One of the questions we see most often in the snobosphere is "how do I best cut my cigar" or something along those lines. We truly believe that the best way to cut your cigar is the one that is most convenient or enjoyable to you without destroying the cigar itself. Just cut the head off and leave the body intact, like a king.
One of the questions we see most often in the snobosphere is "how do I best cut my cigar" or something along those lines. We truly believe that the best way to cut your cigar is the one that is most convenient or enjoyable to you without destroying the cigar itself. Just cut the head off and leave the body intact, like a king.
you could smoke both and and be like
what do you think of this is a pairing
like even two different types of rum
maybe it'd be kind of fun too right i
don't know it could be i i think we dude
because i want i actually want you to
try this so all right cool
how you doing how you living how you
feeling everyone uh this is jw aka l
cigar wolf back for another episode of
pub central sessions unfortunately for
you alex is not here so you would have
been stuck with me but
the good news is i have geo here what
geo thank you for doing this with me
brother i really appreciate it uh first
off tell us a little bit about yourself
uh gio gutierrez aka
chat child tv on the gram
uh lover of rum your lover of i i mean
dude
i i i couldn't really tell when i walked
in if you liked rome i wasn't sure but
the bar confirms it uh so today actually
we're not going to be pairing any coffee
or any beer or any macho like alex has
done in the past actually we're going to
be pairing some rum obviously we're with
the rum king uh and we have two very
different cigars uh we're gonna start
off with your cigar geo we got the
kinsugi by alec bradley and how about go
ahead and talk a little bit about it so
yeah this is kind of uh interesting a
little bit dry kind of notes in here
it's kind of a little bit fruity also
yeah in a weird way for sure um so i
started in my brain also i love the name
consumi right yeah i heard it was like
when i when i was reading about it
because i'm a big
nerd of brand i love to see the meaning
of everything it's it's even like a map
here of japan it looks like but it's
it's kind of like the art of of mistakes
exactly yeah yeah so i went with a
negroni spatulato which is uh it's a
negroni made wrong the story behind it
the origins is they picked up the wrong
bottle instead of gin they picked up
bubbles prosecco you do club soda
nowadays but the idea is they made up a
bubbly version of a negroni but i love
that negroni mistake kind of cocktail i
love this branding so i did my version
of a wrong negroni spagliato with uh
with rum perfect cheers
so no ice is still tempered and chilled
but we don't want to fight with the
smoke and i used a havana club rum here
the anejo classico which is a dry cuban
style rum so i'm playing with kind of
like these dry notes and you can still
taste it here right yeah for sure very
dry yeah which i think is a it's a nice
counter balance which which we'll get
from the cigar for sure for sure and you
know and the crazy thing about consumer
you're talking about arts and mistakes
so
i actually funnily enough i knew what
kenzugi was before i heard alec bradley
had a consuming cigar and it's
it's like it's the art of mistakes like
you said but also they quite literally
use it as a method to fix broken things
so if you have a broken say this would
break and it was glass or ceramic they
grab and melt gold right and use the
gold to seal it back to seal it back and
it's it's beauty and it's beauty and
error well you can see here exactly kind
of playing homage to that with this
beautiful white kind of correct with
gold keeping it together you know
exactly and now we will move on to the
cigar i will be smoking today which is
crown heads which you guys are probably
sick hearing this but i'm sorry i love
crown heads out thank you john huber uh
this is periosa a full bodied cigar with
very earthy and leathery notes now why
do you think it will pair well with the
negroni and whatever we drink later on
well i'm actually i actually want you to
try this with this new bacardi sherry
cask that came out limited
i'm obsessed with this again brand new
limited edition it's not in every market
but it's basically our bacardi ocho
which is a blend of of at least
eight-year-old rums that's the majority
is even up to some ten-year-old in there
and he finished it in oroso sherry casks
for three months so you have this
beautiful and i think this with cigars
is gonna be i haven't tried this either
with cigars i've drank plenty of this
but i think i'm gonna pair it with this
after reading a little bit about this
cigar i saw it has some kind of
earthy like let like leathery kind of
notes in there a little bit maybe oily
so my brain would automatically just the
wrapper is only oily for sure you can
you can just grabbing it off the gecko i
mean i mean the guys at crown heads this
guy actually comes from if i remember
correctly the my father factory uh in
nicaragua but these guys and if you've
never heard of crown heads highly
recommend you check them out um
they rarely put out a bad cigar i can't
think of one honestly and they're very
fairly priced great bang for your buck
as well and alec bradley i mean you
can't go wrong as well you know but uh
this i'm very excited because we were
actually talking off camera earlier a
couple years ago i hated rome despised
it did not like it and
back when i was in the pr world geo
actually was the bartender for our
holiday christmas party and he served me
this
rum old
but he served it to me as a snow cone
and
i don't know if it was because it was a
snow cone and it brought me back to my
childhood or because you know i love
alcohol
um
that i loved it and now
you'll rarely see me drink rum solo
but i will when it's recommended
obviously by someone who knows and also
i'm a big grumbled fashion guy now so
thank you for that my friend pleasure
but uh but yeah i mean i say we start we
let's get to it start smoking do it sir
after you
and actually i'm gonna go
punch
here
so while we light up tell us a little
bit about yourself you know where you're
from but more importantly what i find
fascinating about your branding and who
you are is
you're you're a mixologist at heart
yeah but
you i know you're also a big foodie yeah
and both worlds those worlds blend for
sure for and no i mean quite literally
you have the term f and b food and
beverage and
it's similar to roman cigars food and
drink have gone together since since its
start of time
so i kind of want to know
which love came first but more
importantly
how you've managed to intertwine both so
well while building your brand and you
know keeping to yourself keep like
keeping to who you are at the same time
yeah i think it was one of those things
that organically happened just from from
me wanting to go to restaurants meet the
chefs meet the bartenders get to know
them you know i wanted to do a video
called you know hence the name chat chat
yeah talking about food and with their
videos um chatting with these people
like we're doing right now about cigars
about them and that was 10 years ago so
i was a head of the game in a sense that
influences wasn't a thing yeah instagram
wasn't a thing but um we did it and i
and i fell in love with the hospitality
industry um you know and i love just
seeing all these things and i would go
to these dinners and replicate those
things at home and buy the cookbooks and
make those things and make drinks and
learning it just it honestly just became
a thing where it just kind of grew as a
fire inside of me and i and i never kind
of stopped it and um i'm thankful that
bacardi saw uh i saw that in me and kind
of hired me in 2013 as like a part-time
ambassador which for for us that means
you know like you're the face of this
brand you know the brand well you do a
lot of education training you create
cocktails uh you train consumers you do
events uh which is which is great right
because i love i love teaching and i
love learning still so this day i i keep
learning every single day so
particularly and i love what you said
about learning and teaching at the same
time
more and it's so it's crazy how
similar cigars and
the the spirits industry is not
obviously from a product perspective but
when you think about it
i've had some of my best conversations
in life either smoking a cigar or having
a cocktail or someone or over dinner or
dinner or over dinner or all three
exactly so that's why you know
especially with my cigar pack and just
smoking cigars in general
i love
i love obviously tasting different
flavors from different places like cuban
cigars dominicans nicaraguans hondurans
you know i had to i had to you know cue
in my people there somehow shadow
michael
um but
i welcome more the conversations you
have for sure while you're doing them
because it's
you when you see for example when you go
to your brick and mortar and you buy
this particular cigar that you haven't
smoked in a while it makes you remember
that conversation so kind of like how
people save cigar bands or bottle caps
you have something to remind you wine
corks why exactly matches from
restaurants exactly it's all it's all
mementos and we're just lucky we get to
smoke our mementos and drink them at the
same time so how are you doing so far
with your cigar and how is it pairing
with the negroni uh it's delicious with
a negroni i think i'm gonna
rinse my palate which is why i brought
my little cup of chico by the way oh
yeah this is my the ultimate way to when
i'm taste testing food or cocktails the
minerality in here honestly it's like
one of those things in the bubbles that
like nothing cleans your palate better
than
i'm not saying that because i work fine
i don't work for them but as you can see
i love to chico
but um
actually now that you meant we're
mentioning we're you know we're talking
cigars talk to me a little bit about
your relationship to cigars and
particularly you mentioning that you're
cuban did you grow up around a lot of
cigar smokers um have you ever actually
worked with a cigar brand before um i've
done plenty of events for cigar brands
or sponsored events or made cocktail
pairings that we're doing today so i've
definitely dived into the world a lot um
so so yeah definitely uh mingled in it
and i i just think again cuban our
culture we have a lot of cigars you you
know you made fun of a cohiba hat in
there yeah
that's you know oh my my grandfather and
you know like we have our little
our little uh
homage uh tour to people that have have
left left us on our planet and uh but
yeah it's cigar it's part of our culture
man absolutely i don't do it i mean you
guys know this already but i'm from
honduras and
our culture you know our culture is
known for a lot of things you know mayan
culture as you've seen with a lot of
branding and cigars like ovs 2012
altar
it's like geo is our first ever guest on
pubs on central club sessions and
i mean so far i've been super excited uh
i want to taste this rum so
here's my friend
let's see
it's so interesting right because you
know a lot of times in our world of
pairings you know
part you know even in cuba not you don't
see a lot here in the united states but
people pair
you know rum with a cigar it's part of
that like a wrong pairing right that
sense you know and um it's funny because
some people's mindsets are
let's do similar things that complement
each other right so like a spice cigar
with a spicy rum
a light cigar with like a light body you
know white tropical rum and to me i
think i like the opposite it's almost
like i want something that that
will challenge challenge challenging one
another yeah but not in a way that it's
so overpowering because then you got
okay this maybe i picked a rum that was
way too spicy for this very creamy cigar
and it kind of like we alex and i we
talk a lot about
when it comes to the transitions from
third to third in a cigar
we love experiencing the changes in
between third but more importantly
it's how well they transition from
flavor to flavor because if it if the
transition overpowers you
it completely changes the pairing or the
cigar smoking experience right but for
example at least with this cigar and
so far i think with all of our central
club sessions we haven't had a
crazy you know crazy transition moment
but um but with this cigar it
transitions beautifully and again it is
it's pairing very well with the onions
whether it's
we're smoking different very different
things so
props to you my friend now tell me i
don't know about you but like at least
for me it's doing that thing where like
this is not a spicy rum but the spices
in here is giving this rum a zing when i
sip it it's it's a nice little
absolutely
this on
you know the earthy and leathery taste
of my cigar um
it's it's adding that little like now i
kind of feel like a bit of because like
you said it's not a super spicy rum but
i do feel a little bit of black
and white pepper now while drinking this
which i find intriguing and
now that i've tried that pairing
in a little bit i am very excited yeah
to try it with this
because in my experience when you have
something that's out of the sherry cast
room or just
finished and aged in something
relatively sweet
when you pair it with a earthy or a
leathery cigar
the flavors that come up are
incredible lassa i was thinking about
this on my way here um our last central
pub sessions
we had i was smoking another crown had
cigar media highly recommended um
and one of the notes
in the cigar was licorice
not licorice but star anise similar to
what is what is what i wanted
to made with and i we started smoking
this coffee from honduras that has a lot
like very heavy blueberry notes like on
the nose and on and the taste as well
and
i started and as i was as we were going
through to third
i felt that i was smoking a blueberry
twizzler the the natural taste that you
can taste in bourbon or in scotch or in
rum particularly when you pair with a
cigar it's it just opens you up to
discovering so many different flavors
which is why we created pub central
sessions and why i love pairing things
in general i'll pair the craziest [ __ ]
when i'm at old man i swear to god and
not even with alcohol like the other day
i was having a steak sandwich from
graziano's market
and i had a bottle of matcha tea in my
fridge that i had not drank and it was
about to go pretty sour soon i was like
let's try this out see how this tastes
it wasn't a great pairing i'm not gonna
lie i'm not gonna [ __ ] you guys but
that's how crazy and the parrying game
is in a bait in a way and it's similar
to you when you make cocktails you're a
mad scientist sure you know what i mean
three two action
we are back
we have kind of smoked the rest of our
cigars and i gotta say
the
they have on a glue
paired very well in my cigar overall uh
it brought out a lot of spice in my
cigar
it brought out actually a little bit of
sweetness
as well
to the cigar and obviously that has to
do with the rum being an anejo but um
i'm really excited for this me too and i
i again just so are just so our our
viewers and our listeners can remember
talk to us again about this new bakari
room yeah just it came out limited
edition uh
only major markets
it's basically our barcardi ocho which
is an amazing run that it's meant for
sipping or for cocktails like high-end
cocktails like little fashions or rum
manhattans or even like a rum negroni
you want like two ounces of like a
really good quality spirit it's a eight
to ten year old blend which which ate
being the youngest so they did here is
they put it in three months in oloroso
sherry casks so this thing is probably
sweet as hell right yes i don't i think
it's sweet and it might be also a little
dry from sherry right um
hence why i wanted to try with the
cigars so cheers cheers my friend let's
see
it smells amazing
it's delicious
i definitely see
something a bit dry from the cherry i
can feel that right here
but but a sweet finish also right it's
for sure
for sure and what i love about it is
because i'm a big retrohaler with my
cigars
i i've learned from a early on when i
came on to my cigar pack um we were
sitting down with um
a seasoned vet in the industry and
uh
alex gave me to try this one cigar but
he told me retro alien
and no shame in many of this guys i
fully inhaled it and that's what i
thought retro hailing was i had no idea
what retro hailing was
and right there the guy um our you know
the season bet we were with he tells me
you only smoked 40 of the cigar in your
life you've only tasted 40 of it and
that that like it didn't it now that it
rubbed me the wrong way but i was like
damn i've been wasting cigars this
entire time
the earthy
and leatherness of this cigar
it makes for a great
retro hail experience
and
with the sweetness at the finish of this
cigar of the of the rum
it truly um
it's very it's very interesting
so actually geo i have a bit of a speed
round
of questions for you
no worries all right i'ma get you in
trouble everybody if you want to get in
trouble that's fine we can uh so we're
going to start off with the most basic
one
white or dark rum
whatever you give me next
i love it
dream destination
oh
at the moment
australia
i like that
i'm a big um i'm a big i don't want to
say i'm an outdoorsman
but i love nature i love animals
and the amount of
dangerous and highly deadly animals in
the australian outback fascinates me and
it like i'm not saying i want to go out
there and get bit by a taipan and die in
20 minutes or something but i definitely
i'd love to see a kangaroo fighting at
bingo like yeah that's just something i
i need i need that nat geo right in my
face you know what i mean uh next um
do you have a favorite cigar
um i do not i end up smoking a lot of uh
david off at a lot of their their brands
um just from being around them a lot and
doing events with them i end up
appreciating their cigars i mean you
can't you cannot go wrong with a
davidoff ever when you're at your brick
and mortar we do sell some davidoffs on
cigar yards so check it out um but
davidoff is
you know what what that man did for the
cigar industry it is
it's it's incredible and i mean
to this day i mean winston churchill
loved their cigars so much yeah that now
there is quite literally a vitola called
churchill yeah and
you know what what that what what
davidoff did for this industry is
rivaled by what cuba did yeah i mean you
know like
and it's a shame that
you know with quality control going down
on the island with everything that's
going on which i mean i'm from honduras
so
i can't even begin to fathom what's
going on on the island but
i really hope that things get better in
the near future because
just like all of our all of our
all of our latin american countries
we're too beautiful to go through these
things and we have so much to offer the
world and
unfortunately
media in certain cases um
[Music]
unfortunately you see all the bad things
and it doesn't and it's not that there's
good it's not that there's not good
thing it's just
the bad things are taking present and
people need to know
um okay now i am going to get you into a
bit of trouble and i will say locally if
i had to pick up a local
pajama
i love them
the drills are [ __ ] great yeah but
drones are again
there are a lot of brands that you can
buy at a brick and mortar and you're
going to love but if there's brands that
you know you can't go wrong with padrone
davidoff la sancia but also guys
remember that with cigars there's so
many brands in so many lines out there
that
you kind of got to treat it like playing
pokemon catch them all quite literally
and
you
if you have a particular taste that you
love and you know this is all you want
that's totally fine that's what they're
made for your me
my cigar pack for example
i see it as a tool for cigar smokers
especially for novices right when you
when you're starting out smoking you
don't know what you want the beauty of
having a subscription service send you
random things to your door every month
is that now after you've gotten a couple
you go to that brick and mortar
and you kind of know what you want now
right you know what i mean
now for these last three questions kind
of going to get you through those
problems
so
you could have only one drink for the
rest of your life you can have it as
many times as you want obviously i'm not
telling you you can only have one drink
for the rest of your life i mean if
there's only one drink that you can make
yourself for the rest of your life no
answer man you can't no because it
depends who i'm with time of the day
where i'm at like i love
negroni i love an old-fashioned i love a
martini i love a gin and tonic i love
all spirits
and i don't i really can't tell you
um this one favorite of mine one
favorite of mine i drink a lot of rum
obviously but then i think if i'm not
drinking rum i really appreciate your
really good martini
like whether i think my vodka i think
making a good martini and i'm not a big
martini guy personally i do drink them
whenever if i go to a bar that's known
for their martinis i'm obviously going
to have one yeah because it's it's kind
of like going to uh it's kind of like
going to a steak house and ordering the
chicken
that's not what they're known for it
could be great for sure but that's not
what they're known for but the fried
chicken at joe's for example
man
bro talk about talk about
wild card there if you're ever in miami
guys
joe's the fried chicken at joe's stone
crab you will not regret it
next one i think will be a bit easier
if you could only have one one type of
food to eat for the rest of your life
i love
warm bread
butter and good salt if you that's last
meal on earth last on top of like the
best french baked bread
the best yellow
beautiful cultured butter
huge chunks of sea salt
and maybe even thin slices of radish
call me in slices of radish
throw us i'm gonna we're gonna put a
comment in the comment section on
youtube
if we get enough votes i will do a puff
central session pairing a cigar
with that bread
so let me know in the comments if you
want to see me do that crazy pairing and
i absolutely
will do it and final question my friend
what is
oh i have two more questions
um what's your biggest pet peeve
at a bar at a restaurant both
both in a hospitality setting
um
vermouth sitting out in the bar not
refrigerated a lot of people don't
realize vermouth is a fortified wine
it's wine and the minute you crack open
that bottle starts oxidizing like wine
would and then if you don't keep them in
the fridge
that thing goes to waste and that's one
of those things talking about martinis
people buy vermouth because
and they don't know they'll just close
it back up and leave in their bar cart
and then six months later they try to
make something and taste like crap i
guarantee you because that drink that
tastes like crap was because vermouth
was expired and oxidized
and that's one of my definitely one of
my pet peeves
interesting interesting guys if you guys
love pairing your cigars with vermouth
take tips from the man listen to him and
finally
what's your hottest
take when it comes to fmv
how does it take
and what turns me on no no
you're gonna give me trouble no i'd be i
did say i was gonna get you in trouble
no i mean
something
a very unpopular opinion
oh i think the popular one is that
maddy doesn't have great places or
everything is
you know it's the misconception of miami
of like everything is super bougie or
expensive and you don't know there's
amazing holes in the wall absolutely wow
i love that you just brought that up
oh my god
guys
and this is something i say a lot about
cigars
i've smoked six dollar cigars
that taste just as good or better than a
25 or 30 cigar guys
the cigar industry similar to the liquor
industry
whether it's entertainment or pop
culture or society
it's labeled and given this
like aura or a lure to cigars and liquor
that
only the goods only own the only the
good stuff is expensive right
and that's most definitely not the case
you guys got to remember the people that
make cigars
you they love cigar so much so you want
to make a product accessible to everyone
and i think the spirits industry does
that beautifully i think the i think the
cigar industry does it beautifully and i
would love to see more industries try to
do so because
when you lim obviously if you have
you have a particular client or demo
that you're going for i totally
understand that that's i mean that's up
to you and good on you
but
you're closing yourself out to so many
more cosplays for sure 100 you know what
i mean yeah but you can have the
greatest packaging in the world that's
obviously the product and if you do not
put that same energy yeah towards your
product
you can dip your cigar in gold i'm not
going to smoke it yeah you know what i
mean it's so i would i would love to see
in the cigar industry brands and there's
listen there are there are hundreds of
brands that do this beautifully
and i would love to see it more because
listen you and i we just had so much fun
having this conversation and i want to
thank you again for taking your time out
of your day to do this with us
um but
these cigars
and these drinks cigars drinks food you
name it
we were talking about mementos and
remembering things and
if you shower it with something poor
it's gonna want to make you not think
about that conversation in a way right
you know so
guys remember this when you're making
your products
think about what people are going to be
doing while they enjoy them because
you give them something that they're
going to enjoy while they're doing
something and they're going to remember
that experience for the rest of their
life and they're going to remember your
product for the rest of your life by
tying it back to that
now to wrap up geo talk to us a little
bit about the pairing between
your the sherry the sherry bacardi
and
overall successful pairing 100 i
don't dislike one more than the other i
think they bring different qualities
i'm i'm content with the cocktail and
bull spirits i'm very content with both
but i gotta tell you do they sell this
here yeah
because i might actually have to stop at
my local at my nearest shop and pick a
bottle of this because you should and
like i told you remember geo i'm not a
big rum guy i keep my bar stocked with
bourbon scotch chin aguardian tequila
that's my thing
that might be the first bottle that i
have to you know it has to be a
stay in my in my in my bar cart for sure
thank you for introducing me to these
cigars absolutely dude absolutely we
i'll be we will be more than happy to
have you back on now guys
alec bradley kintsugi crown heads la
periosa available on cigar yard hit the
links below you'll find them and
remember
tell your mom tell your dad tell your
friends tell your dog for all we care
we've said this before we don't take
ourselves seriously so don't take
ourselves take us seriously i've been jw
aka cigar wolf with geo aka chat chow
we'll see you next time