Welcome to another episode of Box Press. I'm your host, Rob Gagner. I'm

joined by co-host, Nate Beck.

And we have a special guest, Travis Pappenheim

from Altadis Cigars. Travis, thank

you for joining us. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna have

a great time learning a little bit more about tasting sewers. Exactly.

We did a video about tasting cigars a few years ago. And it

did really well for us. There was a lot of Education you pulled in

there and now we want to just pull it a little bit deeper

into the education profile because this is

something Nate and I always go back and forth with Nate can

taste cigars really? Well. I can't I need

help. So now we're gonna do some little stuff

like we're gonna test some stuff and see

if we can get better at this right. I think yeah call it a

sensory experience a little bit. Yeah, and I would

say like and we were talking last night like

If you just enjoy the cigar and it's good and it's

balanced like I look for balance. I look for complexity sometimes

like if I want some different flavors or sometimes I

just want

Consistent good flavor, and then that's it.

Like that's as far as I go and that's Travis that

was interesting last night to hear you say that that's what the blenders are doing.

Yeah, a lot of blenders in the industry. They we don't

get flavor notes. We don't. They don't designing a cigar

based off of what flavor notes are we trying to

achieve? You can't impart flavors. It's really the

oils as a smoke draws over those oils as

the oils expand, those oils are gonna leave a little residue as

it goes through and hits your palate and that's what we're picking up. Let's talk

about that because most people don't know that. So when

you actually burn a cigar,

you're actually smoking literally the

oils and sugars behind the burn line. You're heating

them up.

And that's being drawn into your

palate and that's what creates the flavor. Right.

The tobacco is really just

the fuel at the embered end. The smoke

that's being drawn over is drawing over those oils,

picking up a little bit of those flavors as it goes

through, or the oil residue with those oils consist

of--

the elements... Right. ...that were involved with making those oils. It's then

depositing them on your on your palate, as

you're holding that smoke in your mouth. That's why, um, the first video we did

I said, let's--we really want to hold that in

your palate for about five seconds, putting pressure, blowing

your cheeks out. It helps embed a little

bit of those oil residues that are coming through and they're embedding

in your palate. And really, that's all it is.

Tobacco is the fuel but you want the oils that comes with it.

Right. The sugars help you get that color and depth you want. That's so

important. that holding. Because I see some people smoke cigars. They

just inhale and then blow it right back out real quick.

I'm like, how can you taste anything? I'm not judging.

I'm just, for me, it's really hard to taste

at a high level. So I really have

to think about it. Or I really have to hold it. Like, and just those

simple tips of just like, hold that for extra couple

seconds, and then slowly blow it

out. Yeah, you want to get--remember cigars, we aren't

in a hurry with cigars. No. It's taking us over

three years--at a minimum--from seed to finished product

to create a cigar. Right.

Why are we rushing to get through it? And that's the one of the biggest

mistakes I see with

people who are getting into cigars, who've not

been guided by somebody, like we did back in the '70s

or '80s, or even before that, you know, back in the old days.

Grandpa, dad helped Junior, you know

that you helped each other.

Slow down. Do this. Look, and there's proper things you can do to

give you that better experience, right? Because cigars are just a luxury

item. A hobby. Yep. That we

get to enjoy with our friends. Yep. Why not take that time to enjoy that?

Well, one thing I see a lot of people doing is inhaling too

fast. Or you know, drawing that, not really inhaling, but

drawing that smoke in your mouth.

Way too fast.

Remember, the idea is to keep that ember as cool

as possible.

And only keeping a quarter of an inch

of ash. Maybe a half of an inch at the most. Yeah. Don't want

that oxygen getting through that ash, because now you're picking

up bad impurities--whatever is in the ash that's left over. Exactly.

Combusting that and then creating that slight off-flavor

but still an off-flavor. Absolutely. So ash those

off. No, but if you draw it--when I tell

a lot of people--if you want to think of it this way--do a slow count

of three when you draw the smoke into your mouth. That's such a good tip because that's where

it changed for me and how I tasted a cigar.

It was two things.

Slow, long draw.

And not the puff, puff, puff, which we'll do in a totally different video

of how to smoke a cigar. We're doing that today with Travis. But the second

one was, in between, letting the

cigar rest and cool down. Because some of the times

the best flavors I get out of a cigar when

I forgot about it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I got to pick that up and smoke it

and I'm like, holy cow that tastes amazing! Because it's

cooler and like even to just touch down here by the

end--if it's just warm, you're

perfect. But if it's blazing hot

and you can't touch that, you're, you're ripping it too hard.

And you're burning off... Too big of a hurry at that point, right? Well, I mean I

can hold this for a while. This is not too hot. Yeah. And it's just

perfect. You're burning off all the oils and sugars... Absolutely. ...before they even get to

your mouth. Right? I mean, that's what I think is happening in

theory is like it's just too hot and it's like POOF, an incinerator. You're

singeing them. You're singeing that tobacco

so hot that oils the oils are really... That's a good way to say it. ...I like

to say, it's like when we cook a steak. There's a

time and an opportunity that

you want to sear your steak at a really high temperature. Say 800-900

degrees. But if I'm gonna cook a steak to

a medium-rare or a medium, and I don't have an oven.

I'm not gonna cook a steak at 800 degrees, because it's gonna

cook way too fast in the outside. Right. Burn the peanuts out

of the oils or the fats that are there. Yep. And those

fats are not gonna be very good, because they're gonna be so singed. You don't

want to do that to the oils on the tobacco. You want to let them

slowly heat up, draw that smoke over it, and not sing it.

Yep. And burn it. Yep. Yeah, like right now at this point,

we're not very far into our cigars. This is to me, sometimes the

worst part of the cigar. It's usually sometimes

the most bitter part. There's not a lot of complexity of

the flavor.

Just it's like this period that you have to get through but

you even say, Travis, that at a quarter of

an inch, that's when you really should start tasting things. Like that's

when the oils are starting to heat up and start to go, "Oh, we're

doing something here. You want to release us!"

Well, you don't go to a concert and sit there

and listen to the percussionist and the bass,

the bass guitarist.

That's not them. That's not the band.

You gotta wait for the lead guitar. You gotta wait for the other accessories that

go with the full band. Well, when we're smoking a

cigar and you just light it up, remember the tobacco leaf on the

outside, the wrapper and consequently, the binder, are probably

the two thinnest leaves in the whole cigar. Those ones

that are gonna ignite right away. The thicker tobaccos do

take more time to heat those oils up. Let them naturally

just start to warm up. So, if you get about that, an eighth of an inch,

a quarter of an inch in, a 16th of an inch, it

depends on each cigar. You know, the thicker tobaccos, you're

gonna have to get into them a little bit more. But like you mentioned, you can

you can feel just right down here. Once you feel that these start

to get a little warm, you know that the oils are going to expand. Yeah,

mine's just starting to get warm to the

touch. Like earlier, it was like cold. For me

It's yes, if you look at your cigar, like right in here,

you'll notice that it starts to bellow just a little

bit. I was just noticing that. When you just fire your cigar up, that

hasn't had time for the water content. That moisture. Yeah that water

concentration. It doesn't have a way

to

get out because of the capped end. It's burning and you

only draw on it every 45 seconds to a minute and

a half, two minutes, depending on your location.

When I see that bellowing, starting to bellow out,

that means I know that water is starting to expand, that means the

oils are gonna start to expand, they kind of go hand in hand. Sure. So

there are times, I'm just like, okay, they're bellowing, now it's time to,

let's see what the flavor is. It's a little indicator to you. Like a little bulb,

just a little