417 Old Fashion Bracket Play with Greycliff G2

They finally got 4 Old Fashions with walnut bitters that were good enough to compete. There's more clips from TPE 2025. Clips include Drew Estate, Nova Cigars, PDR Cigars, JM Cigars, Aging Room, Altadis, H Upmann, Henry Clay, and Montecristo.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Alright, welcome to our newest episode, Bracket Play!

(00:05):
We are doing our first Walnut Bitters Bracket Play, and with it we have the Great Clif
G2 Connecticut.
Nice!
You're hanging out with Bill and Darryl with cigars, liquor, and more.
Alright.

(00:27):
Come over the Great Clif.
Alright, so we are having for our Bracket Play a budget friendly cigar, the Great Clif
G2 5x50.
This is an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper with Dominican and Nicaraguan phillos.
MSRP, for box!
There you have it.

(00:48):
Now, we're not going to, you know, do too much because the cigars are generally ruined
by all fashions, but we still wanted to have one.
We went budget friendly and are going into our Bracket Play.
Today, our Bracket Play will start off with Cedar Ridge, Iowa, Street Berber Whiskey, Port
Finish at 118.3 proof.

(01:10):
Its challenger, Elijah Craig, toasted Beryl at 94 proof.
Bering in mind, these are both Walnut Bitters, which is also a whole Bracket Play that is
non-standard bitters.
Yes, absolutely.
Here we go.
And it took us a while to get there, too.
I did.
Alright, so I'm going to go with the Cedar Ridge first.
I am as well.
Okay.

(01:31):
I remember now.
I can see why that made it into Bracket Play.
Mm-hmm.
I probably should add more sugar on this one.
It's coming off time.
Now the Elijah Craig.
Mm.
So that Cedar Ridge, it's tangy.
I probably should put a little bit more sugar in that one.
But I think the reason we put it in the Bracket Play, because the Port Finish gave it a really

(01:52):
strong cherry, and that added some character to it, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Oh, yeah, I should mention that.
Okay, so we had the Cedar Ridge in episode 411, which was released 27 January of 2025.
And yeah, cherry soda was the kind of flavor that we got from it.

(02:20):
Okay.
And the Elijah Craig was from episode 395, which was released on the 7 October 2024.
And along with the Elijah Craig for this show, the CAO, Lidefeser, Maduro, 6 by 52.

(02:42):
This was your Premo pairing for 2024.
So pretty cool there.
Glad it made it into the Bracket Play.
Alright.
So that tells us a little bit more about where these came from.
So when I first tried the Elijah Craig, I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, yeah.
But now as I drink more of it, but oh, yeah, it's subsiding a little bit.

(03:07):
It's a good old fashioned, has character.
I like it.
It is a good old fashioned.
And you're talking about the Cedar Ridge, right?
Or are you talking about the Elijah?
Actually, both.
They both made it to Bracket Play for a reason.
That's absolutely good.
I'm trying to figure which one I like better though.
This is a tough one.
Okay.
That cherry-esque flavor is still coming through on Cedar Bridge.

(03:31):
I mean, it just did.
It is.
Yeah.
Now, what I really wanted to know is if we did this with regular bitters, would it still
do that?
You know?
Good question.
But all right.
I think I've made a decision.
So have I.
Hmm.

(03:52):
All right.
And which way are you leaning?
My pick for this, for these two, for this round is the Elijah Craig.
And I'll tell you why.
Please.
Because it has a smoother, more consistent flavor, sip to sip.
And I like the aroma on it.

(04:14):
I like the cherry coming off of the Cedar Ridge.
But it does.
For me, it's just not consistent sip to sip.
So I'm preferring the consistency of the Elijah Craig over the cherry of the Cedar Ridge.
Now, the Cedar Ridge, as you mentioned, does come across a little bit more bitter than

(04:35):
the Elijah Craig.
Or sour.
Or sour.
Yeah, sorry.
But it didn't, I didn't play that.
That didn't, yeah.
Decision making.
Okay.
Because it was still, it's still a good tasting old fashioned.
It just really came down to mostly to consistency in aroma.
For me, that's Elijah Craig.
Yeah.

(04:56):
So for me, I, you know, I generally like my old fashions to have something poured in it.
It's a hundred proof or better.
Yep.
That, that just about just acceptable, right?
At least it's over 90.
It's on the, it's on the edge.
Yeah.
I'm there with one 18 right in there.

(05:18):
But I will give you this.
And it's probably why I'm going to, because I was on the fence.
I was going to go with Cedar Ridge.
But if we, you know, we got to come to a consensus and I'm going to go with you on the, the
Craig, I'll go your way on this because you're right.
I wouldn't call it consistency.
The, the cherry was nice, but it came with a, a bite that wasn't because of the alcohol.

(05:45):
It wasn't because of the sour.
It was just a little weird.
That's it.
That's it.
I really like the cherry.
Just a little weird.
Yeah.
Cherry is nice.
Toasted barrel.
It's, it's nice in the fact that you, that's not a normal flavor that you get when making
it old fashioned, unless you add cherry to it.
I'll tell you what's nice about the toasted barrel old fashioned.

(06:07):
When you drink it, there's this weird feeling you get, which is, I bet that's what old
fashions originally tasted like, right?
Like it gives me that feeling like, even though it's walnut bitters, I'm like, this feels like
some kind of original recipe, you know, old fashioned.
You know what I mean?

(06:28):
No, I get you.
I do like that.
I get you.
Okay.
So we will put down a larger cring and the number one spot or number one for that break.
Sure.
Show one of two.
All right.
Well, we've got our first one down and out of the way, but we still have, I need to go

(06:53):
well, if there's only four, you're just gonna be a short episode.
Yes.
No, not at all.
Because we still have messages from our heroes from TPE.
Yeah, man.
So let's go to one of them.
Well, we're here to TPE 2025 with asylum.
Heroha, CLE talking to Tom about 2025.
What do you got?

(07:14):
Well, listen, we're getting ready.
Obviously for PCA, where most of our launches are going to come out in April, but we got
some new inclusions in our flavor portfolio now.
We're expanding that.
We have some new CLE and a row of stuff coming.
So we got a lot of exciting stuff coming.
Not at this show.
We're still featuring our asylum Cool Brew, which is our chocolate mitt cigar we launched
last year.

(07:35):
So yeah, we're just pushing forward here at TPE 2025.
Awesome.
Look forward to your announcements.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
All right.
So another one of them that we talked to.
Yeah.
Again, they can't do a lot of announcements if they're going to pull in something to PCA,
but you can always, you know, just talk to them about what's going on.
Yeah, but let us know that you it's nice to know they have something up and coming.

(08:01):
And you know, we can keep an eye out for it.
No, when they're going to release it.
Yeah.
Right.
Or at least announce when they're going to release it.
Yeah.
Right.
So we can pay attention to that.
And of course, you know, we're not going to PCA, but of course, half will is lots of
people are so, you know, we'll be able to get it from them.
We'll be able to get it from.

(08:22):
Well, just about anybody we care to.
So that being said, are we you want to do another listen or do you want to delve into
the next?
Let's do another listen.
We've got a lot of folks here.
Let's do it.
This is Leo Novasigar, Latino Novasigar 2025 is going to be a year like hard work like always

(08:48):
surprises like always.
And the most important just keep working close to the consumer and the retailers to
keep making of a big or lower try to educate it a little bit more the customer client to
then know what is mean boutique companies.
But the companies mean quality tobacco, small production, but good and amazing quality control.

(09:16):
2025 look like we really have to focus and work in more and more together with the consumer
in terms or product, actually consumer one than expect from Nova.
Until now, any new line we bring is because the consumer expect that for us.
We do it research.

(09:37):
We do a different soon with different clients around the world.
And we ask, what do you expect from Nova?
Something full body medium body, Nicaragua, Dominican, tell us what you expect and we
deliver it.
It's working together because that is a thing about the industry.
Tabago industry is just make sure this community working in all the different levels together.

(10:02):
Nova always bring something new in any show.
If it's no new presentation, it's going to be a new blend.
It's going to be a new deal.
I ask if I have the opportunity, I don't know really who is going to listen to this audio.
I hope many people ask to do local retail about Latino Nova cigar.

(10:23):
Okay.
If a lot of hard work behind, if a lot of people with passion to try to make and keep make
the best of the best to offer all of you.
Are you going to have an offer in PCA?
Yes.
Good.
We look forward to it.
Perfect.
Yeah.
We want to be back in the PCA of course, like every year.

(10:44):
One of the biggest pleasure in the PCA is going to be all the new presentation of all
our boxes from Nova cigar.
Okay.
We're going to be very, very stunning, amazing.
And it's like our, our color, our Tiffany color, or live blue color, like the people
call is going to stand up more like ever.

(11:08):
We want to make sure that people see we are here.
We don't go anywhere and we're going to keep going.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
All right.
So Nova cigar, another boutique.
I'd love what she said about getting out there and educating the consumers on what boutique
cigars are, what you can expect from boutique cigars.

(11:32):
Because I mean, we've been doing boutique cigar, boutique cigars for quite a while.
Oh, yeah.
Love them.
But I mean, when you're in, when you're out smoking with someone, almost never, right?
Right.
Unless you go to, unless you go to some, unless you go to a square lab that's there or you
hand it to them.

(11:53):
And there's almost no boutique cigar that I haven't handed over that people haven't
liked.
So give it a try.
Don't be afraid just because it's a boutique cigar.
And like she said, I have not encountered any quality issues with the boutique cigars
that we have with not at all.
So I think everything she said is absolutely bright in that regard.

(12:16):
Yep.
So glad she said it.
And their color scheme is really great.
So making it pop more.
I don't know what they would do because it's a really great color scheme.
And it's really well done.
Artistic labels, everything looks really great.
They look elegant.
So you know, they doing a really good job.
So I'm interested to see how the redesign comes out because they didn't have the redesign

(12:37):
there.
Right.
They were going to bring the redesign out of PCA.
But she was, she was really nice.
We talked to them probably another 10 minutes after that just about industry and boutiques
and other stuff like that because we've seen them for several years.
We always seen a TPE.
So that was really nice.

(12:58):
Excellent.
Glad you got some audio from them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
So we're going to do a do another part of the brackets.
Let's do our second round in our second round.
We're going to have bullet bourbon single barrel at 100 proof and old charter oak French
oak aged at 92 proof.

(13:19):
We are back with our second bracket.
All right.
Now second bracket.
Let's see.
What do we have?
We have the bullet bourbon single barrel 100 proof on the right.
Going up against the old charter oak French oak aged at 92 proof.
The the bullet we had on episode 388, which released on 19 August, 2024.

(13:48):
And the old charter oak French oak aged.
We had on episode 381 released on the 1st of July, 2024.
Boy, it took us a while to get to a walnut bracket, huh?
Took a long time.
A long, long, long, long, long time.
Hmm.

(14:11):
The aroma of the bullet just kind of disappears.
So I like the bullet.
I think I know why we chose it.
But I think almost immediately I'm liking the charter oak better.
Yeah, same here.
It's not as on the fancy is the other one.
It's got a flavor that stands out.

(14:35):
It it lets you know what's there and it's not melding into the background.
Yeah.
Now they have this listed as French oak aged, not some finished barrel or anything like that,
just French oak.
Right.
It did put red on the label, which usually makes you feel like fruit.
And that's what's coming out in this.
So I think they did that coloration on purpose.

(14:57):
Yeah.
Yep.
Because that and that comes through in the old fashion.
And that's what I'm drawn to.
And I believe we talked about that on that show.
But listeners should go back and listen to them for themselves to find out if we did
or not.
I wouldn't remember.
Hmm.

(15:18):
I like the bullet.
It's got an interesting.
I don't know what to call it.
You know, sick.
Bullage growing on me.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, I like it.
But I'm going to I'm going to book charter Oak.

(15:43):
I'm I'm really trying to help you.
Are you on the fence?
Not really, but I'm trying to help bullet out here.
You're thinking charter Oak as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I absolutely am.
All right.
Great.
So we'll go ahead and call that charter Oak.

(16:04):
All right.
All right.
So we'll have charter Oak based off of the Elijah Craig, probably in the second half.
Yes.
So we'll have Elijah Craig and old charter Oak.
And then we will have, but first we do we got to figure out the number three slot first,
right?
So we're going to do the bullet.

(16:27):
Oh, okay.
Yeah, you want it.
You want to do the bullet in the theater.
Yeah, because that's how you do bracket play, man.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, we'll probably do that in the second half as well.
Absolutely.
Perhaps it's like it was destined.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Let's hear one more sample from TPE.

(16:48):
Hey, all right.
We're at TPE 2025.
We're in the Drew State booth with Maddie Maddie.
Let us know what Drew's got going on for the year.
What's going on there guys?
Maddie here.
We're at TPE 2025 in Las Vegas.
Having a great time.
Had you come up and shown up and I would have been able to give you a sample pack that had
a nica roostic in it, a kubacuba, a fat bottom bed in a tebok, but you missed out.

(17:12):
So I hope to see you next year.
But some of the other stuff we have in the docket, check out Drew State's barn smokers.
We have the barn smoker schedule coming up.
One of the best experientials in the business.
You're going to go from sea to cigar.
You're going to be on a farm.
You're going to see where that tobacco actually is sourced from and comes from and winds up
in the cigar that you are smoking, my man.
Awesome.
And we have, we have the barn smokers and we also have coming up the live.

(17:36):
Are we talking the toward or we talking the toward the league?
Yes, indeed.
We got the toward the league coming up in Arizona.
And as the name may imply, it is all about the league line.
That's our flagship stuff.
We couldn't be prouder of it and and where it's gone and where it's continuing to go
to.
So we hope to see you guys out there in Arizona as well.
Awesome.

(17:57):
Thank you very much.
You got it, my brothers.
Okay.
So I was actually trying to get to freestyle live.
Yeah.
But he didn't catch it.
But it was going to come out.
I know you obviously can't say anything about freestyle live, but I wanted him to say we
got freestyle live coming out and it's going to be awesome.
Yeah, promo promo.
He just, he just missed it.

(18:18):
That's fine.
That's fine.
He was on that track.
Right.
But well, he had, I mean, Judah so much.
And, and he wasn't their main main guy.
He didn't have the main guy there.
So they're like, yeah, he should do it.
He knows everything.
That's hilarious.
That's hilarious.

(18:39):
It doesn't matter.
You still enjoy talking to all the folks.
So that works out and the, the legal events like legal.
Yeah.
Really like legal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and we saw in the Hey coming out in 2025 on the sheets that half wheel had published.

(19:00):
There's a new league.
And so you got a lot.
No matter what love here in front of the Drew folks.
They have such a, such a broad and, and depth in their lines.
And they go for something they absolutely go for.
Yeah, they do.
Oh, plus he lied.
They still had samples.
He found some and gave them to us.

(19:23):
Nice.
He thought they were out because we kept coming back to try to get the right guy.
And then the right guy was there and they're like, if he'll do it, he, he's got it.
So we're like, look cool.
Let's do that.
So this was like a couple days in, you know, I think he thought he was out and he's like,
oh, hey, here.
He found us.
He found us some.

(19:45):
So yeah, if you want, I mean, you almost have to do the Drew table as fast as you can.
Because they almost always give out sample packs and you do need to be there kind of
early to give them.
I've lost last year.
I think they had they, they came heavy last year.
They had a bigger booth last year.

(20:07):
Yeah.
Not, but more toward the front.
The first year we were there, they ran out fast.
Well, the second time we were there, the second time we were there, they did have, they had
a lot more on the way out.
I think he gave me like five of the three packs and I gave two of them to the guy we
met in the hallway at the hotel.

(20:30):
Yeah, we were, they were packing up and everything.
So yeah, they, what I don't have to pack this up and carry it.
There you go.
Here.
Go to cigars.
Yes.
Here.
So there are a lot of folks that love that love that flavor line.
There's something for there's something to please everybody.

(20:53):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So yeah, I have become a fast favorite of both the factory smokes and the Nica and budget
friendly and like six bucks.
So, you know, I mean, how do you know?
I love that.
Can't go wrong.
Can't go wrong.
All right.
Why don't we take a little break?

(21:15):
Come back with old patients.
Come back with old patients.
Third place.
Check out our website cigars, liquor and more.com for more of our podcasts, blogs and support
the show by shopping from our online store.
Contact us through the website or Instagram and let us know what cigars and liquor you
want us to review, anything else you'd like us to talk about.

(21:37):
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The website is cigars, liquor and more.com.
Connect with us on Instagram at cigars, liquor and more at cigar, Daryl and at bill underscore
CLN.
All right.
We are back with old fashions in hand.

(21:59):
And while we start our tasting, why don't we play a clip?
Let's do it here within Ricky for PDR cigars 2025 TPE.
Ricky, what do we got for us?
Okay, sure.
PDR cigars were Dominican Republic manufacturer.
We got our factory in the Sona de Tamboril and Santiago.

(22:23):
Okay.
Our cigars are blended and produced by Mr. Abraham Flora himself.
Okay.
He's been in the business for quite a while.
And for TPE 25, we're very excited.
We have new deals.
We got special deals for all our customers.
Come by the booth.
We got new products that we're offering to our customers.
We got all our best sellers right here for everyone to try.

(22:49):
So come by to our booth here in the pavilion and hope to see you soon.
What's your newest cigar called?
Blen Blen.
Okay.
We got the Alvinette.
It's a limited edition that is produced just once a year.
Okay.
You got a very special blend by Mr. Flores.

(23:10):
And we got the 18th anniversary cigar that is already a regular production for our retailers.
The Blen in the Alvinette is a very special one.
We got Indonesia, Binder and Sumatra Rapper.
And the 18th anniversary is Sumatra Rapper as well from Ecuador and Binder and Filler

(23:35):
from the Dominican Republic.
Okay.
That sounds awesome.
We're based in Miami or base of operations in Miami with the distributor across the US.
My name is Enrique.
I'm the operations manager for the US market.
So just give me a call, send me an email and I'll be glad to help you out.
Excellent.

(23:56):
Thank you very much.
Have a good TPE.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I can't try.
I can't wait to try them.
Thank you.
There is PDR cigars.
Love them.
You got some pretty good sound bites out of all this.
Yeah.
You know, everybody is really willing to spend time with you.
I just didn't run into.

(24:18):
There was a couple, I won't say, who was just like, we don't give interviews or, you
know, we don't, you know, or I'm not, or some of them were, I'm not authorized, you know,
but whatever, there were very few that were that way.
Most of them were.
Well, good.
Good.
Let's talk.
Most of them are people, persons.

(24:39):
They love getting out there in front of media.
Yeah.
So yeah.
That's, you know, it is what it is.
But the vast majority of people, I think are friendly, more than willing to talk.
And you know, help, help folks like us spread their message.
Yeah.
Right.

(25:00):
Yeah.
Exactly.
Right.
We, we really like this industry.
We want them to flourish.
We want to do our parts.
Yeah.
Making that happen.
Yep.
That's why I call them our heroes.
Gee.
Did a little taste, right?
We've already kind of discussed them.
I will say that the cherry flavor is good, but now I'm picking up more and more of the

(25:24):
weird flavor.
And I'm going to lean towards the bullet.
Me too, actually.
There's something, there's something about this old fashioned that, that, yeah, that back
in flavor just really sticks with it.
It's weird, right?
For this one.
And I saw you make them, you didn't make them any different.
You did before.
I know.
And it basically tastes the same.

(25:46):
I'm just picking it up more.
Yeah.
I don't know what the deal is, but that puts number, that puts bullet in the number three
slot.
Yeah.
Bullet.
Yep.
And Cedar Ridge and fourth.
Yes.
One.
One.
One.
Oh, yeah.
So the irony is in its present, isn't acceptance speech of fourth position is that I was just happy

(26:13):
to be nominated.
Yeah.
I mean, you don't get on the stage by accident.
That's right.
Happy to be happy to be here, happy to represent good showing from, from, from the Cedar Ridge.
And still better than so many others.
We were like, not worthy.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
And that's what it is.
You get cold fast.

(26:36):
You normally when you get cold, it happens quick.
You don't know that your heads on that chopping block until that axe falls down.
Right.
So yeah, even to make it to number four, doing a good job.
Absolutely.
And going showing up, representing getting number three, taking home the bronze.

(26:57):
Most excellent.
You know, if there's a midpoint, wait a minute, did we do a midpoint?
Yeah, we had our commercial already.
Okay.
So we, well, I was making that.
And we had a right.
I remember seeing you pushing.
And we did.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we're going to do a midpoint on the cigar.
I would say I kind of like the gray cliff with old fashions because it's not ruined by

(27:20):
them.
You know that that is excellent because most most and we're, we can't have moral fashions
in this.
Yeah, no, no, please.
And it's still not ruined.
It's standing tough.
Yeah.
And it's a budget stick there.
And really there are not that many cigars, at least to me for what we've done a bold

(27:45):
fashion, that I hold up.
Yeah, I just don't want to ruin the cigar with an old fashioned is what it comes down
to because they tend to.
Yeah.
But yeah, no, the, the, this gray cliff G to not a problem with them.
No, it seems, it seems to be standing four different flavors.

(28:07):
Yeah.
And it's made it through all of them.
Now I will say I do, I do really, I think this one does go best with the, with the,
the seat of Ridge.
I don't know that I got that far.
That cherry and this thing, I thought went pretty well.
I didn't get that far.
I was just like, Hey, I know it's not horrible considering, you know, that it's an old fashioned

(28:30):
and not straight.
Yeah.
I mean, so kudos to that.
That's just one.
I actually, we don't talk about the cigar much during old fashioned bracket play because
of exactly that.
There's nothing there.
Half the time it's just like, Oh, it's smoke.
It's wood.
And that it knocks out all kinds of flavors.
This is still pretty happy though.

(28:51):
So we're spoken to G2, but we will not be ranking the G2.
Right.
If we rank it, it will be on level fair playing ground.
Exactly.
Exactly.
We don't want to cripple it.
And oddly enough, the crippling isn't the price point of the frickin cigar.

(29:12):
No, right.
It does.
You can have, you can have a nice pocket friendly cigar and still get an awesome stack.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
No, why people say the same thing?
Like there's a lot of $20 bottles I'd rather have versus over $60 bottles.
You know, this is this is common across all industries.

(29:33):
Nothing with bourbon.
Same thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Price does not equal pleasure.
Anyway, nice.
All right.
I do want to give myself a little time to digest the old fashioned we've had before
we go to number one though.
So, okay.
I saved, I saved finishing off the bullet for last in this bracket play.

(29:56):
I'm doing the same actually.
So I would like to to reiterate that we did have, we did, we did have the bullet in episode
three 88 released on 19 August, 2024.
And we had the Elijah, we had the Cedar Ridge not that long ago.

(30:19):
In the episode four, 11 released 27 January 2025.
Yeah.
And that was the one that gave us our fourth one to allow us to do bracket play.
So one of them was always going to be recent.
We were just jumping at the bit to finally find one.
Oh, yeah.
It took a while.
It took way too long.
Okay.
While it was here.
And the end.
Yeah.
And I liked the article that we did with the Cedar Ridge.

(30:43):
Oh, yeah.
So for 11 with the renewable energy percentage.
So that that was, it's good to keep up with that kind of stuff.
That's nice.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you know, we hung on for so long waiting for the final.
It wasn't going to capitulate.

(31:04):
I'm not going to just throw that one in there.
Oh, yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, but it took way too long.
I am willing to wait to make sure that when we put things head to head, they are worthy
of being head to head.
Right.
Yeah, I don't want to.
I don't, we're not going to sandbag anything.
No.
All right.

(31:25):
So feeling good.
Yeah.
Pretty good.
I'm really liking how well this cigar is doing against these guys.
Because I love the old version, but it is a real killer.
It will wrap this cigar.
Yeah.
Absolutely wreck this car.
It will mangle it, chew it up, spit it out and stomp on its grave.

(31:47):
Everybody wants that for their cigar.
No, but we do find them, right?
It's just like a primo pairing.
Occasionally.
I remember doing some stats on it for a bit.
It was like one in 10.
And then it dropped.
It's probably about one in 20 now, right?
Well, we didn't, we did not do a review of the primo pairings because we had one.

(32:13):
Oh, yeah.
You mean for the year.
Last year.
That was a, that killed our stats.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, and yeah, as we were going through the year and we didn't have any primo pairings,
my big question was have our standards gotten so high for a primo pairing that you really,

(32:36):
really have to excel.
There's this.
To do it.
I don't know.
No, I don't think so because, because it was always the same metric.
Both have to be made better.
And I think that's obvious.
It's either better or it's not true enough.
Right.
So, because this is good, good, better, good, better, good, better, right?

(32:58):
That's it.
That's all there is to it.
So no, I don't think it's a state.
It's not a complicated algorithm that you'd see.
No, I've seen billion data points and I think it's just like cryptocurrency.
It's easy to find the low numbers.
It's harder to find the higher numbers.
It's like charging a capacitor.
Any index.
It goes quickly at first.

(33:19):
And then it's.
I think that's I think that's all it is.
It's as simple as that.
We found a lot of the good pairings already.
We did.
It's just, you know, luck of the draw, right?
It's not all luck.
Some of it is, I'll have a cigar.
I'll have a drink.
I'll go, hmm, that might be good with that cigar.

(33:40):
You know, and I'm just.
Yeah, but you're not able.
You did that through that last year.
Yeah.
But I mean, it was good, but not prima.
What was the percentage of ones that you tried beforehands not?
I mean, much lower than the percentage you did in previous years.
Yeah, but I've had, but I have a bigger base of alcohols to choose the pair and I'm just

(34:06):
not finding them because I think we found them.
And when you when you're trying not to duplicate, you run into problems like this.
Yeah, that's okay.
So just like a primo pairing, we do find cigars that do well with old fashions.
We do.
But it's probably been five, right?

(34:27):
Yeah, it has not been that many.
It has been rare enough not to track.
Have we really not tracked it?
That's a that's a bone.
We should start tracking.
You have all the text.
It's true.
I have run through all of our audio and had it converted to give me either a text output

(34:53):
or an S R D S R C S R C S R whatever the the transcript format is.
And yeah, I could probably search some of that stuff.
Yeah, you you would have to in order to find that out.
Because I mean, it's just so rare.
It is pretty rare.

(35:15):
400 episodes, maybe five.
Right.
Now, we're talking about 1%.
I mean, come on.
That's that's no, it's going to be more than 1% because we haven't had all fashions with
every episode, right?
True.
So maybe better than 1% but not a lot.
Maybe 350 episodes.
Let's be generous and call it 2%.

(35:36):
Let's double it.
Let's round it to 300 episodes because at the very beginning, we did not do a lot of
old fast, right?
So you know, let's say, let's say we have we take off.
Yeah, let's take it down to 300.
So we take it down to 300.
We had five.

(35:58):
It's still a rounding here.
It's not great.
If you don't include decimal points, it's rounding.
Round up, round up.
So yeah, but yeah, you would have to go through those transcripts in order to find what those
were.
Well, yeah, it'll save me a lot of time if I just note this one.

(36:19):
If you, because then I'll already have 20% of them.
Good point.
Good point.
If you, if you do decide to go through that activity, I would be really interested.
If you decide you don't want to go through that activity, I'm not going to cry.
Right.
Okay.

(36:40):
Well, I might have, so I might, I might grab the text and throw it at anything that says
old fashioned, throw it into an AI and ask it if we liked it.
Copy that.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do it to it, man.
Do it to it.
Okay.
Let's hear.
I think it's a.
You want to hear a clip?

(37:01):
I want to hear a clip.
Okay.
Let's hear a clip.
Then we'll go to our number one number two.
All right.
So we're here at Tp 2025.
Yeah.
We have Antole.
Yes.
Why don't you tell us about JM?
Absolutely.
Well, my name is Anto Marukian, president of JM Tobacco.
My father started the company in 1996 and next year we'll be celebrating our 30th year

(37:25):
in the industry.
Super happy about that.
What we do is we manufacture premium cigars.
We started with our Española line of cigars and then in the year 2000 moved into the budget
brand value price cigars JM's Dominican.
This year at the show at Tp we're introducing our Corojo line in our Española line of cigars.

(37:46):
It's a line extension to the Connecticut and Maduro and we're thrilled because this got
93 ratings in cigar and spirits magazine, number four cigar of 2024 and we're really
excited to get it out into the public.
Excellent.
Absor anything new this year or anything exciting this year you want to add for 2025.

(38:09):
So for 2025 we the Corojo Española was a year of the drag in cigar so it's going to
be a no we're actually adding it to our line extension so it's going to be a core line
product.
Okay.
Oh, that's good.
Yes.
All right.
So you said going to be.
So we have samples here at the show PCA we're going to be introducing it.

(38:33):
Okay.
Yes.
That is great news.
We look forward to seeing those come out.
Thank you so much.
So you should also look forward to those coming out because as he said he had samples at the
show which I thought was really nice that he gave us to because we got to before they
came out of PCA and they're doing an interesting thing.

(38:55):
So they've always been a fairly well respected budget line.
You know and they save money on the boxes they were usually you know not metal hinges
and all the fancy stuff right.
This one was in a wooden box with fancy hinges.
It had gotten it already had some reviews that were in the mid mid 90s for it.

(39:20):
And so I was I pretty much smoked that one five minutes after leaving.
I bet you did.
And it was really good.
Excellent.
Here's the irony.
So are the other ones that we got I think we got a cigar from every line.
I think they gave us a cigar from every one of their lines.
And they're all great.
They're all really good.

(39:42):
And being budget is just an extra bonus.
But this one I had gotten some 90s and it's coming out of PCA and it was really good.
All their line is budget right.
No problem.
They have a really good portfolio of budgets.
Yeah but they got three that are basic colors right.
It's yellow with red JMs on it.

(40:03):
It's blue with black JMs on you know.
They've got three basic color lines and they're all great.
And in the budget line.
So and then this one comes and I'm like oh this is nice.
Yeah this is another good offering.
You guys are doing great.

(40:24):
So really happy.
It was probably we'll probably do an interview with them.
He was very yeah I love to talk to people.
We'll do this.
So sweet.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
Let's get it for number one.
Fine.
All right.
Here we are with all fashions in hand.

(40:46):
Let's see what we got.
Oh good here.
For the people listening as they try to work in the morning.
That's the only time you hear ice on this show is in it old fashions.
And that is absolutely true.
Okay.

(41:07):
Let's see.
Okay.
So we have the Elijah Craig which was on episode 395 back in 7 October 2024 and was a
Premo Perry for Darrell with that particular cigar.
And then the old charter was episode 381 which released the 1st of July 2024.

(41:35):
So be sure to go check those out.
This is a tough one.
You know what I'm leaning pretty heavily into the charter oak.
I'm not there yet.
Why don't we listen to someone while we bought a lot of finishes.

(41:57):
Is there a last one?
Should be.
This is actually shipping starting today from the show.
So this is aging room Labo M.
So Labo M was a brand that Rafa launched back in I think it was like 2014 2015.
But it was on its own as its own separate brand.
Now he's brought it back under the aging room umbrella.

(42:18):
And so this is a very special US Broadleaf wrapper that's been extra fermented and it's
produced with Nicaragua with AJ Fernandez.
So it's a luxury super premium aging room really flavorful rich cigar.
Yeah.
We just as I say it's very exciting.
We're just starting to ship it today.
And yeah we're excited about it.

(42:39):
This is some events plan but this is their brand new here at the show.
So this is the big announcement.
Do we anticipate more coming from a talent this in the future?
This year is pretty busy for some big milestones this year and there's some fun projects planned
for launches for 25 for sure.
Anything you're announcing before PCA?

(43:00):
Yes.
It's not right now.
Okay.
We have stuff coming.
I get it.
I get it.
But I have to ask her.
I wouldn't be doing my job.
Yeah.
No we have pay attention next week.
You might see some stuff next week.
Okay.
Exciting.
It is good information.
So H.E.M. and Banker has been in the market for 10 years.
You've probably heard of it.

(43:21):
It was one of our best sellers.
We actually improved the cigar itself.
So this the wrapper has extra fermentation on it.
So it's a little bit darker.
We launched the day trade last year and then to relaunch the whole line we brought back
the H.E.M. and Inga.
So it's a tweaked blend of the Banker Limited Edition.
It comes with 12 Churchill size cigars and we launched that for the holidays in December.

(43:45):
But yeah, we've making a strong push around the Banker again.
So yeah, we have these two lines now and then we're going to continue to expand the
Banker family this year actually.
Excellent.
This is brand new as well.
We're actually bringing it back.
So Henry Clay Warhawk was one of our really a pop set.
It came out in 2019.
It's Connecticut cigar made in Honduras factory.

(44:09):
And this was a limited edition we did about three years ago called the rebellious.
And it sold out.
We had a huge demand for it.
Rafael was able to find the tobacco.
So we brought it back.
So we've done a limited edition Warhawk rebellious.
This is actually made in Nicaragua as well.
This limited edition one size 54 by six.
Very flavorful.
Did really well.

(44:30):
I think we've almost sold out of it already.
So yeah, that's brand new since December.
So yeah.
The Warhawk's always been pretty popular.
Very popular.
A lot of people, where do you guys live?
Dallas.
OK, we have a retailer in Houston.
I'm not going to give his name away.
He's a great guy.
And that's all he smokes.
Like when you go in, I think he smokes more Warhawk than anyone else I know.

(44:54):
Then he sells.
Then he sells maybe.
But he's a great guy.
But yeah, a lot of people like it.
It was actually top 10 cigar of the year.
Two years ago, I think we have a 95 rating.
I'm sorry, 94 rating on the cigar.
So yeah, it's great.
It does very well.
And yeah, the Warhawk, the rebellious,
just to kind of call attention to it.
OK.
And then really the last thing I was going to show you.

(45:17):
So 1935 was launched in 2020, and it's right in the pandemic.
It's probably one of our most highly rated awarded brands.
We won number two cigar of the year in 2021.
And then in the last few months, last month, two months ago,
we won the number two cigar of the year again in a different size
in the Espresso.
And we got the highest ever rating in 97.

(45:39):
So we're featuring our 1935 anniversary.
And then the Diamante came out last year, which is like kind of the sister
or big brother, whatever you want to call it.
So it's a little bit milder, a little bit different, again,
like part of our super premium Monte Cristo range.
But the 1935 is, I think, three of the sizes have been rated over 93.
So it's like our highest rated brands, probably, that we have.

(46:03):
So you haven't tried that highly recommend yet.
And then over here, the last thing I'll show you is we just have some.
We have some new gift sets.
These are some of our sampler packs that we do.
So again, they're not new blends.
They're just packaging new samplers.
So we have Monte Cristo.
We have Romeo.
And again, these were launched in the holiday time and

(46:26):
we're featuring him here at the TV show.
But in terms of new stuff, that's really the main main things.
And then we just have some other promotion.
Well, that's quite a bit.
An activation.
But yeah, hopefully, do you have any more questions or?
No, that is excellent.
That is a covered all the quick, quick growth, quick growth.
So OK, thank you very much.
Have a good 25.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
OK, so what I think he was talking about was just five days later,

(46:52):
they announced a Romeo and Juliet, a hundred and fiftyth anniversary stick.
It was going to be debuted at PCA.
And that's probably what he was talking about.
That's so.
So it's an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper,
sourced from AJ Fernandez, Mexican binder from the Turin family.

(47:14):
And Dominican tobaccos from Jose Mendez, Peruvian and Honduran tobaccos from
the Sensias.
Wow.
Production's going to come out of tobacco there.
De Garcia and La Rama, Dominican Republic.
So the price is going to probably be $26.

(47:37):
So it's going to be a big, big, big item.
Absolutely.
And he is so right about that, Henry Clay, that one is absolutely
also stick, the Warhog.
Yeah.
That I do really like that.
There are several of the Henry Clay line that I like, but I really do.

(47:59):
You what's funny is I hadn't had a banker in a long time and they came out with a new
like child of the banker.
But he gave me one of the original ones and I hadn't had him forever.
And I smoked it.
I'm like, oh, yeah, this is why this is a big now.
This is why this is a big one.
You know, it's really good.
And you don't expect that many announcements from hotel this, right?

(48:24):
Yeah.
And the next good letter.
That's fine.
Sorry.
But yes, yeah, yeah.
OK, so with that, are you ready?
I'm ready for my reveal.
You want me to do mine first?
Sure.
OK, so I spent my time with both of these.

(48:46):
And I will say the same thing of the Elijah Craig this time that I said last time.
It is extremely consistent.
Yeah.
Sip after sip.
Same thing.
Nice, smooth, good deal.
And I don't think I mentioned it the last time, but it does have a nice long finish

(49:07):
to it that is enjoyable.
However, the old Charter Oak has much more of a depth of flavor to it.
And it, I mean, it just, to me, it stands out.
I mean, from the get go, it stood out.
And I took my time with Elijah Craig just to make sure I won playing some favorites here.

(49:31):
But yeah, I'm going with Charter Oak for number one.
All right.
Well, I kind of indicated that before.
And I said I was leaning heavily into it.
For similar reasons, the flavor was so potent and really liked it.
It had a berries kind of feel to it.
And I thought, I know it sounds funny.

(49:53):
I thought the second one was even better than the first one.
And it was quite delightful.
So I wouldn't with it.
I'm glad we didn't have to have a disagreement.
All right.
So that means in the silver place is Elijah Craig and taking all gold.
Old Charter Oak.

(50:14):
Yeah, nice.
Bottom bone.
Nice.
French, French oak cask aged aged.
Yes.
The bracket plays, I think, are fun.
I enjoy them.
Yeah, I do too.
It's a lot of sugar though.
Boy, you enjoy the old fashioneds much more than I do.

(50:35):
Oh, you have a lot more than than I do.
You could have one and have a lot more.
You just have them on the show.
I only have them on the show.
Occasionally, if we're out somewhere, you know, I'll order one for joy or something.
I'll taste it, but I don't buy one.
I don't make them.

(50:56):
So yeah, that being said, I enjoy having them on the show.
I'd like what you can, how it changes.
The liquor will change what you get out of the base flavors, right?
Because for the base, you have three ingredients for the base.

(51:21):
Then you add the liquor.
So the base is all the same for all of them.
Then you add the liquor and that is absolutely where the change comes in.
Awesome.
Yeah, kudos.
Old Charter Art.
Feeding out Elijah.
Greg.
Way to go.
About a bone.
I mean, Old Charter Oak, not a big, not a big name, but makes a good old fashioned.

(51:46):
Makes them really good old fashioned.
With walnut bitters.
Because we didn't do this with the standard bitters or anything weird.
These four were all 100% walnut bitters.
Yeah.
So, when we talked about, you know, we found that first one with the, with the, with the

(52:07):
walnut bitters, put it on there.
And you know, you were like, should we stay with the water bitters?
You can't put a head to head a regular.
No, we have to.
And a walnut or like, maybe like mixing cherry bitters or orange bitters.
You can't do that.
Probably the only way you could do it is if you took all three different kind of bitters

(52:29):
that we have in this house and you did all three bitters with the same ingredients to
determine.
That's the only way.
You know what one option could be is to take winners of each bracket and then do a bracket
of that with bitter variation.
Okay.

(52:50):
Right.
You do standard.
You do walnut.
You do cherry.
You do orange.
We have all four of those and a couple others that are weird.
But we would, we haven't enjoyed those.
What we would have to do is have the old fashions off show off Mike.
Absolutely.
In order to determine what we're going to bracket play.
That's the only way that would work out.

(53:11):
That's going to be a lot of drinking those fashions.
Yeah.
A lot of ruin of cigars.
I mean, a lot of different cigars to try with them.
Have a G to every time.
I'm good with that.
I'm absolutely good with that.
Hello.
Even having an H.C. white weather.
The although the H.C. white does kind of get blown away from most of the.

(53:34):
Oh, yeah, it does.
But.
Now, I'm.
I'm okay with doing an old fashioned, but not all night long.
Yeah.
And one in the half.
I may have to do in the half.
Get play and bring it to you.
There you go.
I'll be good with that too.

(53:55):
Okay.
But but if I did them, they'd have to be the half.
Of course.
No, obviously everything we have to do is have these.
Well, I mean, just not on the show.
I mean, just.
Oh, oh, oh, in general.
Yeah.
Technically, if I were to order an old fashioned because I took a half of an old fashioned and split between us.

(54:16):
I'm all for that.
The it's.
If if I was going to help determine a bracket play like what you were saying, different bitters and all that.
One or nine.
Yeah.
One one one when we got together and.
Only a half at that. So.
Either way, and a quarter, I'd be just fine with the quarter to that's what we're doing. So there we go bracket play.

(54:43):
No ranking this week because yeah, no, yeah, we're not going to rank the G four.
I've got the band.
It's going to go in the bucket with the rest of the day.
Upgraded from a G to, huh?
Oh, I did.
Is it like a G six?
It's working its way there.
I'm telling you.
It's great with.
It's great with liquor need. It's great with an old fashioned.

(55:05):
It's working its way there.
I'm trying to get it there.
How about that?
All right.
Two Q. We're working.
So yeah, but the band is going to go with the rest of the bands from the show.
Yep.
Even though we did rank it, it'll still go in there.
Great show. Great absolute showing.

(55:26):
I love them.
The old charter.
Awesome. Just awesome.
No, good better.
Heck yeah.