Sick Week, Strong Pour

On this episode of Eat Drink Smoke, Tony Katz and Fingers Malloy power through sickness, sarcasm, and a chest-cold-induced remote setup to deliver a packed show covering cigars, bourbon, holiday drinks, money, travel, and the absurdities of modern life.

Tony fires up an El Rey del Mundo’s “The Appointment” cigar, a 5x60 Gordo featuring a Cameroon wrapper by the Eiroa family, Connecticut Broadleaf binder, and a complex Honduran, Ecuadorian, and Nicaraguan blend. The guys break down flavor notes, including caramel, cedar, spice, and rich tobacco, debate ring gauge preferences, and ask the big question: Is this one of the best cigars under $10? (Spoiler: at $8.50, it might be.)

Because Fingers is under the weather, the drinks diverge this week. Tony revisits the Blue Run High Rye Bourbon (111 proof), calling it a must-have bottle with notes of caramel, butterscotch, spice, and rye heat. Fingers opts for holiday comfort, sipping Evan Williams Peppermint White Chocolate Eggnog, a surprisingly delicious seasonal pour made with bourbon, rum, and brandy — and available for under $10.

The conversation widens into the news of the week, including:

• Amazon Prime Video launching a news hub, and what it means for media companies

• Spirit Airlines selling O’Hare gate space, and why budget airlines feel riskier than ever

• The true cost of modern travel, nonstop flights, and airline reliability

• Why Americans are struggling to retire — and what the numbers really say

• How AI is reshaping jobs, careers, and spending habits

• The rise of 7- and 8-year car loans, $1,000/month car payments, and why used trucks suddenly make more sense

• The psychological traps of consumerism, Starbucks math, and “keeping up with the Joneses”

Along the way, the guys debate foot rubs, socks, Amazon impulse buys, holiday gift nonsense, and why financial literacy still isn’t taught when it matters most.

It’s classic Eat Drink Smoke: cigars, bourbon, food, money, culture, and humor — delivered even when Fingers probably should’ve stayed in bed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Sometimes people get sick ladies and gentlemen. Happens. Sometimes they
get a touch of the cold or the flu, or,
in the case of Fingers Malloy, meningitis. No way, I
mean gingervitis. Meningitis would be a serious issue.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Fingers, focus on men, manly, that's what we're doing here, right.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
No, you sound throaty see drink smoke. Sorry, I'm Tony Katz.
That right there is America's favorite amateur drinker, Fingers Maloy.
And because he's got some kind of creeping crud that
hasn't stopped him from looking magnificent in his shadowy, shadowy cave.

(00:47):
We had to be in separate locations today in order
to do the show. I feel bad about this.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Fingers, No, you don't. Let's be honest here. You told
me not to show up at the Eat, Drink Smoke
studios because you said, oh, I don't want to get sick.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
When when when I have a vacation to go on
to Vegas. Now I ask you, would you let anybody
get in the way of your time in Las Vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's impossible to be sick in Las Vegas. Once you
show up and you have your first makers mark on
the rocks. All of the germs, the bacteria, the bacteria germs,
they all go away.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
All the bacteria, germs go away.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
All go away. And what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,
and what happens outside of Vegas stays outside of Vegas.
That's how it works.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
We are smoking the l ray Domundo. This right here
is called the appointment Interesting interesting stick where the rapper
is made by Christian Aroa and then the rest of
the cigar is OURDM. This is a gordo. This is
a five by sixty, which means it's five inches long. Gee,

(01:56):
oh my god, oh you sound bad. You see, usually
I say cigar is five inches long, and fingers will away,
I'll go tee And because it's kind of funny to him,
it makes him laugh and it's always hilarious. And now
now you just sound like death, just a chess cold right,

(02:19):
who knows? You know?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
It was odd oddly enough, you know, I was speaking
to missus malloy earlier and it said, I go get
like one of those those COVID tests. No, And then
she said, well what do you do with that?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Right? Like?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
What am I gonna do with that? What are you
gonna do with that, So I just continued to lay
in bed and moan.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
So the cigar is five inches and the ring gauge
is a sixty six zero, So that's a diameter of
the cigar or how thick it is around? Te Glad
we got passed this part. A sixty four ring gage
would be a full one inch rounds, I will tell
you right now, not my ring gauge, not how I work.
And yes, indeed I am the only one smoking because

(03:01):
fingers if he does, he'll he'll immediately die.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well that and unfortunately I do not have the ability
to smoke indoors when it's well. Actually, today in Central Indiana,
the weather isn't all that bad as far as temperature goes.
You know, we got a lot of rain, but it's
still if you if you had a covered porch, or
you smoke in the garage with the door open, it
wouldn't be all that bad. I think it's still in

(03:25):
the high thirties, low forties.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Let me ask you a question. When you plant your beanstalk,
how tall does it grow? Wow?

Speaker 2 (03:36):
What? Seriously? This is once again showing ladies and gentlemen
just how close of a friend Tony katz is he
enjoys seeing me in pain. He he loves seeing me uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Not true, not true. This has me concerned in many ways,
mostly for the show, right, I gotta make sure that
that's always doing all right.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I do feel bad that you know, here you are,
you're trying to light up your cigar, you know, to
give each rink, smoke nation, your thoughts, your impressions on
the first third of the stick. And I'm not there
to help you and to smoke a cigar because I can't.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
But that don't don't ever force yourself, which is key
and fundamental. This is a Cameroon wrapper that's done by
a roa broadleaf USA Connecticut broad leaf in the binder filler,
and Honduras and Nicaragua. So this is hey you first
of all, that's lovely, man, holy cow, there's a mix
of things. I love Cameroon, love Connecticut broad leaf, love,

(04:38):
Honduras and Nicaragua. We're friends. We'll see how it goes.
Excellent draw the wrapper itself. A little bit of oil
on this, but definitely bumpy. If you could take a look,
you can like see every single part of that right there,
every last little bit of this of this wrapper.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
But it's a beautifu band too.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, the band is in the purple and gold, and
it's called the Appointment. It comes in a bunch of
different batolas that it's a five x fifty robusto. There's
a six x fifty four toro as well, but this
is the gordo. A lot of halft, as you can
imagine in a sixty ring gauge. They will tell you
that it comes across as a medium on first puff.

(05:24):
Right here, I would think that they're accurate. Get your notebook,
what'd you eat today? What'd you drink today?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Right?

Speaker 1 (05:29):
That matters? And the weather right now, fingers is right.
The cold has broken. We've gotten over forty degrees. It
won't be that way for long. It's not gonna be
that way for long. And we will see temperatures because
it's the Midwest that hit negative seventy two thousand. It's
gonna be very, very chilly. But you want to take
the cigar, break it up at the thirds, Yes, even

(05:50):
a robusto at five inches long, first third, second third,
final third, And what is the flavors you're getting out
of each third of the cigar? Write those down in
your notebook, what'd you eat, what did you drink? That's
gonna happen a effect on your palette. And then when
you try the cigar a month from now, six months
from now, whatever it is, you go back, you do
the same thing and you check your notes. You kind
of get you through lined. You're the idea of where
you are with the cigar. Um. This is unbelievably rich.

(06:17):
There's a lot happening within this cigar. It is rarely
do I say that a cigar has that bourbonesque kind
of caramel going on in it, But that's their fingers.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, that's interesting. The other thing that I'm actually kind
of surprised that you have this in your human or
because this ring gauge is not something that you're normally into.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I don't do sixties and I don't do rabustos. Both
things are not my things. But what do we do here?
Fingers boy?

Speaker 2 (06:51):
We try new things, that's right.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
We do people's taxes incorrectly, we also try new things,
and so that's that's what this is for us. So
I have one for you waiting for you. There's a
little bit of caramel, there's a little bit of there,
there's definitely a seater going on, and I think those
two things are giving a very very unique richness to

(07:13):
this cigar right here. This is a nice presentation. Now,
I would rather have gotten this as a toro and
had six inches to work with and because that's more
of where my my my palate goes into, more of
my time goes. But this from l ray Do mundou
this is the appointment cigar fingers will lowy coming in

(07:36):
at eight dollars and fifty cents. And the answer is,
I don't know yet. How would I know? I just
lit this up. My my knowledge base of lray Do
Mundeau is limited, and that's that's being kind. But I
love the fact that a roa is connected. I totally
dig the Connecticut broad leaf underneath. There's nothing here that

(07:59):
would ever keep me shying away. I want to try
every single bit of this. Now. I know you're not
gonna be able to smoke with me. Are're gonna be
able to drink with me? Fingers?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yes, yes I am. And unfortunately I do not have
honey for a hot toddy, so that's out the window.
But I do have a holiday classic that I will
be enjoying it in the second hour of the show.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Is that a Jamoka shak from Arby's.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
No, it's not. But now you've got me door dashing
as we speak.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Jamocha shakes. You can't you cannot go wrong. Al Ray
del Mundo, we're doing the appointment cigar. There is drinking
to be done, and fingers will hopefully feel better. I
tell you that some things are not necessary. They're not.

(08:51):
When I say they're not necessary, it's it's not that
you might not think them necessary. You may absolutely love it.
What I'm saying is you're wrong. It's totally not necessary.
It's eat, drink, smoke. I'm Tony Katz. That is America's
favorite amateur drinker. Fingers molloy and Fingers. They've got there
at at the news site there that you found all

(09:15):
about Amazon. It's about Amazon dot Com. Prime Video introduces
a dedicated news destination for customers. Oh gosh, I thought
they were I thought they were getting into the news business.
I'm like, what the hell are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Why would they get? Amazon likes to be financially successful, right,
So who needs getting into who needs getting into the
news business in twenty twenty five? So no, they're gonna
be like a hub Tony.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
An aggregator.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Perhaps, yes, they're going to offer several different networks their content. Geez,
you go over a lot of it. BBC News, five, Snooze,
you know, ABC News, CBS and so obviously it makes
a lot of sense, right, I mean, you're you're Amazon.

(10:09):
You don't want people leaving Amazon Prime and to go
somewhere else to look at their content. You know, if you, oh, geez,
I want to know what's going on with the news,
I'll go over to the ABC app. Well, then you
get sucked into ABC's content. If you can keep all
that on Amazon Primes app, then it makes good business sense.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
But how I don't know how it works. If you
are let's say, ABC, which is Disney, why would you
even let them aggregate your content?

Speaker 2 (10:40):
The only thing I can think of is Amazon paid
them a pretty penny to allow that to happen. I mean,
Amazon's got deep pockets, right, They're throwing money around everywhere.
Oh yeah, it's the NFL coverage or you know they
they they're a major player. So with some of these
networks that are struggling, why not see the handwriting on

(11:02):
the wall and let Amazon invest some money to prop
them up.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
As my mema always said, bezos money is good money.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Really.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh yeah, used to say it all the time, all
the time. Oh that mema of mine. I miss her
very much. Meanwhile, if people go to Amazon, probably one thing,
and that is for gifts and things you don't need,
and gifts you shouldn't actually buy people because you don't
like them anyway, You're not kidding.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
You know what I did the other day. So I
needed to pick up a quick gosh what did I need?
And I got it at Amazon, and they I was
three dollars short of getting the free delivery. So you
bought brand new car socks, picked up some socks that
you know, who doesn't need more socks. When you're above
the age of thirty. Below the age of thirty, you

(11:54):
get socks for Christmas. It's a disappointment. After the age
of thirty, you're thrilled. I spent seven ninety nine on
some athletic socks so I can get free delivery. So
I spent more. Uh, but at least I got some
socks out of it.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Do you do you are you of the of the
of the persuasion where you wear socks around the house.
You barefoot around the house.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh, socks around the house?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah? Is that because you get cold? Or it's just
because you know you have very unattractive feet? And who
needs that?

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I was a foot model in college?

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
How dare you, sir, make judgments about how my feet
look when you haven't seen them, and we're going to
continue to make sure you don't see them because you.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Haven't said that because you have hideous feet? Are you?
Are you like one of these feet phobic folk.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
I don't understand the foot of the people who are intefeet.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oh you're not just talking about like okay with feet,
you're talking about like into feet.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, like in yes, deep in Yeah, I don't I'm
down to the arches. Yeah. I don't understand people that
like to get foot massages either. I don't understand that either.
I don't anybody touching my feet.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
My wife, who is perfect, loves it, loves it, loves it, wait,
loves rubbing your feet. No, no, no, she likes getting
foot rubs, love loves like. And I'm not freaked out
my feet, So I'm like, sure, if you touch my feet,
I'm gonna have to explain to a judge. While I

(13:22):
killed you. Ye see, thank you, And I'm going to
look at the judge and I'm gonna say, come on
and immediately not guilty. Yeah, I'm gonna be awarded damages.
I I don't know how people do it. I get
that sometimes of feet are tired, and I get that

(13:42):
you would you would like to be able to stretch
them out and get the get some relaxation and kind
of break up the tension, but then somebody else has
to touch them at that moment. I'm a giggly school
girl and I am in violent pain at the same
times experience.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
But you know, Tony, I say it all the time.
When your feet hurt, you hurt all over. Seriously, I
say that all the time. Is that what do Yeah?
That's from a commercial from the nineteen eighties. It always
stuck with me. Thank you, But I'm glad I said that.
I don't want anybody touching my feet.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
There are gifts. You probably get a foot massage over
there and I haven't. Now wait, can you go with
the foot massager?

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (14:24):
That's different, stupid, right, It totally is. Yeah, Because my brother,
the good uh doctor Katz got me one and I
was like, first of all, I don't know where this
was on sale, but thanks. And second I tried it once,
I'm like, okay, that feels good. And then my youngest
stole it. I've never seen it again because my youngest
is also fantastic kid. But wherever that kid's feet have been,

(14:47):
I want nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Well, but that's ridiculous because let's face it, he's in
the grand scheme of things. He's brand new. He shouldn't
need he should not need any kind of contraption to
help with foot pain. He's just breaking those puppies in.
Why on earth does he need to steal you your
foot massage machine? Oh my god, I would be outraged

(15:13):
to fower you. Outraged, I tells you.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Oh I just turned twelve colors of red. Oh oh,
if you see the video of this, I that was
as close to a heart attack as I'm going to
hopefully ever get. Anyway you can get a gift from
our one hundred dollars from Amazon. I'm trying to tell
this story for a month. Now. What do I have
here on this list? Fingers molloy?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Okay, first of all, the Stanley Quencher H two O
Tumblr with handle and straw forty ounces forty five bucks
on Amazon, Tony, This is a question that has plagued
men for decades. Drinking out of a straw out of
a tumbler? For a man, that's is that acceptable?

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Are you saying that you would not drink out of
this right here, fingers, my lawyer, Are you saying that
you wouldn't have yourself in in a nice coral color
or orange? The uh, the the the the the quencher
of of of choice here?

Speaker 2 (16:15):
If I could drink out of the lid, sure, but
a straw? Eh?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
All right?

Speaker 2 (16:23):
What about you? What do you? How do you feel
about the straw tumbler combination?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Oh, it's ridiculous and you're a child, thank you. The
whole thing is is is nuts.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
What am I drinking out of that Caprice Sun? Is
that what I'm doing?

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yes, fingers, you're drinking Caprice Son out of that gosh. Uh.
There they are also selling right here. I'll share with you. Uh,
they have got the what they call the Cussini or
is that especially like Cuisini flameless tabletop indoor marshmallow roaster.
So you can make this was at popular Mechanics dot com.

(16:59):
See you can make your own.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
S'mores, or you can make friends with your local fire
department right immediately.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
That's not a gift. That's a hey, I forgot about you.
Here you go.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
That is a regift.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
G Yes, that is the fruitcake of gift heat drinks
smoking is your cigar bourbon food, the extravaganza on Tony Katz.
And that is an unhealthy fingers maloy suffering from the
creeping crud, a chest cold that prevents him from enjoying

(17:39):
a fine cigar fingers How are you right now?

Speaker 2 (17:43):
First of all, evergreen with unhealthy fingers maloy, but it
actually has to do with some sort of virus or
bacteria or whatever else it could be. But anyway, it's
in my chest and it's not going away. And you said,
and rightly, so I understand I gave you a crap
a little earlier. But who needs someone coming into your
studio coughing all over the place, right on, all over

(18:07):
your stuff. So no, I'm fine. The only thing that stinks, though,
is I'm not able to enjoy this cigar that you are.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, the lray de mundo, this is the appointment. There's
actually a little bit of spice that is building up
on this doing this in the gordo A five by sixty.
Absolutely not my ring gauge, Absolutely not my size. Man,
this is a very very worthwhile bit of cigar. There

(18:35):
is more heat on this than I expected. It started
with this caramel and this seedar, and the cedar is
now getting spicier and that's hitting the like the side
of the throat. It is smoking beautifully. It is not
the prettiest cigar, I will not lie. It's not the

(18:56):
prettiest wrapper at all. But at eight and fifty cents
a stick, allow me to say, yes, right now, I
think people are gonna flip over this. I I've got
another one for you. I'm trying to remember where I
bought it. I don't one hundred percent remember right now.
Oh wait, now I do, Now I do. I got

(19:17):
these here in Indianapolis town called Fishers, at a cigar
lounge called Cigar Haven is where I got them. Um,
this is this is gonna make some people's lists. Here's
there's a there's a nice smoothness going on. That spice
is built up in it in a very very joyous way.

(19:39):
It is medium body. Yeah, let me say it again. Yeah,
this is all right, fingers woint.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Now forgive me if you you already explained this and
I just missed it because I'm under the weather, and
that's what I'm gonna blame everything on if I make
a mistake last week. Does that come in another vatola?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah? So you can get this as a robusto five
by fifty. You can get this as a toro as well,
which I think is a six by fifty. I think
they do it as a fifty four. Yeah, six by
fifty four, which I would love to see this cigars
at six by fifty four. I cannot wait to try.
This is impressive.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Are you surprised at how much the spice is picking
up on that?

Speaker 1 (20:27):
I am. I am surprised that there is spice on
it right that. I think that more than anything else,
I'm surprised there's a level of spice in the slightest
l Ray del Mundo, Cameroon, A rapper coming out of Honduras, Connecticut.
Broad leaf there in the binder Ecuadorian and Nicaraguan. Oh,

(20:48):
it's Ecuadorian in Nicaragua. Wait a second, I know it's
it's nick Honduran and Nicaraguan in the filler. Is the
way I have this. Oh, I take that back. That's wrong.
It's Ecuadorian Nicaraguan. I apologize. Also, I'm a little bit
surprised by the level of spice here, but it's being

(21:09):
balanced nice. This is a if the spice continues to
pick up, the cigar is going to give me an issue.
But at this stage, right now, there's a lot of
good happening for eight dollars and fifty cents.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
It's crazy, Yes, it's crazy. That's well, I'm good. I'm
hoping that it will. You'll continue to enjoy it and
it won't be off putting as you get into the
second third and the final third of this.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
You have me to get out. I can get a box.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, get through that one first before you decide to
get a box. But uh, that's that's good. I mean,
we've we've talked about this for a long time, how
it's getting harder and harder to find that kind of
stick under ten dies. So at eight fifty, that's that's
wonderful to hear.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
I will pick up some toros. I will get some
toros and see what we could do with that. But
it's time fingers maloy for news of the week.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
So you know, Tony, we have been documenting the problems
over at Spirit Airlines now for quite some time. It
feels like it's been a couple of years now. They've
transferred Spirit Airlines the Chicago airport gates to American Airlines
for thirty million dollars.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Does that seem like a lot to you? Thirty mili?

Speaker 2 (22:34):
I wondered if it was enough. Well, but it's only
according to Reuters, it's only two airport gates to American Airlines,
So maybe, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
But it's gate space. Now. Wait, so Spirit O'Hare or
Spirit Midway, So.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
It's O'Hare International Airport.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Okay, so you have two more slots at one of
the busiest airports in the world. Like, okay, you know what,
I'm totally wrong. I'm thinking of this as Spirits basically
having a fire sale. They're out of business. They're lucky
to get anything. This is prime real estate. It's like
buying a liquor license. I assume that's the way it works.

(23:21):
Two more spots, how many flights is that per day?
How many options is that per week, per month? And
the dollars just you know, generates itself, and especially for
a place like American because O'Hare I believe is a
United hub, So this I think gives American some more
opportunities that way.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, I believe it isn't Midway Southwest.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yes, Midway is Midway is all Southwest. It's great, it's
a fine airport. It's interesting because my first reaction was
thirty million dollars. It's yeah, who is who's giving Spirit
Airlines thirty million dollars? No? No, no, they in real estate.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, this is part of of its network optimization. Spirit
determined it no longer needed all four preferential gates at
Chicago O'Hare International Airport, but it will retain two gates
while assigning two gates to American Airlines, so Spirit will
still have a footprint at O'Hare, according to Reuters. But
it's interesting because I was looking to fly down to

(24:23):
Florida Fort Myers and Spirit used to from I was
looking for a flight from Indianapolis. Used to offer flights
from Indianapolis directly to Fort Myers, and that no longer exists,
apparently because I looked and I could not find anything
from Indianapolis to Fort Myers through Spirit.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
I'm not here to bad talk to them, even though
we did have that bad flight. I'm saying that to
play to get on a flight, to buy a ticket
on Spirit Airlines is to play a See. I was
gonna use an expression, but I think I'll get in
trouble if I used the expression. I was gonna say,

(25:05):
it's flight Russian roulette. But you wouldn't go that far, right.
But the issue is whether or not you're there's gonna
be a plane, not whether you're gonna get hurt on
the plane. So and so I was like, I shouldn't
use that one. So I said it, but you now
know where I was coming from.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
So my question to you is, you know, I just
mentioned that I was looking to fly to Florida in
December and looking to Spirit and it wasn't there. Without
naming the airline that you are, said you were flying
to Las Vegas for the holidays. Uh, you know the
flight that we took that we complained about on Spirit

(25:41):
Airlines was a Las Vegas flight. Yeah, returned. So did
you happen to notice was were there flights available through
Spirit Airlines Vegas?

Speaker 1 (25:53):
I did not even check.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
And I'm even tapped out on Spirit altogether.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Oh yeah, I'm all oh tacking out as fast as
I can. Absolutely no. I I ended up taking, against
my better judgment southwest to Vegas because it was NonStop,
and to find a NonStop flight these days is impossible.
It drives me nuts. I'm going with the family, so

(26:19):
I'm like, all right with them. I could be next
to them. It's it's totally fine. It's it's good, it's
it's no problem. It's not my first class once. But
I I have learned to suffer like a common man
for family.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I don't use the word hero very often.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
I'm not gonna use I will go get my cake,
you know.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Wow, But so did you have to pay for luggage
and seat assignment with there's.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
There's no seat assignment chet that's not coming till that's
not coming till January. Now, I just bought my tickets
and got my preferred boarding and give me my drink
tickets that I won't use. It's just gonna be that easy.
I often question exactly how much it's going to take

(27:09):
me to retire? What is the money that you need?
And it's why you need to be listen. Don't take
investment advice from me. Don't take investment advice from Fingers
Maloy if you're young, invest If you live differently than
your friends now, you'll live differently than your friends later,
which means you won't go out to every bar, you
won't go to every sporting event, you won't go to

(27:30):
every concert. You'll keep your money growing and compounding, and
you will end up better off than everybody. It's Eat
Drink Smoke. I'm Tony Katz. That is America's favorite amateur drinker.
Fingers Maloy. Find everything at Eat Drinks Smoke show dot com.
Find us on your favorite podcast platform and looking up
for us at all the social media's there. Just look
for Eat Drink Smoke on x Go, Eat Drink Smoke

(27:53):
and on Instagram, Eat Drink Smoke Podcast. Fingers. There's a
story that you found over there at Yahoo Finance, whereas
I believe where you get all.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Your financial news absolutely Yahoo and MySpace.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Nice. The average American sixty five years of age and
up earns an annual income of sixty five thousand, four
hundred and sixty eight dollars. So am I to take
that as that's like a pension kind of pay.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Either that or average out whatever they've saved for retirement.
You know, whether it's mandatory withdrawals out of their retirement
account and whatever extra that they plan. That's my guest.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
So according to this which is from the Federal Reserve
Bank of Saint Louis twenty twenty three, which is the
latest data, right, a couple of years trailing, does group
spends out of the sixty five thousand, four hundred and
sixty eight sixty thousand, eighty seven yearly four thousand, six
hundred and twenty two dollars a month. So another way

(28:58):
to look at this is that the average retired American
needs forty six hundred dollars a month to survive. Now,
I'm going to assume that is a single person, not
a couple, and that according to a survey of consumer finances,

(29:21):
the average American between the ages of sixty five and
sixty nine has about two hundred thousand dollars in retirement savings. Okay,
this is a hard conversation. That is not a lot
of money. And I don't want to be the person

(29:45):
who's talking about people who are in this situation and
go at them. That's not my interest. I'm not doing that.
That's you you are still working with. If that's what
you have in the bank. That is a hard one
to make stretch. Yeah, and people are gonna be like
two hundred thousand dollars because it sounds like money. It's

(30:07):
it's not two hundred thousand dollars invested. How throwing you
off what? And the real question is what are you
spending on between now and then? And I speak as
a guy who lost everything in the downturn of two
thousand and eight two nine, twenty ten. I lost everything
I owned. I had to give up the house that

(30:29):
we had in Florida. That I mean, that's a house
I we We've talked about this before. We could have
still lived in five bedrooms. It had three bass at
a pool. It was in Tampa, great place, great place.
Could have raised the kids there, you could have you
could have come and gone for gone for a dip fingers, fantastic.

(30:50):
But then we moved to California and we rented out
the place and everything went to hell and a ham
basket in that in that downturn. Uh. And we still
I mean, I I speak very honestly. We worked it
out and there was some money owed and we just
every month, every month, we send a check and take
care of our debts, right like a lanister. We're taking

(31:11):
care of our debts since that time and rebuilding my
entire life, which which I mean were you saw it happened, fingers,
you saw every bit of it take place. The levels
to which I don't live above my means is exceptional.

(31:31):
And I listen, I'm not afraid to spend. You've heard
me talk about cigars and other things. I don't buy
the big fancy house I don't have. I don't do
any of that stuff. I don't know what people spend
their money on, and I don't know how people get
to a certain age. Listen, bad things happen and you

(31:54):
fight through it, and what matters is you got through
the other side. As long as you're through the other
side and you worked towards that, you can then rebuild
to some level and be like, you know what, this
all happened and here I'm at now. But if you
haven't thought about it and that's not something that's going
on in your life, what are you doing? I mean,
that's a long winded way of me getting to this point.

(32:14):
What the hell are people spending their money on? That
If at the age of sixty nine, with no necessarily
damaging things that took place in life, because it can
happen and nothing bad happens. What were you doing? That's
the part the boggles of mind.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Am I being rude? No, We've talked about this a
lot where first of all, when you graduate from high school,
there is no real financial literacy for American people. There
just is not. They don't give you any kind of
training on how to even And I know this sounds
totally old man screaming at the cloud, but balance a

(32:55):
check book. Let alone think about retirement because you mentioned
it early, or time is your best friend, and really
you can somehow figure out a way to sock away
a bunch of money in your twenties and just let
time take care of things for you. You won't be
in a situation where you have just two hundred thousand
dollars in your late sixties for retirement.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
And we're not. And for the record, again, neither one
of us are financial planners, and neither one of us
did it right, but we're both we in this conversation
it is about admitting it like we didn't do it right.
We both are are you know, if we had known,
if we had had the advice, if we were smarter,
and so we both spend a lot of time engaging

(33:37):
this with our kids. Yeah, in an aggressive way, because
if we can set them up better, then okay, we
can break the chain, right, we could break the cycle here.
And so much of this is psychological. You don't need
the new thing, you don't need the biggest thing. You
don't need that thing because somebody else got the thing.

(34:01):
You have to ask yourself what is it that you're
trying to do? What is it you're trying to get accomplished?
And trust me when I say there is something very
joyful about the first of the month coming. You sit down,
you pay the bills, usually your old school right the check.
Now you're just doing everything online. Yeah, and then you're done.
You're like, I'm gonna go have lunch without a care.

(34:23):
There are no worries here because you decided to live
right over here. And other people are in debt up
to their eyeballs and they're house poor, and there's nothing
worse than being house poor.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
How much of this do you think? And you know
how much I love to blame social media for everything.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Oh, this is marketing issues. This is going back long
before social media. People want immediate gratification. There's no understanding
of the of the value of sacrifice.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I mean, making it worse. The whole idea of keeping
up with the Joneses and seeing all these influencers doing
all these fun things, and you see yourself going to
work every morning, coming back home and feeling guilty about
buying your five dollars coffee, and so you decide, well,
the heck with it, yolo. You know, the young people think, well,

(35:15):
climate change is going to destroy the planet anyway, why
should I worry about retirement? And next thing, you know,
you have next to nothing for retirement.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
The coffee thing that I've seen from the people I
work with in radio, the amount of money they spend
at a Starbucks like place is mine. It's mind boggling
how this happens, how this works, Why they think that
this is somehow good or smart or valuable. They've never

(35:49):
done the math, They've never added it up. It's hundreds
of dollars a month. You could do one Starbucks a week,
put the rest, put the rest of it in the savings,
just matching the dow and the rest is history. Just
let it grow, bitch.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
The amount of people who spend that kind of money
on Starbucks coffee that that could be your used car payment. No,
not a new car payment. We talked about it. People
are spending seven eight nine, one hundred thousand dollars a
month on new car payments. I used car payment.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
You know, you and I have not talked about the
fact that I am now and I won't explain why
I'm now in the market for a car. Nothing happened
on no accidents or anything. I'm now in the market.
Oh and I'll give you you know, I can't even
give you the quick story. I'll give it to you.
On the other side, We've got much more. Keep it here.
This is ettering smoke. You need a good entree. Defiancebeef

(36:46):
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(37:07):
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I actually got the call from the butcher yesterday, got
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I'm ready to go. I'm telling you I'm gonna have
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(37:27):
have been patient. I've been like, you don't worry about
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People have been ordering you go to defiancebef dot com,
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(37:47):
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hundred and fifty dollars off your order. So it's one
of those times where Fingers Molloy and I we're not
we're not drinking the same thing. It's because Fingers Moloi

(38:11):
has near death chest cold. Isn't that right, Fingers, I
have the croup. I don't think that's what you have.
I don't think you actually have the croup. Fingers wore
the croup.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
I don't worry. I've I've rubbed a little vixed vapor
rub underneath my chin, and I've got an onion tied
to my belt to find it. No time.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
You you are a medical marvels. He drinks smoke. I'm
Tony Katz and that is America's favorite amateur drinker. Fingers wine. Yeah,
because he's sick, wasn't able to be in studio and
having a cigar, so separate locations, but bring you the
same fantastic show. And we both needed something to drink,
and I said, you know, I'm just gonna go back
to the well. We've actually done this a couple of

(38:56):
times and I got to finish this up anyway. This
is my bottle of blue Rub, the high rye coming
in at one hundred and eleven proof, fingers, will I
thank you right there. Honestly, I think that blue run
is just fantastic. I think it's a must have in
the liquor cabinet. Don't get me wrong. There are less

(39:16):
expensive bourbon's out there. This one is going to run
you ninety to one hundred bucks. When I say high rye,
that's just because of the mash bill. It's a higher
rye in the mash bill. So this is sixty five
percent corn, thirty percent rye, five percent malted barley, that's why.
But it's not a rye. This is a bourbon coming in.

(39:39):
I just heard that open at one hundred and eleven proof.
Should I just finish that? I just finished that. I
just filled that. Ever you, oh, look at that. This
is our professional pores, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
They call you the finisher.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
That's swell. I don't mean to brag, but that's it.
But fingers Willy, I was worried about your health and
I didn't know if you were gonna be having a
a beverage, a cocktail. What do you what are you
gonna be drinking today?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, you suggested it earlier today, and I had it
in my mind that I was going to have a.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Hot toddy using the hot toddy.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Using the recipe that you can get from Let's Go Bourbon,
Oh our book, Yes, which you could find at Amazon
dot com. I was going to do that, Tony. But
apparently my uh, the the guy that uh he delivers
honey every week.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Uh stop stop. I don't know if you're joking right now.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Ah yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm joking. I haven't. I
haven't purchased honey in several decades because honey.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
I swear to you all. Laugh. But I could totally
see Fingers doing that. I could totally see Fingers being
a guy who has a honey delivery.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
I must have my honey delivered right to my front door. No,
I don't have any husband dry, so I don't have
any honey. So there goes the hot toddy right out
the out the window. But you know, Tony, you know
how much I enjoy the term comfort food.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Do I?

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I mean, it's just wonderful and it's not overused at all.
I actually do buy into comfort drinks, however, right and
what's really comforting for me for the holidays is a
good eggnog, and so I have I'm drinking right now.
Evan Williams has I don't think I've ever seen this

(41:35):
before until this year. Peppermint white chocolate eggnog.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
So you're not drinking eggnog you're drinking special eggnog. That's right,
Evan Grandma secret formula eggnog, Grandma Evan Williams eggnog, peppermint
white chocolate.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
It is made with Kentucky straight bourbon, whiskey, blended whiskey,
liquor rum and brandy coming in, Tony. It's thirty proof.
There no dirty proof. No.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
I by the way, I can't imagine that. You know. Uh,
dairy based drinks are what you're supposed to have with
a chest cold.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
See why you gotta do that? Why you gotta do that?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Just what I noticed? That's all. That's all. By the way,
there's brandy in it, though, God, it is freaking delicious.
This nose then, Oh, does your nose go like brandy?

Speaker 2 (42:37):
I know, I can't. I can't smell anything anything.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
This is nuts, the the the the nose on this
blue run high Rye bourbon. It's just it's beautiful. It
is this right amount of caramel. There's a little bit
of spice. I think you kind of get tricked into
thinking that there's oh, just because it feels so very good.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
What about ethanol, Tony, I mean, you're talking one hundred
and twenty proof.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Hold on, Watch me go in one hundred and eleven proof,
watch me go in here?

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Watch Wow.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Yeah, it's fine, it's just so. So I'm going in
fingers will, I have no time for you. I'm going first.
I've been waiting for this all day.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
There you go. So he's enjoying the well, look at you.
Look at how happy he is. He's doing what we
like to call the sagona swish Memphis munch.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
It's actually hitting me a little hotter than I remember.
And I thought it would be a good mix with
the cigar excuse me, smooth, but I'm doing the lray
Domundo the appointment because it had this cedar spice to
it that was building, but it did cap And I
thought this would be a nice mix because there was
a little caramel in the cigar, which is a six bye,

(44:00):
I'm sorry, five by sixty, really big green gauge at Gordo,
and so I thought it might be a nice mix.
This is just it's a caramel. There's a little bit
of the char. You almost get This bourbon has so
grown on me and I'm and I'm sorry to say
that I have now officially emptied the bottle. Here there

(44:22):
there will be another one. There's no way there's a replacement.
I just think I think it's a winning, winning proposition.
I think that that palette is great, and I think
that that finish where the rye finds its spot. But this,
this caramel sweet, this, this to an extent butterscotchy, which
I happen to love in a bourbon. I'm surprised that

(44:46):
I do. But I really think it works more and more.
Maybe it's the older I get smarter, I get whatever
it is. I think this is tremendous, and even at
the you know, going back to early COVID days, ninety
dollars a bottle, I mean, yes, I think it's that good.
Is the blue run high Rye bourbon. But it's no

(45:07):
match for Evan Williams egnogn fingers, which I bought, I believe,
for nine dollars a bottle. So I'm going in right now, right, Well,
I like the rocks glass, right, I like things with
a good etching. Right, it's got the cross pattern etching
there and you can't taste it.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Oh no I can't. It's it's nice. I don't know
about you. I some people. I mean it's like the
hat fields and the McCoy's. When it comes to white chocolate,
people either love it or they hate it. I'm kind
of fine with it. I'm not bothered by it.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
I have no time to put that in my do
I like or do I not like thing? It's like
the pineapple on pizza. People they have a problem and
they just want to look special. And it's fine. You
want to eat it, eat your pizza. I'm not here
to judge at all.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yes, unless we're talking about ketchup on a hot Have
you said that the white chocolate is there? There's just
a hint of pepperint, you know, the star of the show,
especially as you let the ice melt in. This is
the white chocolate. Now, get's fantastic. It's a great holiday drink.
I have three bottles in the house right now.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
How many are you gonna have after this weekend?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Three bottles because I'll go buy three more.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Okay, because this this is how you get rid of
a chess cold.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
That's that according to all the scientists at the Fingers
moy Institute for Institutes of Institutes right there. We have
a lot to get to. So let's do a follow
up conversation here about the spending because and this is

(46:48):
about money, This is about your financial future. Neither fingers
Molly or I nor I. We are we financial advisors,
and you should never take financial advice from us, but
sometimes we engage conversations of what is happening around us.
You know how they were floating the idea of a
fifty year mortgage, which is of course an insane idea. Well,

(47:10):
we're now into the idea of what is it, fingers Moloy,
seven year eight year car payments?

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, you already see that, uh seven year?

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Well let me let me explain how to avoid that.
It's Eat Drink smoke. I'm Tony Katz, that is fingers below.
I find everything we do at Eat Drink smokeshow dot com.
So it has come to my attention, fingers Moil, that
I am going to need myself a new vehicle and
I'm going to need to buy a car. And I

(47:44):
said to my self, fingers self, I says, what is
it that you would like? Now, as I say, fingers Moloy,
I do mind my p's and q's and mind my dollars,
and I live a debt free life. I have worked
very hard at this. I have been through the on this.
I apologize to no one for it. So the idea

(48:05):
of having a car payment is making me a little crazy.
So I said, okay, well here's what i'd kind of
be interested in. Right, here's the more reach stuff, here's
the more like stuff that would work for me. And
some things are right out right. I'm just not getting
something that would I would call what what's the word

(48:25):
I'm looking for? Fingers basic pedestrian? Oh wow, I am
not getting a four door Sedan. I have nothing against
ford door Sinnan's I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Are you getting a sports car?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
No? No, no, no, no, no, I don't I don't
think so I'm looking and I start looking. I said, okay,
what about this range? What about these types of cars?
I do not know when a car of note? Right,
I didn't say the four door Sadan a car of note.

(49:02):
So luxury but not super luxury is seventy thousand dollars
fingers molloy, what the heck by this? I have a
friend in California it's also looking for a vehicle and
was looking at Genesis. Now this is non an attack
on Genesis. They make a fine car. My brother has one.

(49:23):
I think they make some beautiful stuff. My friends would
have them. It was a smaller suv. Jen's a smaller
suv is a little over seventy grand. And I said, well,
I don't know what you're gonna put down, but you
understand we're talking about a payment of one thousand dollars
plus a month. And he said yeah. And at that
moment I broke. I went out of my head. One

(49:52):
thousand dollars a month car payments.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Oh yeah, it's very common. I mean, you're looking at
a seventy thousand dollar car. You know, you mentioned the
other day you had friends that were looking at or
just purchased a Hummer. If you don't lease it, those
vehicles are close to one hundred thousand dollars or over.
I mean, that's that's where we're at right now, and

(50:17):
that's why use car prices are so high for people
who want to avoid that thousand dollars car payment. I'm
looking at used cars that are ten years old and
still seeing fifteen to twenty thousand dollars on the price
tag is just it blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Me too, But that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna get
a twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen pickup. That's
what I'm getting. I'm gonna get the F one fifty
or I'm gonna get the Silverado. If I can get
myself a GMC Sierra, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that.
I would look at some the rams from then or
like that's like the end of it, because Silantis went

(50:55):
through I think a bad period there, and I don't
think the quality is like like it should have been.
That's what I'm doing. I looked at everything. It's not
a question whether I can afford it. Who wants to
afford that? That's insane, that's psychotic. And there are people
out there doing that for not for the thing that

(51:20):
is exceptional, memorable, just for the idea of saying, look
what I drive? What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (51:29):
It's so hard? You know, I drive a Chevy Volt
and I drive thank you. And you know, one of
the gigs I have, I can charge it for free.
So that's why I have it. It's I've got one
hundred and sixty seven thousand miles on it and I'm
still getting a good life out of the battery, right,

(51:53):
you know. And so there's part of me that's just like, Okay,
I'm gonna run this down into the into the ground,
right three hundred thousand miles. But I understand. You know,
my insurance agency at the end of the year, you know,
they I have an app that will and I hate
that I do this, but for a discounting car insurance,

(52:17):
I've got their app. It told me I was in
my car for a total of almost twenty nine days
with all the driving I've done. So the part of
me is like, I can completely understand why people say
to themselves if I have to spend if you're in
sales or whatever, if you have to spend almost a
month of your life in a car, I can totally

(52:37):
understand why they're saying, well, you know what, I'm going
to get something that is not only comfortable, but something
I love being in, and that may lead you to
one thousand dollars a month for a car payment.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
No bad fingers, Absolutely not. I refuse. I am going
to pay cash, I'm going to make the deal. I'm
going to walk away, and that's it. Seventy and it's
not seventy thousand dollars of Portia seventy thousand dollars of

(53:13):
the other car. Looks basically like this.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
That's the other thing too. And and you look at
cars from the fifties.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I moved me up into the late sixties, early seventies,
but I mean the KK, but THEK even in the seventies,
the character the cars, all the.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Sedans look alike. Now, you know, there is some creativity
in the pickup trucks with the grills and stuff, and
you know, some look different than the other. But man,
for the most part, these cars all look the same.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
There was a moment there where SUVs, every one of
them was exactly the same because of the cafe standards,
which I know something you talk about a lot, the
idea of the fuel efficiency standards. Well, they all required
a certain type of look to and how it was
gonna deal with, you know, fuel efficiency. So they all

(54:04):
ended up basically looking the same. They're all the same.
I'm not doing any of that crap. No, no, And
by the way, here I am calling a crap and
someone's like, hey, I drive one of those pieces of crap.
How dare you? I get it, I get it, I
get it, I get it. But even those are like
forty to sixty grand.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
And but what you realize the vehicle that you're choosing
a pickup truck, those values and prices are all inflated.
You're gonna be spending much more on a pickup than
you would if you were going to get yourself a
sedan or an suv because everybody wants their pickup truck.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I think everyone wants their suv and the large scale suv.
And I'm not one hundreds cent sure about the pickup.
But if that's the case, so be it. I think
the price has been a little bit more expensive, but
comparatively speaking, I'm getting I'm buying a twelve year old
truck just so I can stay sane. I don't know what.
I don't know what that's it is about the economy.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Look, I drive thirty thousand miles a year on a car.
If I didn't have to drive all that, I would
have a huge pickup truck. Massing twice about it, massive
pickup truck.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
The Fingers five thousand eat drink smoking is your cigar
bourbon footy extravaganza. I'm Tony Katz. That's Fingers Maloy and
we are well. Fingers is sick. Fingers has the chess
cold and the crud and whatever else do you associate
with chess, colds and crud.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
It's not pretty. You know, a lesser man would not
be on the air right now. But I am mustling
through for Eat, Drink, smoke Nation.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
You are an amazing, amazing American. So I am in
charge of the smoking, and we're drinking different things because
we're not in the same place. This is the al
Ray del Mundo. This is known as the Appointment. I'm
doing the Gordo the six, the five by sixty right
here with that Cameroon rapper, which is done by Christian Aroa,

(56:07):
and then the Connecticut broadleaf, Ecuadorian and Nicaraguan in the filler.
This is an absolutely wonderful smoke. It's an absolutely wonderful smoke.
I cannot wait to do this as the tour on
the six by fifty four. If my local shops don't
have it, I'm I'm ordering it online. The Cameroon there's

(56:28):
been almost like a little bit of caramel there. With
the Ecuadorian broadleaf, there's been a spice it from the cedar.
It has mellowed into this nice bit of a wood
and tobacco. It's not the super prettiest of the rappers.
It's much lighter, but at eight dollars and fifty cents

(56:48):
a stick all day, no question, it's it's it works
beautifully for what it is. Wo tile for what it is.
So you know I'm saying that wrong. Hold on, I
want to be sorry. It's not what it is. I
don't think there's any any compromise here. They just did

(57:10):
something really nice at a price in today's world that
is unbelievable. And I'm all day on this cigar.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
So I have to ask you this, if that were
only available in that ring gauge, would you still buy them?

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Ah? Not as many, but I will try. I want
to try the Toro, the six by fifty four. If
that gives this flavor, I will buy it. I will
buy it a box at a time. I am. I
am impressed with the cigar at the price. I'm out
of my head. This is this might make a list.

(57:50):
Oh wow, Yeah, there's something happening here that. By the way,
we're very close. We are very just weeks away from
our Bourbon of THEE and Cigar the Year for twenty
twenty five. That'll happen the first two weeks in January.
Fingers my way. I'm very excited.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Now me too. I'm going over the list. It's gonna
be of what we reviewed this year. It's going to
be difficult to come up with, you know, a top three,
because we've we've had a lot of good pairings this year.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yes, and we've also done some flavored cigars which was well,
it was.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
We'll be on a top three list, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Probably the bottom. God, we're not nice people some now,
but we do love the people who make cigars. And
so we're drinking and we weren't in the same place,
so we weren't able to review the same thing fingers
as the chess cold. So he's doing some Evan Williams
white chocolate peperint peppermint eggnog, which we are told by
physicians the world over is the only thing to have

(58:53):
when you have a chess cold.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
It's true. Uh, doctor Oz I believe said that. Not
the doctor Oz that's famous. It's a doctor Oz I
know down the street. Having said that, No, this is
this was less than ten dollars a bottle. It is
fifteen percent alcohol. That's thirty proof. The Evan Williams Aggnag

(59:17):
peppermint white chocolate Kentucky Strait bourbon, whiskey, blended whiskey, liquor,
rama and brandy, all in this little bottle right here
for less than ten dollars. Like I said earlier, I
have three bottles of this in my house, and.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
I decided just to kill my bottle. A blue run
high Rye bourbon coming in at one hundred and eleven proof,
sixty five percent corn in the mash bill thirty percent Rye,
five percent multi barley. I didn't add a cube to it.
I'm just going to enjoy it. It is. This is,
you know, back when I first saw it, early COVID days,

(59:55):
ninety dollars a bottle, so probably I would say if
you find it over one hundred right now, I'm telling
you that's a must. It is an absolute must. In
the liquor cabinet. They just do a beautiful job and
I do not. There's something a little bit and the
end there that's a little sweet caramel butterscotchy, and that

(01:00:16):
butterscotchy thing is working for me lately. It's working for me.
I have a whole barrel pick coming out that I picked,
like I picked the barrel. We're putting it out soon
and it's picked because well that butterscotch just knocked me over,
really really did. I don't know why it's happening these days.
So the Blue run Kentucky Strait high rye a bourbon

(01:00:38):
whiskey one hundred and eleven proof. It is a must
for the liquor cabinet. But it's time fingers maloy for
news of the week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Well, NPR has the story, Tony. The Federal Reserve lowered
its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point Wednesday,
taking cues from an earlier each drink smoke. You know,
they all the Federal Reserve Board, they listen daturing smoke,
and they heard me say, I want to refinance my
mortgage in February, so you need to continue to lower

(01:01:07):
interest rates. And they agreed. So they went ahead and
lowered the interest rate.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
And just to prove how good it was that they
did indeed lower interest rates, let's take a look at
where the price of silver has been. And oh, yeah,
sixty one dollars an ounce. Sorry to me, t y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah, because he sold his silver at four dollars an ounce.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
I sold it at fifty one. True story. I sold
my silver at fifty one. I did pretty well. Sixty
one dollars an ounce. Precious metals are a hedge against inflation,
and we're lowering interest rates. Something has got to give
Fingers Bloy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
It's all bizarre because you keep hearing the numbers about
the job market, and they don't want the job market
to soften any more than it's allegedly softened. But then again,
you know, prices continue to go up. It's boy, you
hate using stagflation. I don't want to use that word,
especially because when you think of stagflation back, you know,

(01:02:15):
forty fifty years ago, you were talking interest rates and
unemployment in double digits and we're not anywhere near that yet,
not even close. But it's clear that something isn't going
well right now, and it's just a matter of what's
going to shake this economy out of a funk. And

(01:02:36):
I don't know if it's going to be able to
with the AI coming on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
So but now go you got to go in a
different direction. You can't think of it as just the
job losses. Right The report from CNBC, the reporting, I
should say, from CNBC one point one million jobs lost
this year, and a lot of it has to do
with AI and people and being replaced by by the
artificial intelligence. And you say AI is a problemance costing jobs,

(01:03:00):
and look what it's doing. Think of the trillions of
dollars of investment that has sent markets through the roof
and four oh one k's into happy places. And now
what do you do. You cannot stop the progress. You can't.
What's really interesting is all these kids that were told, hey,
you should learn to code. I've said those words. The

(01:03:23):
coding is being replaced now the AI doesn't do it
perfectly yet you're still years away from it, but they're
being replaced. So now they're like, well, what do I
do with these skills that everybody told me we're always
going to be in demand. That's a hard one, right,
So things are morphing and changing, and you can argue

(01:03:43):
there's a pain. You can argue that there are people
who are impacted. I won't say no, I'll wholeheartedly agree
to this. However, they were impacted. I think we've talked
about this. When you got rid of the horse and
buggy and went to the automobile, there is always a
moment of somewhere there was someone out there copying pamphlets

(01:04:04):
one at a time with their quill and then here
became Gutenberg with the press, you know, the printing press,
and they were like this quill is worthless now. So
am I supposed to like to be all angry with
the march of progress? Or do I say this is
the moment for resilience and you got to rethink and

(01:04:26):
figure out where your opportunities are and go get them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Well, that's what's gonna be curious, because are we gonna
be in some sort of purgatory now where people are
just looking around and not wanting to spend money because
they're thinking AI is going to take my job. So
they're just sitting back and being really conservative.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
I think we're there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
If you take a look at Black Friday sales just
real quick, because we got to run it was luxury items,
less items, but luxury items. They're buying the fancy thing,
and that's it. I think we're gonna see spending down.
I think people are keeping their powder dry for sure.

(01:05:02):
If you are concerned about AI taking your job, we
get it. We were just talking about this. However, there
is a list. Because we hear, eat, drink, smoke, we
always love a list. There is a list of fast
growing entry level careers at low risk of being replaced
by AI and number eleven on that list, co host

(01:05:26):
of E Drink Smoke. Ouch. No, I'm just saying we're
both gonna be all right. Oh okay, D Drink Smoke.
I'm Tony Katz. That is America's favorite amateur drinker. Fingers
molloy a, you are irreplaceable, fingers.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Oh that's adorable.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Right now, there is a list from a group called
Resume Now. They've identified, oh, the fast growing entry level jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
What I only listen to resume later?

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Oh? Smart, This is resume Now. These are jobs unlikely
to be replaced by AI, and you'll pay abroughly fifty
thousand dollars and above, and they are projected to grow
by five percent the average job growth rate or faster
by twenty thirty four. Shall we begin absolutely the list

(01:06:22):
brought to you by the good people at Defiance Beef,
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and everything that you have purchased. They're sticking around. They've
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(01:06:43):
know you can't replace this with Ai. Have you tried
the AI steake? Ask neo. It's terrible, but the real
stuff is fantastic. Age twenty one days, cut to your specifications.
A quarter cow, half cow, full cow. You decide, you choose,
You reserve your beat Beef chair, and then you will
get a call and say, okay, what do you want?

(01:07:03):
How do you want those tenderloins cut?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
The ten loins and tenloins? How do you want those
trips cut? How thick? How about those ribbis? Oh you're
gonna get this. Oh you're gonna plenty of meat to
make stews with. Oh you're gonna get a brisket in
that as well. The flank stakes, the cub stakes. Everything
is in there and then it comes to you frozen individually,
vacuum packed, used, put it right in the freezer. They
have been incredible. My family has been eating like gods

(01:07:28):
for the past month and we are not done yet.
Go to Defiancebeef dot com and use promo code Eat
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(01:07:51):
UK and out of France, they do not ship to Europe.
I apologize to the United States, You're covered. Sorry Europe.
I feel bad. I feel very very bad. Maybe you
can trade them for baguettes defiancebeef dot com. Go there
and go there immediately. Here's the list, fingers Willy. Here

(01:08:12):
is the list of the jobs not being replaced by AI.
Number one. Oh wait, should I do number twelve first?
I'll do number twelve first. Number twelve EMTs and paramedics
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
So unless we have the AMT robots showing up, which
I'm sure will happen in due time.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Maybe that's no scary median salary forty and fifty dollars.
Then number eleven is solar photovoltaic installers. I don't know
what that's supposed to mean.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Oh, that's those are people. You got your regular photo
alic installers, But then you have the people that are
are in charge of the solar full of velic installers.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
You don't know, you don't even know what the word is.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
A photo alicoto, a photo ale tach full of a tack. Yeah. Yeah,
that's why I get all my information at resume later.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
Heating, air conditioning, refrigeration mechanics. It's true. You're never gonna
have AI replace the person who's willing to sweat and
replace the can outside in the month of July. And yes,
they make money, and they can make a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah, and you it's a situation too when you start
talking about this stuff. It feels like when it comes
to any kind of manual labor, when it's either fixing
something or construction. There's a real demand now, and I
don't see how any of that's going to be replaced by.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
An electricians medium salary sixty two thousand dollars a year,
physical therapist assistant sixty thousand a year. Then we get
into some things that it requires some post secondary work,
surgical assistance and technologists wind turbine technicians. Now, I don't
think that's a smart field to go into. Why not,

(01:10:15):
because I think people are gonna look at the wind
turbine and be like, yeah, we're not doing these anymore.
I think you're gonna see well, I really think it
depends on elections in the United States I think you're
gonna see those things go away. I think that the
immediate move is, why are we looking at wind, which
we don't have the technology yet to really make work
in a way that it can be truly sufficient enough

(01:10:36):
for our communities. We should be looking at nuclear. It
is nuclear's coming, kittens. We had it, people walked away
from it. Watch them walk back to it. That's my take. Fingers.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Then you're saying the only thing that could change this
are the political wins.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Look at you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
You've just been Dad joked, he's sick and he still
got it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yeah, Occupational therapists at number five, radiologic and MRI technologists
at number four, with a median salary of seventy eight
thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Fingers it. Okay, you've got to have the people that
gets you into these machines.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
But then.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Is there going to be the analysis that's done of
whatever images they take place they take I wonder how
much of that's going to be taken by AI. Yeah,
but analysis of the imagery.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
But I still think it's going to be the doctor
who announced who does the analysis. AI I think is
going to get used. But I still think the doctor
is still going to be the doctor, because I don't
think the doctors are going to allow themselves to be
replaced by AI just don't see that happening. I think
there's gonna be some kind of of thing that goes
on that stops that. Respiratory therapistsnumber three with over eighty

(01:12:01):
thousand dollars a year, diagnostic medical sonographers eighty nine thousand
a year, and number one on the list dental hygienist.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Look at that median salary.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Ninety four thousand dollars. Now, the downside is you have
to look the fingers will Lowy's mouth every day. The
upside is ninety four thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
I'm shocked. I had no idea that dental hygienis made
that much money.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
So are you thinking about a new career?

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Career shift? Look, I don't know about you, but my
dentist office, the practice there, I think they're only open
four days a week. I mean, I think they work
for the three twelve hour days and then they throw
in a four hour day, you know, so they're like
three and a half days a week they're open. That's
a pretty sweet gig. I don't know about you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
I changed dentists recently because I went to Blaze. It
just didn't work for me. My family goes there, and
I'm like, this, this is this is a dental farm.
They're just moving people through left and right. This is nuts.
So I went to a place that's smaller, and I'm like,
I feel like I get better care, like there's a
real attention shift going on, and and and I love it.

(01:13:15):
But I assume they're making a living too.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
So did you move the whole family over to just
me practice? No, I don't get to decide.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
I don't get to decide where they where, where they
go to get their their their fluoride, By the way,
is the is the is the Jerry still out on floride?
Are we still allowed fluoride?

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Are we still allowed fluoride? This week's sponsor of each
rink smoke is fluoride.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
This week sponsor is Defiance beef dot Com. Better than fluoride.
Defiance beef dot Com use promo code eat rink smoke.
That's just it, Fingers. I need you feeling better, man,
I need you feeling better because it's not the same.
It's not the same when we don't do the show
in the same place. But I will tell you what.

(01:13:59):
This cigar that I am smoking right here, the l
Rey del Mundo. This is the sixth by I'm sorry,
the five x sixty Gordo. It's this has been an
excellent cigar. This has been really enjoyable and I'm still

(01:14:19):
smoking it. It's a five inch stick that's really worthwhile.
I'm in a happy, happy man. Yes, we're getting ready
to do our top three cigars and bourbons of the year.
Get ready for that. Make sure you download the podcasts
or your favorite podcast platform. Look for E Drink Smoke everywhere. Guys,

(01:14:40):
catch you next time. It Sea Drink Smoking