Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate.
And I'm Mike.
What are we smoking today, Nate?
We are smoking a Rocky Patel Sun Grown.
And I hope it's not like the undercrown.
Yes.
It must not be because it actually has the Rocky Patel logo on it.
Prominently featured.
This one tasted a little earthy when I wetted the cap.
Okay, and I'm about to do that now.
Hmm.
It's a little lighter and tangy.
Yeah, I feel like the start is less acidic than the other one.
Mm-hmm.
We'll see how she goes.
That third puff was definitely darker.
But are you, do you burn the foot before you light it up?
So do I.
I don't know if there's a wrong way to light a cigar.
I'm sure that somebody will tell you that there is.
Yeah, I'm sure we could think of several wrong ways to light a cigar.
You know, if it's lit, it's lit, basically.
Pretty much.
Probably don't want to use like a kerosene lamp or something to light it.
But yeah, I mean, if it's lit, it's lit.
It's lit.
They were smoking cigars 200 years ago.
So what were they lighting them then?
You know, yeah, that's nearby.
I'm guessing so.
Flint and steel.
I've never successfully lit a fire with a flint and steel, I don't think.
Yeah, it's a really good tinder.
You know, like if you get some dryer vent stuff, dryer vent lint, that'll go.
The flint and steel is not as difficult as say the stick with the bow, you know.
Oh, bow drill?
See, I have started a fire with a bow drill several times.
Yeah.
So, you know, there's each their own.
I prefer, I mean, I'm an Eagle Scout, so I've started all sorts of different fires and gotta
tell you, I prefer the lighter fluid and match, you know.
You still kind of got to build it the right way, the right composition so that it lights
and catches and burns throughout the night.
But I don't know where people get all kind of like high and mighty about, well, I started
it with just one match and no lighter fluid and no this or that.
It's like, well, that's, I mean, cool, you can do it.
But it's a weird sense of pride.
I mean, it's important to know how to start them, I think.
But if you're out camping or just out in your backyard and lighting a fire, who cares?
It's not a big deal.
Right.
Like a really quick survival tip for all of our listeners, put a Bic in your pocket.
And if it gets wet, you can blow the top off and the flint will light.
I don't know what to tell you.
Another quick survival tip for all our listeners, don't get lost, okay?
Yep.
Who goes into the woods without a fucking lighter?
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
A lighter or at the very least some waterproof matches or something, you know, but definitely
a lighter is the way to go.
I mean, if you're going out in the woods with your cigars and your cigar lighter and stuff,
you're fine.
I used to do river fishing and I would always carry a Bic and I would tape the top off with
a packing tape and then wrap the handle with a little bit of duct tape.
And that way, if I had to light a fire for some reason, if I broke my leg, I could light
a fire, you know, and at least stay warm while they tried to find my body.
Right?
So never had to use it, fortunately.
That reminds me, and I don't know if we've talked about this, maybe we have.
It's kind of an in-joke with one of my other friends and myself that that Into the Wild
guy that went in to live in Alaska.
Yep.
And then like his last journal entry is like, I found some delicious blueberries and then
they were poisonous.
And so like that's what killed him.
Not that he was having a high old time of it to begin with, but you know, this kind
of like the joke is like, oh, I found some delicious blueberries, you know, like make
sure you're not eating the poisonous stuff.
Like that seems like a bare minimum, you know, like so many stuff out there is.
Not right.
He be consumed by humans.
You know, that was a real weird story because he like shot a moose and then he didn't have
like a proper method to preserve any of the meat.
You know, it's a real weird aspects of it.
He was going out there to make a like an anti-capitalist point or something, you know, and so it's
more about the point he was making than actually trying to survive in the wilderness.
Right.
And there's a lot more hospitable wildernesses to survive in than fucking Alaska.
I'm going to tell you that right now.
Like Iowa.
He was like an early age tech bro kind of guy from what I remember.
Yeah.
And a lot of times like I went when I came out of college, I was a school teacher and
I was ignorant of many of the things in the world.
And when I went into construction, those guys knew right away that I was green as shit.
Yeah.
Like they would even make comments about it once I got my journeyman's license, like five,
six years later or whatever it was.
They were like, you have come a long way in your understanding of this world.
You know, and I mean, I don't disagree with his sentiments necessarily, but it's kind
of that naivety that will kill you if you don't do your base research before eating
delicious blueberries off of the ground.
So right.
Yeah.
When I was in college, I met a guy who was just he had graduated and he was going to
go to Africa and teach.
And I was like concerned for his safety.
He's like, oh, you're just a blah, blah, blah.
You know, you're overflowing the dangers.
And then like while he was there, they had like a genocide in the country he was in and
they were killing white farmers.
It was like Zimbabwe or something like that.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It was like the farm.
So, you know, they were ransacking farms and killing everybody.
And it's like, OK, probably not the best idea to be the white college educated person going
there to teach the kids English or whatever at this moment in time.
Well, that's the thing is, you know, I mean, we live in the Twin Cities.
We live in the city of Minnesota here.
And it's interesting because I was talking to my dad about this.
He was here for Christmas and how our neighborhood is really mostly nice.
I mean, we've got a couple of rentals, but otherwise it's all kind of like younger families
or older people, you know, people who take care of their houses.
They own their houses and it's a nice area and you feel safe here and stuff.
And but you can go a couple of blocks across the highway or wherever.
And then you're in some of like the sketchiest parts of the Twin Cities.
And you know, but that's true of almost anywhere.
But it's more prevalent or more apparent in big cities where you can travel a couple blocks
and then you're in a different a different reality, right?
A different world almost.
Right.
Yep.
And it could go both ways.
Like you could travel a couple of blocks a different way.
You could be in like all the homes or multimillion dollar homes, you know.
So that's, you know, and that's kind of the thing.
Like I mean, I spent a month in London when I was in college for a film internship and
that's a big international city.
And I had never lived in a big city, but I went there alone and rented a room from a
Dutch couple and had to get myself to my internship on the tube and back and, you know, survive
and do all that over there.
But there's like an awareness, right?
You have to be aware of areas or things.
And generally speaking, like if your gut has a bad feeling, I've got a bad feeling about
this, then there's no harm in just listening to it, especially if you're somewhere you're
not familiar with, you know, I don't know that that works going to, you know, like where
they're doing genocide in Africa and stuff.
I mean, maybe you just say, maybe I won't go there, but, you know, you can, there's
a lot of situations you can get out of or prevent yourself from getting involved with
by just refusing to get involved with them or stay in those areas.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
There's where I live in Northern Minnesota.
There's a big drug culture, like hard drug culture, but if you're not seeking that out,
then you're largely not affected by it, right?
It's not like they're violent organized criminal organizations that are affecting the general
public or anything.
Yeah.
I mean, they're addicts.
There's, there's been stories of those people.
Even my, my wife's parents had some meth enthusiasts, let's, let's say, since we're being positive
with everything and that kind of like parked at the end of their driveway and stuff.
And they had to call some law enforcement, but they were gone by then.
But you know, it's like, if like some addicts come and park in your driveway, you don't
have to go out there and confront them.
You can call somebody to take care of them.
You know what I mean?
You don't put yourself in dangerous situations if you're not prepared to deal with dangerous
situations kind of thing, you know?
Right.
And you don't have to, you know, you don't have to, you've got people that are trained
in these situations and you can call them and they will come and help you sometimes.
Yes.
Not necessarily all the time, but.
Be cautious.
Yeah.
Where I live.
I mean, it kind of goes back to the Bill Burr thing is like, yeah, just cause you want to
tell a cry bully to go fuck themselves.
It's not always the best course of action because there's going to be repercussions
from that.
It's good for a moment and then it feels really bad for a long time.
Yeah.
So I think a lot of where I live, like the really super poor people live right next to
the super rich people.
And it leads to like not having super ghettos, you know, where you drive around and you see
these massive mansions on these lakes that are abandoned for almost the entire year.
And then next to them are like the tar paper shacks of the people that are their servants,
you know?
Yeah.
But they're not involved in anything criminal.
They're just trying to survive in an area where there's not a lot of economic opportunity.
Yeah.
They're not criminal masterminds or something.
Yeah, just because somebody lives in a different, like not everybody who lives in a rundown
shanty is a drug addict.
You know what I mean?
There's like some weird stigma in our culture about if they're not well off, then they're
like an alcoholic or a drug addict, you know?
And a lot of this hostile architecture, you know?
And it's like, look, just because they don't have a home doesn't mean that they're like
have an addiction problem or substance abuse issue, you know?
I mean, some of them do, of course, but it's not causation or whatever.
Specifically for homeless people in inner cities, almost all of them have addiction
issues because the people who don't have addiction issues who are poor, who let's say lose their
job, they leave the expensive area and move to a less expensive area and try to find a
job there, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just saying it's not always 100% of the time, you know?
And a lot of these people, we've talked about it, you know, a lot of these people would
benefit from universal health care or if we had a better system for mental health in our
country, you know, which was interesting to me when you said that Bill Burr is a big advocate
of therapy and like mental health, at least for anger issues.
But you know, there's something to be said for having somebody in your life who will
point out your flaws.
And sometimes it takes like a Bill Burr-esque interaction, right?
Where somebody says, you got fucking anger issues or something and it upsets you.
And that kind of goes back to our movies, you know, like if it doesn't shock you, you
won't take action to correct it.
And I'm not saying external viewpoints are always right, but I know that I was very angry
for a long time, like throughout college and when you and I first met and I really spent
time like working on that and finding nonfiction books of how to deal with anger issues, you
know, and I'm not I'm still not perfect by any stretch and I get angry.
But you know, I feel like I'm better than I was.
And it took people pointing it out to me like, well, you're angry all the time and you in
and my big thing was my humor was kind of more bringing people down humor and less like,
I don't want to say my humor is uplifting because I'm very dry and sarcastic.
But I do I try not to make fun of people like directly.
You know what I mean?
Yep.
Anymore.
And I want it to be kind of like humor that all can enjoy, even though it is sarcastic.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be like ass hole ish.
I hope I don't know.
I'm not trying to ramble and take take away from our topic of our season two finale.
Yes.
I almost can't believe we're here at the season two finale.
It's been all right.
Well, we started on March 1st, so it's been most of the year.
Yeah.
And we're going to take a couple of months off probably again.
And then we'll be back.
I don't know, maybe February, maybe March.
I don't know.
It's kind of up to us.
Up to us and the weather.
Yeah.
The weather doesn't matter anymore.
Well, yeah, beautiful weather is awesome.
It's a lot harder to buckle down and sit in front of a computer with a cigar and booze
as opposed to cigar and booze and out in out in the world.
So right.
I'm about an inch in and I like this cigar.
I like this one, too.
This one's this one's far better than the other one.
The other one was good.
But I do like the sun grown better than that vintage Cameroon.
I like the vintage Cameroon, but it was lighter.
That's not a bad thing.
It did have that kind of acid start, which is fine.
We've had plenty that have turned out to be phenomenal cigars.
But I really like this one.
It's a lot earthier.
A little bit darker, not dark, dark, but no, it's not overly dark.
But it's it's a good mix.
It's a good earthy dark without being too dark.
It's smooth, but it does have a little bit of a bite.
It's nice.
I have been impressed with all the Rocky Pettar, Rocky Pettar, Rocky Patel cigars that we've
smoked.
That's that idiotic speak.
My ex wife was a Rocky Pettard.
She's pilot now.
I cannot sing the praises of idiocracy enough.
Not that it's going to be everybody's cup of tea.
Because like I say, my Sarah made like she watched it once and then I had to watch it
in the basement, which we are fortunate enough to have a basement with the TV and all that.
So yeah, yeah.
I'm pretty fortunate in my life because I know Mike for one.
I'm a guy, my my bachelor's in film.
And so I've seen some very interesting films.
Lama, Gettin.
Mike was there.
Yeah, that was awesome.
But I've been really lucky because my Sarah pretty much never says no to watching any
kind of the weird movies that I want to watch, whether it's some foreign thing or, you know,
subtitles or idiocracy.
My Sarah will say yes the first time, right?
The first time.
But if it's like a TV show, you know, she'll watch a couple of episodes and if she doesn't
get into it, then it's like, no, she wants to watch Charmed and Bewitched and Gilmore
Girls and things like that.
And I want to watch.
I tend to go for more serious stuff than that, even though we are going to watch Winona Earp,
which is not serious at all.
But yeah, it's fun.
We kind of do.
We like to do TV series.
So like we did.
We did Friends and then we did.
I guess neither of us had ever really watched Seinfeld and it's this big cultural show,
right?
You know, for a certain age group, of course.
So we watched through all of Seinfeld and it was great.
And we watched Boardwalk Empire because Sarah's brother really liked that show.
And it was good till the last season because they got they knew they were getting canceled.
So they had to do some time jumps.
But we're watching through the Sopranos right now.
And it's really good.
I really like it.
But for the next show, because it's such a serious show, but you know, like it's mob
mafia stuff.
So there's a lot of not a lot of I would say, but like there's a killing and heavy kind
of like political maneuvering and stuff like that.
So but I'm hoping that after this that we'll watch through Scrubs because I remember watching
episodes of Scrubs in college, but I never really watched it religiously.
But I remember enjoying it.
And that's another show that's kind of generally seen as a good show, I guess.
Yeah.
But that's a little more comedic than it is like heavy serious.
So it's like with my reading style, like I like to read fiction and I like to read nonfiction.
But if I read too many nonfiction books in a row, I'm kind of like I need something fiction
to like cleanse the palate or, you know, like get some enjoyment.
Not that I don't enjoy the nonfiction.
I mean, you probably know, Mike, right?
Well, I like to read a lot of nonfiction, but I have to spread in fiction because, you
know, you can only take so many historical novel or historical accounts and politics
books and science books before you start to get real dark.
You know, it's like hopelessness.
You start to look into the void and yeah, and all that Nietzschean philosophy, you know,
like I can only handle so much.
I can only handle so much darkness, right?
It's like, and I know I mentioned this on the show.
I went on a huge deep dive into the Lewis and Clark expedition and I was reading like
all of these top books from about the Lewis and Clark expedition.
And then I was kind of like, you know what?
I need to read something else.
You know, like I, that's one of my favorite historical periods.
We talked about that on one of the episodes.
I love that whole era and the whole expedition and everything, but even with something that
I enjoy, I was like, man, I need to change it up a little bit.
I need to have something a little different.
So I went back to, I think I did Dune after that.
I did the Dune stuff.
And then I was like, if I don't hear another word about spice for a few books, I'm happy.
You know, you could like, and they're great books.
So they're great series and the great, great everything, but you know, you can get kind
of like too into it.
And it's like, man, I need something a little bit different now.
So yeah, you can delve too deep, right?
It's like, like Icarus flying too close to the sun.
Yeah.
That's a girl bossing too close to the sun, Nate.
Now that's the new, that's the new lingo.
With the wax tampons or what?
I didn't say that.
You did for the record.
And I'll fucking own it because it's our season two finale.
So, uh, we're, uh, yammering as you can obviously hear, but we're going to do a recap of the
cigars that we smoked a year in review, a year in review.
And I'm looking at our list here.
We started off with three, five Vegas cigars, which, uh, was so far in the past.
And I, I seem to remember that I don't remember any of these, the five Vegas classic and the
series a were pretty similar and they were so, so they weren't offensive, but they were
fucked.
They know they weren't great.
Yeah.
Do you want to go through?
I mean, if you want to go through all of them that we smoked in order, we can do that.
That's what I was planning on doing.
Oh, okay.
What's your plan?
I didn't really have a plan.
No, there we go.
Okay.
Well, I guess I thought like initially if we, if you and I said, what was like the favorite
cigar of this year and then your top three episodes, like topic wise cigars aside, and
then we can go through kind of the cigars as we smoked them.
Oh, sure.
It's fine with me.
Let's like, let's hit the stuff that we liked off, off the bat and then we'll go through
the cigars as we smoked them and, and go from there.
Or we could go through all the cigars and, and just do that too.
Like, that's fine.
That's up to you.
It's going to be easier for me to keep track if we'd go in order, but we can do whatever
you want.
Yeah.
Well, I just thought like, because I was thinking about this, because we knew we were going
to do like a recap episode.
Yes.
So I wanted to think about my three favorite episodes.
And I think my three favorite episodes were our episode about the Barbie movie with the
voice of the matriarchy.
Yep.
I thought that was a good gimmick.
Yeah.
Cause we tried something different and it was fun.
Uh, and of course like the Soca episode with our guests, Simha.
Yes.
And then my other favorite episode actually was when we did the, we'd smoke two different
cigars, the tequila cigars, the underground shade and the, uh, the other atrocity.
Yep.
Uh, or the, the blood red moon, right?
Yeah.
The blood red moon.
Yep.
And I liked that because we smoked different cigars, but we had previously smoked them
straight with no tequila.
Yes.
So those were my three favorite episodes, I guess let's say.
Okay.
That's interesting.
I would say that the Simha episodes are great, especially the Soca where he joined us in
the dark side.
And, uh, I also enjoyed the Barbie episode and, uh, I liked the Amish episode.
I really enjoyed doing that.
Oh, I liked that one too.
That was very informative.
And I also liked the Manson episode.
Uh, it wasn't the Manson last year.
I don't think so.
Oh, maybe it wasn't.
I don't know.
You have to let us know, dear listeners.
Yes.
And remember, remember if you do let us know, we can send you a stamp, a special stamp for
$5.
And if you put your zip code in brackets.
Yes.
With your name in all capital letters.
Yes.
Then we'll know it's a states right issue and not a racist issue.
The states rights episode I thought was pretty entertaining to us.
The reaction to, uh, the lady, the judge, whatever her name was.
Yes.
Yeah.
The sovereign citizen episode.
Yeah.
The cyber citizen episode.
I thought you were, you were hilarious.
He's just turned like halfway through.
You were like, I hate these people.
Uh, might've been, uh, assisted, uh, chemically, but, uh, yeah, but she's a IRS plant.
I'm like, that's a good idea.
I didn't even think of that.
I did the research for it and I'm like, I didn't even consider that, but it makes sense.
All right.
Let's keep going through the cigars.
I thought of one that was a standout surprise hit of the season.
I think.
Okay.
I think I know.
Is it the Hoya black?
Yes.
I was pleasantly surprised with the Hoya black.
Yes.
I feel like that was kind of like the surprise sleeper hit of the season.
Yeah.
Well, I went in with no, uh, expectations.
Yeah.
So it, uh, definitely showed up.
I think that the undercrown shade, I think that's the one that you really didn't like.
That was a big major disappointment.
I was like, Oh no.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we did the, uh, episode one was the five Vegas classic.
And then we did the series a and then the cask strength.
Yes.
And of those three, the cask strength was easily the best.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say it's on par with like a CAO or a rocket Patel or a log or a Gubana, but
it was of that run.
It was the best.
Then we had the Kristoff Connecticut, which I think we both liked.
Yep.
I think we both liked that one.
Then we did the CAO countries for a bit.
Yep.
And I liked all of those.
None of them were, they're good enough for me to want to smoke the rest of them.
I think we had a favorite, but I don't remember which one it was now.
No, but they're all really good.
They're close.
Yeah.
They're all really good.
Yeah.
Uh, the macronutrient, inspirado black was good.
Yeah.
Both the inspirado red and black are very good cigars.
You can't go wrong.
Yeah.
Uh, then we had the CAO black, which was good.
Yep.
Not, uh, super great, but good.
Very good.
Yeah.
And then we had the Mouat, which I think we liked a lot.
It reminded me of a Shrew.
It was the one that was like a Shrew, but a bigger cigar.
Yeah.
So, uh, then we had the Romeo Giulietta 1875, which I don't remember.
I don't remember it either, but I feel like I remember.
I feel, yeah.
Romeo, you liettas generally good.
You know, I mean, kind of like most of the CAO stuff is going to be good.
Rocky Bedell stuff is going to be good.
I think like the Gurkas and that's the next two we did, the Beauty and the Beast, the
Gurkas are-
They were disappointing.
... drastically hit or miss.
And I think we, we didn't like the Beauty, but we liked the Beast, I believe.
We didn't like the Beauty and we thought the Beast was better, but it wasn't great because
the Centurion, I believe, is the one that we thought was the best.
Oh yeah, sure.
Yeah.
We smoked the Titan, we smoked the Crest, we smoked the Centurion, the Vinches 2000,
the Beauty and the Beast.
And the Centurion was the one that was a torpedo.
And I remember that one being clearly the best.
Yeah.
Then we smoked that LFD Double Ligero, which was great.
Yeah, and that was with Simba.
Yeah.
The MX2 by CAO.
Yep.
And that's one of my, one of my early cigars that I thought was one of my favorites at
the time, you know, when I first started smoking cigars.
Yes.
And it was a staple, you know, it's hard to go wrong.
Then we had the LaGuardia Cubana Spanish Press, the Series N and the Classic Maduro,
all of which were great.
I think the Spanish Press was the best out of those for me.
Yeah, I like the, the Series N as a good one.
Well, it's got a good shelf appeal, like the Series N.
Oh yeah.
But the Series R, I think, for LaGuardia Cubana.
Yeah, it's hard to go wrong.
We smoked that first season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know, but yeah, I think LaGuardia Cubana is very difficult to go wrong with.
Overall.
I don't think I've ever smoked a bad cigar from them.
I have not.
So, and then we had the Underground Maduro and Shade, which the Shade was notoriously
horrific to the point where we compared it to the...
The Cult Blood Red Moon.
The Cult Blood Red Moon cigar, which is probably the worst cigar I've ever had in my entire
life.
And you smoked backwards.
Yeah, I've smoked backwards and Swisher Sweets, and I would smoke a Swisher over that Cult
Blood Red Moon cigar.
And the Pipe Tobacco is one of my favorites.
Oh man, the Pipe Tobacco is so good.
So it's such a shock because, you know, Cult Blood Red Moon Pipe Tobacco is fantastic.
Yeah, flies off the shelf.
Yeah, and it's the right amount of restraint and flavor and everything.
And the cigar is the worst possible anything ever.
Yeah.
And not anything ever, but in the terms of smoking things, like it's...
It is vile.
Absolutely vile.
Yeah.
Don't never buy a Cult Blood Red Moon cigar.
But the Underground Maduro, I thought was good.
We were a little snake bit by the Shade, so I don't know.
I think it was like fine-ish.
Yeah.
Like I say, it's hard to be objective about it because we didn't like the Shade.
Yeah.
It's so weird because like the Shade, the Underground Shade had like a 91 rating.
And it's like what, how?
How could that possibly be?
Well, it just goes to show you that, you know, I'm not saying that they paid for that review,
but tastes are different.
Yeah.
Tastes are different.
I know with the New York Times bestseller list for books, that's easily manipulated
by the book stores will order cases and cases and cases of this book.
If they're so inclined, they'll never ship, they'll never show up to the store and nobody
will ever buy them.
But because they were ordered, it's a number one New York Times bestseller.
So you can manipulate these different lists and statistics and things.
So I'm not saying that's what they did.
I'm just saying that it's documented in other industries where it can be.
Yes.
And then we had the H. Upman cigars, which were both good, if I remember correctly.
Yeah.
And then we also did like the Banker.
Yep.
That was the Banker, it was an H. Upman.
Yep.
Did we like the Banker better than the Reserve or the Cameroon?
I think that we liked the Banker the best out of the cigars that we had.
Yeah, I think that was the best.
Yeah.
But...
We did a couple of Oliva's first harvest, 2009 and 2011.
Yep.
And they were both good.
Yeah, they were both good.
I don't remember which one we liked better.
We'd have to go back and listen.
No, I don't remember.
It's hard to go wrong.
Oliva is another one where it's like, you're going to be good, right?
Yeah.
Like a nub is going to be good.
Yeah.
Yeah, the K&F, I like the K&F's.
Yep, those are good.
Those are good.
Then we have the CEO Consigliere, which we enjoyed.
Yes.
And I want to talk about this one a little bit because I didn't realize it at the time
because this is right before we started watching The Sopranos, which we talked about at the
top of the episode here.
Yes.
But CAO, so Tony Soprano, the main character of The Sopranos, played by James Gandolfini,
he smokes a bunch of cigars throughout the series, and he and the writers agreed that
character, fictional character, really enjoys CAO.
And so they put out, CAO put out a special cigar for The Sopranos with, I don't know,
it was like CAO Sopranos or something like that.
Like it was something from the show, but then they didn't have the rights to actually call
it like Sopranos, so they rebranded it as the CAO Consigliere.
So the CAO Consigliere is their cigar they made specifically in response to the production
people behind Sopranos saying that CAO is one of his favorite cigars.
Interesting.
Yeah, I did know that.
I'm not sure you probably told me.
I'm guessing that you told me off the show.
We do talk.
We do talk outside of the show.
By the way, the Hoya Black is now on my screen here, and that was our secret sauce for the
year.
I usually do not save cigar labels.
I throw the label and the cellophane right in the ash tray as I smoke at home.
But I kept the Hoya Black label.
It's on my desk because I'm like, I need to order more of these.
Did you ever look into them?
Do they have a bunch of different...
They have a bunch of different...
Oh, okay.
They do.
Yeah, they have different colors and they...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, maybe that'll be season three.
Something like that.
I don't know if we have any for season three because I bought all the cigars for season
three, I think.
I want to get more Hoyas.
We're locked and loaded for season three.
We are.
Season four might be some more Hoyas.
Yes.
Well, we could bump it up to season three.
You never know, right?
You never know.
We can't tell you everything because this is the season two finale.
We're doing a look back.
We're not necessarily looking forward.
That's right.
And then we have the Herrera Astelli by Drew Estate.
I don't remember that cigar.
I don't remember either.
I'm guessing it was good.
Yeah, it was probably fine.
I feel like most of these where it's like the whatever, whatever by Rocky Patel or by
Drew Estate or by whatever, they're a little more hit or miss.
Yeah.
Like if it was a full on Drew Estate whatever, then it's going to be in that tier of you're
not really going to go wrong.
It might not be to your exact flavor preferences and stuff, but it's not going to be a bad
stick.
Yep.
And really, the undercrowns, they were by Drew Estate too, I think, weren't they?
Yes, they were.
We had to find that out because we were like, who is this?
I know.
Yeah, because there was nothing on the label that said Drew Estate.
So I feel, and that's what kind of led me to my current thinking of if it's the actual
company name on the label, it's probably good, maybe except for Gurkhas, right?
Because those are kind of hit or miss.
Those are hit and miss, yeah.
But everything else like an Oliva, Rocky Patel, CAO with some of the flavors is the exception.
Right.
You know, then they're probably bound to be pretty good.
Yeah, they might not fit your flavor profile, but it's going to be a high quality cigar
all the same, you know?
Yeah.
And then we had the Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 Robusto, which was the Ahsoka episode.
And I like the Rocky Patel Vintage series.
So those are always solid.
You can't go wrong.
Yep.
We have a couple of Olivas.
They all are Oliva branded and they were all good.
Ciro was good.
The Master Blend was great.
Yeah, the Master Blend is really good.
The Master Blend 3 is what we had.
Yep.
And then we got some Rocky Patels, which I thought the Rare Corojo was great.
The Super Ligero was great.
I thought the Rare Corojo was a punch.
Oh, it is a punch.
You're right.
Gosh dang it.
See, I'm looking right at it.
But that punch was good too.
Punch is another one where most of them are pretty good.
They're not necessarily...
Yeah, I don't think I've ever had a bad punch cigar.
So yeah.
I don't know that that brand is in the same echelon as like Rocky Patel or Oliva, but
I don't think I've had a bad punch.
You know what I mean?
I've never had a bad punch.
They're in pretty much every cigar shop in the country.
Yeah.
So you're not going to go wrong.
We were talking about this too, Mike, and I don't want to be leading on our listeners,
but we were talking about doing some acids, some acid cigars.
I used to smoke those right out of college.
I smoked some acids, like the Acid Blond and stuff.
And I remember liking them, but now I've smoked so many more cigars.
So it'd be interesting to go back and revisit them.
Because usually I'm not reaching for an acid in the store.
No, they're ridiculously expensive for what they are, which is a flavored cigar.
And I've had a couple and every single one, I almost feel like they're syrupy.
Like the flavor is syrupy.
Like it's so intense.
Like their blonde is like sweet, like very sweet.
I had some blondes.
Sarah, I got some for Sarah and she didn't like them because they were too sweet, which
is insane.
Right?
Yeah.
Well, and like, why would you do that when you have the CAO?
Oh, yeah.
Right.
The moon trance is like, in my opinion, flavored cigar.
Yeah.
It's the old standard for flavored cigar.
So obviously, if you're going to compare it to that, which you should.
Yes.
Right.
You should.
If you haven't smoked the moon trance, like that's your New Year's resolution.
Even if you don't like and so I don't know, we, well, Mike, we started this podcast and
we never, I never really thought I would enjoy a flavored cigar because to me it's kind of
like going to a Starbucks or something and ordering one of those, you know, like caramel
latte blended, whatever the fucks.
Right.
Oh yeah.
Milkshake.
Yeah.
I'll take with some caffeine added, you know, but that's not what the moon trance is really.
So it was really like an eye opener for me to know that there are flavored cigars out
there that aren't overly sugary or ovary overly fake tasting.
You know what I mean?
And I think that's the big thing is it can't be overpowering and it can't be overly fake,
like artificial tasting.
Yep.
And I would suggest with the CAO moon trance, because we've smoked more than one size, I
would suggest the Robusto size, not the larger torpedo.
Yep.
Yeah.
The torpedo is fine.
I think it's not a bad cigar.
Fine, but it wasn't as good as the Robusto.
No, the Robusto is like that perfect.
It's just the perfect size for that cigar for whatever reason.
Yeah.
I've tried the little cigarillos, the Camuntran cigarillo got too hot.
It burned all the flavor off.
I didn't think it was very good, but that's a personal opinion.
Not sure by all, I'm sure.
But yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on your smoke style.
Some people like the cigarillos and if you're used to smoking that, then it's probably just
fine.
Right.
Yeah.
And then we finished her off with the Oliva Series G and the Oliva Series G Maduro Cameroon.
And I liked both of them.
I thought they were great.
Yeah, they were good.
That's one of those things.
I like the Olivas, they're good.
I do.
Yeah.
I think we have some K&Fs in the box for next year and I really like the K&F nub.
So I'm excited for that.
Oh yeah, I like the K&F nub as well.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
It's like dark, very dark.
I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
That's something I'm going to smoke all day, every day by any means.
No.
Well, that's the interesting thing too.
I mean, we've smoked, I think this one is, yeah, this is our 43rd episode for season
two.
So season two, episode 43.
We're going to hit and we have to do something fancy.
We've got some fancy cigars we've been saving up.
We got to do something fancy for our 100th episode, Mike.
Okay.
We can definitely do that.
Yeah.
But I mean, that's the thing with cigars, right?
Is we talk all the time about smoking them and if we like them or don't like them.
But we also try and talk about, you know, is this a lawn mowing cigar or is this a treat
yourself cigar or is this a, you know, I mean, there's different circumstances just
with the same with like whiskeys or bourbons or whatever, what have you.
You know, if you're just trying to get a buzz on, you're going to pick a different liquor
than if you're trying to like savor and enjoy the complexities and flavors and stuff.
And if you're mowing the lawn, you're going to pick something different than if you're
sitting around a fire conversing with friends.
So right this time of year, Sarah likes to drink apple cider with bourbon in it, which
is a variation of the stone fence.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not something that happened at the house, but none of it was something that
I was willing to put in a stone fence.
Right.
Like I'm not putting a single cask or cask strength bourbon or like what the hell do I
have?
Basil Hayden toast or you know, yeah, I'm not like, yeah, we'll just get like four roses
and put it in there.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's the thing is you pick different, you know, you pick different liquors
for mixing versus drinking straight.
I feel like we've done an OK job.
I hope listeners right back me up of telling people if we would if this is a what would
you say, Mike, would you say like casual cigar or pontificating cigar or I don't know what
the different categories might even be.
Well, yeah, a lot of it's like yard cigar.
Is this a yard cigar?
You know, is this a cigar that you want to have?
Like you want to sit down and actually smoke it and do nothing else.
You know, like the Gurkas are a great example of, in my opinion, largely yard cigars where
if you're out and it's like Fourth of July and you're in the sun and maybe you're drinking
a light beer and it's like raw, raw America, then yeah, a Gurka beast is a great option.
It's not offensive.
It's you can largely forget about it and you still have a nice cigar.
Yes.
But it's not something I'm going to sit at home and like read a book and drink a sip
on a little glass of whiskey and like savor the cigar and have the experience.
Yeah, and I think what I've liked is the kind of the criteria that we have unofficially.
I don't know that we ever talked about this, Mike, is the difference between a yard cigar
and a non yard cigar, at least unofficially from what I've gathered from our conversations
is a yard cigar.
You don't mind putting out and not coming back to.
Right.
And the other cigars are something you want to smoke completely or, you know, until your
fingers burn kind of.
Right.
And I think that's very, very near to that point.
So and I think that's a good kind of a good judge.
Like if I put this out and don't relight it, I don't feel bad.
I don't feel guilty about not relighting it.
Whereas some of the cigars we've smoked, it's like, nope, I got to smoke this whole thing.
Like everything else is going to have to wait until I'm done with this.
Yeah, I'm going to be mildly upset if I stop.
Yes.
So and we have a price limit for cigars.
I try to get them for under five bucks.
I think we talked about that to the people out there.
That's the goal.
The online price.
We're trying to smoke like the every, every day or within the range of the, let's say,
fully employed person who wants to smoke cigars.
Right.
Yeah, we're talking.
Not the hedge fund manager or the tech bro guy.
Yeah.
I focus on cigars that if you go to a cigar shop, it's less than 15 bucks because if you
spend 15 bucks on a cigar, it's most likely going to be good.
Yeah.
If you spend seven to 10, now you're getting into territory where you could get a bad cigar
for sure.
You know?
Yes.
Depending on what it is.
And you can, well, largely we've found that you can stick with certain brands and you're
going to get good results, I guess.
But I don't like the concept of brand loyalty either.
So yeah, I don't know that it's necessarily brand loyalty because I feel like in the cigar
realm, it's rewarding good product.
Right.
Or so that like, it's not being a Disney fan person, right?
Like anything Disney does is great.
With the cigars, when we say if you're going to smoke an Oliva or a CAO, that's not the
flavors, it's generally going to be a good stick.
It doesn't mean it's going to hit your flavor preferences or your profile preferences or
whatever, but it's going to be consistent or it's going to be complex or it's going
to be whatever.
You're going to enjoy it on some level.
Even if you say, you know what, this cigar is not for me, but I can tell it was a well-made,
well-crafted cigar.
Right.
Yeah.
And when we say Gurkas, and we've talked multiple times, almost every time we smoke a Gurka
and oftentimes when we don't smoke Gurkas, we say Gurkas are pretty hit or miss.
Yeah, they're not consistent.
Like they're not consistent across the brand.
But if you get a Gurka Beast and you like the Gurka Beast, then all Gurka Beasts will
be good for you, but you're not then going to also like the beauty.
You know what I mean?
So yeah.
Whereas if you get the what?
The Sirri R Oliva, right?
No, that's a La Gloria Cubana.
Oh, La Gloria Cubana Sirri R versus the Sirri N. Like you're going to like both of them
and you might like one more than the other, but they're going to be good.
They're both good.
Right.
Yeah.
I like the Sirri R better than the N and I like the Spanish press better than the N,
but the N is a good cigar.
Well, yeah, they're all good cigars.
I would never say it's not.
But I don't know that that's like, see, you use the modern lingo much.
Oh, Mike, because we're both old now that we're older than 88, right?
Right.
Yeah.
I don't know that that's simping for La Gloria Cubana.
They just make a good cigar.
They do.
So you're going to find you're going to find one that you like better than the other and
whichever one that is.
That's great.
Yep.
It's like Rocky Patel.
The Edge.
I like Rocky Patel, the Edge cigars.
Yeah.
I do.
Oh, the Fumas.
I mean, if you're going to build, you have a box at home and you want yard cigars and
you can get a good price on the Fumas, that's the way to go.
Potentially.
It's one way to go, at least.
Well, yeah.
You're not going to make a mistake by getting, if you like the Rocky Patel Edge Maduro, you
can get the box of Fumas and you're going to be perfectly happy with that.
Oh, undoubtedly.
Especially at home, where you're out in the shop or something.
It's perfect.
Yeah.
And even to share with friends that are interested in cigars.
I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
Mike, you're starting to get to know more people that are friendish or friendly, I guess,
now that we have this kind of cigar podcast.
But I don't really have a lot of friends that spoke cigars outside of you.
But I don't think giving somebody an Edge Fuma would turn anybody off, even if you're
into cigars, because it's still basically an Edge.
You know what I mean?
Right.
You're going to meet whatever criteria they have at the plant or the factory to get the
full on label.
The Fumas are short cuttings, I think.
Yeah.
But if you don't know anything about cigars, you wouldn't even know.
And it's almost like the wine tastings, the blind wine tastings and the box of wines stereotypically
do as good or better than some of the super expensive wines.
Right.
The fact that it's in a box turns people off.
But it tastes just as good, if not better than some of the other stuff.
So I just feel like if you like cigars and you want something good, there's nothing wrong
with the Fumas.
There's nothing wrong with some of these.
Some companies even call them factory rejects.
But there's nothing wrong with them.
It's the same stuff.
It's the same.
It's almost imperceptible unless you have a highly attuned palate.
If you're the Gordon Ramsay of cigar smokers.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
We're not.
No, we're not.
And this is the longest we've ever talked about cigars on our podcast, I think.
And we have a cigar podcast.
Because usually we talk about other things.
Right.
As you do when you smoke cigars in a public setting.
Right?
You're not talking about the luxuriousness of whatever.
Yeah.
And you know, like, oh, these tobacco leaves are handpicked by blind Tibetan monks.
Therefore they taste better than other tobacco leaves picked by non-blind Tibetan monks or
whatever it is, you know.
But I think that's how a point is.
We're not trying to gatekeep cigars.
We're smoking all of these cigars, if we're being honest, primarily for our pleasure.
Right.
And then secondarily, for people who are interested in cigars, but don't want to spend a thousand
dollars per box of cigars to get like the super fancy shit.
Right.
And like I say, if you go to a cigar shop, you spend 15 bucks, you're going to get a
good cigar.
But I don't necessarily want to go to the cigar shop and spend 15 bucks.
No, no.
I mean, if you have a special occasion and you want to spend 15 bucks on a cigar, by
all means.
But there are plenty of cigars that are sub $10 that are just as good and in some cases
better than the more expensive stick.
Oh yes.
And as a preview for next season, I ordered a bunch of cigars and we're going to be smoking
brick houses and we're going to be smoking a lot of these.
I think I got a couple of every factory smoke.
If the brand factory smokes, I got every one of them.
So we're going to be trying all these cigars that are specifically oriented as budget box
filler type of cigars.
And we'll see if we like them or if we think they're trash.
You know, it's a it is a roll of the dice more so than what we're doing now.
Yeah.
Well, we did season one.
I know I remember we did the bin Maduro and it was and then we did that with the tequila.
But the plain bin Maduro is very, very bland.
But the life.
Yep.
And that's and we've talked about a lot of cigars that we smoked.
We're like, fuck, I'd rather smoke a tequila bin Maduro than this one.
Yep.
And I think I got some blackbirds.
You guys will see, but they're all going to be there's a theme for the season.
You know?
Yes.
We've amped some stuff for season three.
I don't want to I'm not going to go into a lot of things because then it puts a lot of
pressure on me.
But we don't want some new things for season three.
I'm very excited about season three.
I mean, I've been excited about season one, season two.
I've been learning with the editing of audio, which is always one of my weakest parts of
filmmaking was the audio bits.
And you need the audio for film for sure.
I read somewhere that people will watch shitty quality video as long as the audio is good,
but they won't watch pristine quality video if the audio is bad.
So it's really been fun for me to kind of hone my audio skills.
And if you're listening on shitty Bluetooth headphones, Keith, and not to name any names,
don't don't tell me about that.
And that's on the headphones.
That's on the headphones.
But.
Oh, my.
I'm sorry.
I had to I had to get that off my chest.
You know, it's New Year, New Year's Eve is coming up.
New Year, new me, new you, new nice ashes.
But it'll largely be the same.
Like we're not drastically changing like the format or anything like that.
But Mike's got the cigar themes going.
I've got some other things I'm working on.
So it will be a fun time.
Yep.
Yeah.
For next season, I think that every single cigar I got is less than five dollars, maybe
less than six for some of them other than the cigars, because we probably have 50 cigars
in the bag right now that we could smoke.
I don't know how many we have in the show box right now.
Yeah, we probably have 20.
Yeah.
And I got fancy ones.
We got to we're going to have to do a lot more planning because we've got two really
fantastic looking cigars that were released for St. Patty's Day.
Yes.
So we're going to try and work those in.
Right, Mike?
Yes, we are.
We have great shelf appeal.
So good.
So I'm going to be very disappointed if they're not excellent.
Which, by the way, I think this Rocky Patel, I'm over halfway done.
Oh, me too.
It's a great last cigar because it is lovely.
I really like this a lot.
I like this one a lot.
I knew like I remember when I said like, oh, I like this one so much better than the last
one.
And you were like, well, OK, like it's good.
But I'm staying true with my I like this one better than the last Rocky Patel we did.
I like the last Rocky Patel.
I don't know if it's true or not.
We could discuss it openly amongst, you know, all of our listener.
This is a safe place.
It's a safe place.
I think that I'm more open to different styles of cigars than you are.
You like that darker punchier cigar almost exclusively.
And I do like those cigars, but I'm a lot more open to try milder cigars and enjoy them.
I just appreciate them for what they are.
You know, I mean, I might have that, I guess.
But I don't I don't think I've ever said no to a cigar you wanted to smoke most because
I don't know most of the scars.
But no, I'm not saying that you would say no.
It's just that you have you have a defined plate favor or flavor profile.
Yeah.
Yes.
You have a palate.
I'm not like what is it like the snoods would say, oh, you have a limited palate.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying you have defined things that you know you like way more than others.
You know.
Yeah.
But I mean, I liked because I think that Christoph Connecticut was one I went to the big store
here that's not a sponsor down by me.
And I said, hey, we're kind of getting into the Connecticut's.
And the guy there was like, hey, you got to do this Christoph Connecticut.
And that was really good.
I liked that one a lot.
Yeah, it's good about liking it a lot, you know.
And I like trying the different things and I like trying all the different stuff.
And I guess I have like preferences, of course, as all of us do.
But I do like trying all the different ones.
And it's fun doing like I like that the CAO kind of does, you know, like the flavors and
they do the countries and they do, you know, some other stuff.
So it's fun kind of getting to experience some of those different styles and rappers
and things.
So.
Yeah.
And then I as I'm sure people noticed, I like to get all of the rappers in a series
that we have at least a baseline to compare them against one another.
You know, it's all the same line of cigar.
And I enjoy that.
I also tend to enjoy Robusto sizes largely because you can get Robustos for a reasonable
price because they're so popular.
Yes.
And it's been interesting to me, especially with the moon trance where the Rooster Moon
trance and we've talked about it before.
We don't have to oversell it or sell it or anything.
Like it's phenomenal.
But the torpedo is not, I mean, it's good.
It's still good, but it's not as good as the Robusto.
So it's interesting to me when we do some of these same cigars with different sizes
and then to be able to compare and say, well, look, actually this size is better than that
size of this same cigar.
Right.
That's like the edges.
You know, I liked the smaller torpedo edges more than the larger edges, like the Presidente
size.
Yeah.
The Presidente's were good, but it's overwhelming.
You know, a two hour cigar is too much for me.
Yeah.
In most circumstances.
Right.
Yeah, it is.
It's just like, oh my God.
It's just so much.
Well, that's the thing is, you know, two hours you could smoke one Presidente or you could
smoke two Robustos.
You know what I mean?
So.
Right.
Exactly.
You can switch it up and it's just not so overpowering.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of circumstantial.
Yeah.
And sometimes you're into that, you know, like we haven't smoked it on the show, but
the Excalibur, the large Excaliburs are wonderful.
Yes.
I've been trying to source another one because I have one in my humidor and I can't find
them online.
I'm gonna have to, I might have to go to a cigar shop and find one to match.
Yeah.
You could also like, if you've got one, you can send it, send whatever it is to me and
then I'll go look at the cigar shop here.
Cause then if I have one, we're good.
Right.
I haven't smoked this one on the show and I hope that we will at some point, but I remember
Mike and I smoked this.
It was huge.
It was fucking massive.
It was too big for Mike's cigar cutter, the Asylum 13.
And it was like so good, but it was huge.
We did smoke that on the show.
I think that was our finale last year, wasn't it?
Oh, was it?
I mean, I check.
No, we had the Placencia Alma Forte.
Yes.
Yeah.
The Asylum 13.
I mean, on the show, but it was a great cigar, but it was huge and long and took a long time
to smoke.
Yep.
Yeah, but it was a personal.
Sometimes you want the two hour plus cigar and sometimes you don't.
Most of the time you don't.
But sometimes you do.
Yeah.
And I like on the opposite end of that, I don't like Coronas.
I do not like Coronas sized cigars.
I do like Rothschilds, which are like an inch shorter than a Robusto, but I do prefer the
Robusto just a little bit bigger.
Like I say, it's all I don't know how many cigars I've smoked, but over time I've just
gravitated.
Yeah, at least three.
Yeah, I've just gravitated towards that size.
Yeah, I think there are Bustos is a great size, all things considered.
Right.
And we've had Gordo's.
I don't mind Gordo's so much depending.
Yeah.
They get a little too loosey goosey at the end.
You know, in my opinion, this is more these last two that we smoked are more of Gordo
size, smaller diameter than a Gordo, but they're longer than a Robusto.
They're not quite a Churchill.
And it's long.
I still have an inch and a half cigar left and we've been smoking it for over an hour,
you know?
So that's what I mean.
It's like, I don't want to put it down, but it's like, all right, all right.
Yeah.
Maybe it's my shitty attention span.
We've talked about it too.
It's all kind of situational, you know, which we try to bring up on the show is if you got
an hour plus, this size is great if you get less, the different sizes better.
So right.
And smoking a cigar should be about having just a little moment of relaxation and luxury
and hopefully forgetting about your problems for just a little bit.
You know, that's the way all the busy adult lives apparently were old now, according to
old dads.
But I never thought I'd be in the same like how old is Bill Burr?
He's 50 some.
How am I now?
How are we now suddenly lumped in with a 50 something year old man?
Like, oh, we're going to fire everybody born before 88.
And now I'm having to relate to a 50 year old man.
Yep.
Well, that's part of this show, right?
Like he's trying to deal with these kids that are kids, adults that are younger than us.
And I have a difficult time dealing with the 24 year olds and I'm not that much older than
them, but yeah, I am there and their minds.
You are, but it's interesting because in your 20s, anybody older than you is like ancient,
even if it's only by five years.
But after you kind of hit 30, I think, well, I don't know, I haven't hit 40 yet, but in
your late 20s, early 30s, you're kind of like, well, anybody who's an adult older than let's
say 25 is kind of in the same like realm, you know, like similar concerns and interests
sometimes.
You know, I don't know.
Yeah, we're just trying to grind, I guess.
I guess.
Yeah.
And sometimes it's always interesting.
Now you're old enough to be judgmental.
Judgmental about the decisions that you also made.
I don't know if you saw this meme, Mike, and I'll say it here.
It's our season two finale, whatever.
Whereas somebody saying I identify as a, as a female and as a man, like identify as a
female.
I'm not a judge.
Well, I identify as a judge.
Nice.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's kind of lame, but.
I don't know.
For information for the show here, guys, the end of my cigar is coming loose and I think
I have to stop smoking it.
Yeah.
Oh no.
Yeah.
Mine's still good.
I cross cut it to the crown cut and the end is like loosey goosey.
She's like disintegrating in my mouth.
I just said the one V cut.
I didn't do the cross cut.
So that's the difference.
I felt the gauge was warranting of one V cut and not the cross cut.
I considered it.
Yes.
So I think I might actually be done.
Unfortunately, that makes me disappointed because it's very good.
It's all good.
It's a really good stick.
The sun grown.
I like better than the vintage.
What was it?
2003?
Let me check.
We will check real quick.
It was the vintage 2003 Cameroon.
Yep.
So I would recommend both, but I think the sun grows better.
Yeah.
Sun grows better slightly.
Yes.
Slight edge to the sun.
So everybody hope has a happy new year.
Happy new year.
And this is our finale for season two and we'll catch you in a couple of months.
Be safe.
Have fun.
Thanks for listening.