? Yes, he would take a paperclip and run it through. So that would help maintain his ash at the end of his cigars. Nothing says enjoyment like smoking a paperclip. Gross, dude. I think I still want to hear about the General Vault Program and the Four Star next release. So the General Vault Program is something that we've started and partnered up with General Cigar. What happens frequently at General Cigar is because, like Roger was saying, they are such a large company, is that they will produce too many cigars for the amount of boxes that they make. And when that happens, they've got an overrun, and those overruns of cigars generally sit in their aging room for an extended period of time. What they've allowed me to do is start selecting some of those overruns of cigars and selling them to me at a massive discount. So I've been able to pass that along to all the customers. There's brands that they've either discontinued, they're no longer going to make, or there's just a lot of unique things that you can find. And we're working pretty diligently with these guys to try to get a consistent maybe four or five different cigars at what we call our closeout pricing or end up in pricing to help them move the cigars out, but also have some really, really well aged Wow, that's awesome. That brings up a whole nother discussion of aging cigars and doing that at home. We could have a whole nother podcast in here on cigars, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah, there's tons of stuff we haven't even really scratched yet. And just talking about humidity, you know, control and maintaining cigars. And yeah, for sure. I'm super excited to hear about this. This program sounds super cool. I mean, that is definitely Pat was talking about a Padrone earlier. And the Anniversarios are, I think, some of the best cigars in the humidor. And that's definitely part of what makes them so great is the amount of time they're aging that tobacco for. Yeah. And when you have something together, I mean, you guys know that when you put something in a barrel and you let it age, the longer it ages, the more nuances it's going to take on. Very similar with cigars. The longer that bunch of tobacco is together, the more the oils can just melt in with each other. That's very cool. So when can we expect the next release from this line, Jack? The Vault program is in stores now. You can ask your local Binny's cigar consultant what's in the Vault program, what's available. I believe I've still got some Punch Upper Cuts available. There's some La Triviata, some Spanish Rosado Familia. There's a wide variety. There's going to be some mild, there's going to be some fuller body, there's going to be some medium body. Hopefully, we'll be able to hit any sort of level that you're at, so you can try something unique that might not be around much longer. That's cool. Those Spanish Rosado's, those were... Yeah. They were fantastic. The last thing I have for you guys is the Four Star Project, the Four Star Society. That's something that we started last year. We developed it with a small factory called PDR, where we did something similar to the General Vault program. They had some cigars that were aging for a very long time. We brought them in, we branded them, we sold them through. The first one was the Four Star Society, and then we came out with the second release, which was the Four Star Society, The Fort. And the third release is coming out soon, but we're working with a different factory this time. So we're actually working with another factory called Espinosa. And I'm really looking forward to this. I think this is going to be one of the best four stars we've had so far. Where are these from, these Espinosa cigars coming? The Espinosa's are coming from Nicaragua. Nicaragua. So, yeah, Nicaragua, it's a nice dark colored wrapper, medium to full bodied stick. They're going to come in at a very good price. They're going to be delicious. And this next release is going to be called The Expo. So with every cigar in the line, what we're doing is we're actually giving a nod to a different star on the Chicago flag. Oh, cool. Very cool. Yeah. So the four was for Fort Dearborn, the Expo is for the Colombian Exposition. And I'm sure our listeners will be able to figure out that there's going to be possibly two more releases with different names. Well, after you run out of stars, you start each point on each star symbolizes something as well. So this could go on for quite some time. I have no problem with that. It's been a lot of fun. Awesome. Well, hey, we're looking forward to trying them. We just did a bit of a deep dive, but I like we said, I think there's still more to discuss. So sorry it's taken this long to get cigars, a little bit of love here on the Barrel to Bottle podcast. But that's that's not just you guys. That's me too. I'm a hard guy to pin down. I run around a lot. Well, we'll have you back on maybe once once these four stars hit. Sounds good. We should be hopefully seeing those in the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed. All right. And what about the mac and noodles? When are those coming? Mac and noodles are going to be an early August release. So once again, a couple of weeks for those in Spirato Greens. All right, cool. Well, it's been fun. It's about lunchtime. So I think I might go smoke another cigar. Sounds like a plan. I skipped my breakfast cigar today. Sorry, Jack. That's all right. I got I got I got something waiting for you next time I see you, Pat. We'll get you a breakfast cigar. Don't worry. Hey, hey, you guys, Greg just wandered into the room. You guys want to give away 20 bucks? Oh, we love giving away 20 bucks. Thanks for wandering in the room with money, Greg. I assume Pat said something sassy, but I can't hear him. Hey, that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we give away $20 when we answer your question on the podcast. Reach out to us with your question via email, comments, binnys.com, or hit us up on social media, at Binny's Beb, at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The question this week comes from Alec via email. Alec writes, my local Binny's store has a wonderful humidor and a cigar selection. So far on your podcast, there hasn't been much mention of cigar and drink pairings. Can you make some good broad spectrum pairings of cigars and beverages? Love the podcast. Been a weekly listener since the start. What are your favorites, Jack? It's tough. I'm a big fan of bourbon, and bourbon tends to go well with a lot of different cigars, but rum is right in there too. If I was going to do maybe a medium to full-bodied cigar, actually, you know what? Let's stick with what we talked about today. If I was going to do a medulla oblongata, I'd probably pair that with some plantation, get some of that sweet on sweet. I think that's important with a fuller-flavored and fuller-bodied cigar. If you're going to try to, I tend to poo-poo cigar in drink pairings because I'm of the mind generally like, you're just killing your palate with the cigar smoke. You don't actually want to taste the drink. You're kind of forcing the issue. That's more of me just, I like to poke the cigar guys with that. You could have been more wrong. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever. Spoken like a true cigar nonsmoker. Totally. Totally spoken like a true cigar nonsmoker. But I think more importantly, the strength of the drink has to match the strength of the cigar, otherwise one's going to overpower the other, right? So if you have a pretty full-bodied cigar, I think you need a sweeter, bigger spirit, and that's great for rum and something medium, maybe bourbon and maybe something more on the mild side, scotch and cognac. I think your big, sherryed scotches are a great candidate. Again, the sweetness can help override some of the bitter tarry notes that you'll find in the backend of some cigars, especially your stronger ones. If you really want it to be bold, you could take an Isla whiskey and do smoke on smoke. That's sometimes fun. I think there's really two different camps when you're talking about cigar and spirit pairings. You either want to accentuate flavors that you're going to find in the cigar and the spirit together, or you want contradicting flavors. And people fall into two different camps there. I find that either experience can be pleasurable. I don't mind having something that's going to contradict a little bit to enhance one or the other. But you guys are spot on. You don't want something to overpower one or the other, because then what's the point? Roger mentioned Big Sherry Scotch. Check out something like a Glendronic or a Glenfarkless or a Dalmore. Big, a lot of dried fruit flavors. Chewy, heavy Scotch. Something like a rum. Jack was spot on with Plantation. Plantation gets some, you know, well-deserved nocks for some back sweetening in some of their products. But it's good rum and it's sweet rum. It's what you expect when you're when you're having a nice aged rum plantation. Check out older El Dorado's, of course, too. I won't shut up about those usually. El Dorado's. Yeah. El Dorado 15 is a no brainer pairing for just about anything. I should have gone with that. And then, you know, there's the world's your oyster when it comes to great bourbons right now. There's so many good bourbons out on the shelf all the time. So another one that I would throw in there is some of your more decadent Añejo tequilas are great with cigars as well. Because, you know, you can even have a little bit of a, I mean, more in the Mezcal world, you'll get smokiness, but the earthiness on some of the like Tajona made tequilas. You do something like a El Tesoro Añejo. That could be nice. There's a bottle of El Tesoro Añejo next to my desk. Now I just need my breakfast cigar and I'll have my breakfast cigar and tequila pairing and I'll be ready for a productive workday. That's it. For that, I'm going to bring you a tobacco especial dulce. So you get that cream and coffee with your tequila. Perfect pairing, right? Nice. Well, yeah. Armagnac is another good option. Oh, yeah. Armagnac would be a good one, especially because it's so earthy and spicy. Armagnac would be really interesting with the cigar. I've got to revisit this and try a few new things. It's interesting to how we've just kept it in spirits where you can get some fantastic porters and stouts that are going to work really well with different cigars or even go into the wine. I mean, talking terroir, wine might be an excellent place to just play around with different flavor. Yeah, for sure. There's so many no-brainer for the beer world right now. Like you said, stouts wise, big Belgians can be great with cigars, things like quads. Tons of options. I guess the key is to just smoke with whatever you're drinking. What can I say? Trial and error. Yep. All right. Thanks for joining us today. Maybe you'll smoke along when you listen to this. Maybe you'll listen to it with your breakfast cigar, like a real weirdo. Thanks again for joining us today, Jack. Listeners, hope you enjoyed that. If you did, do us a favor. Leave us a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, and tell your mom about the show. Until next week, I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Jack. Keep tasting.