How Cigar Flavor Stimulates Memory | Box Press Shorts Ep. 76

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For me, it's so hard for me to get flavors,  because they're so nua-, like minor in a cigar.

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It's not like wine. It's not like alcohol where  sometimes it just smacks you in the face. You're

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like, whoa, that was, you know, peat or that  was Band-Aid on that Scotch. That was, holy cow,

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that grass-fed beef had like a lot of like hay  flavor, like you know, barnyard. I don't get

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that with cigars. How would you like to, though?  Huh? How would you like to say, this is how I can

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associate- That's what I want to get better at  is like- Yeah. I just want to get better at like,

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when I'm smoking this, what the heck am I  tasting? Because literally? I don't know

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what it is in my brain, but it's as if there is no  neurons transmitting between those two synapses.

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It's like, hey man what are you tasting? The other  one's like, I am not sending you this signal. You

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are screwed. Hey, buddy send it over. No. No, that  fax is not coming over. You are not getting that

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email. Screw you. And it's only going to get worse  with time, so- Dude! It's bad! Love that. So I'm

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trying to figure out how to just even get half-  Train your brain how. Yeah, yeah, how do I build

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the synapses and the electromagnetic current to  like start firing? And I don't know- You mentioned

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with wine, right? Wines, they're a liquid and  the oils are within the liquid and the minerals

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are easily displaced. So in wines, spirits  beers, there are flavor notes that can arise,

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which flavor notes in scenarios like that, aren't  really direct for flavors. They're not like,

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barnyard. It's not like you're going to go out and  grab some of the barnyard and go shove it in your

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mouth, and go okay, oh, now I know what it tastes  like. It's just- It's memory, through smell. Yeah,

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you smell the fresh cut grass, it's not like  you ate it, right? Or leather. Right. You're

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just smelling it. Leather, actually when you  get it wet, and then, coming from the farms

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back when I was a kid, we had to untack horses  in August after riding them all day. Yeah. Those

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oils from the leather actually get into the  outside air and you can literally taste those.

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I know what that leather tastes like. That's  a strong one for me. Yeah. But chocolates?

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Dark chocolates. Milk chocolate, white, it didn't  matter, I don't need a lot of it. Because I

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don't do a lot of sugar. And chocolate's one of  those that I just stay away from. Sure. Been a

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diabetic for 46 years. Yeah. So I stay away from  certain things that I need to actually train my

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palate on. Sure. And there are ways that if you  don't have an association with certain flavors,

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if you've not been surrounded by leathers,  or- Right. You know, straw—certain barnyard.

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Don't know what smokey is, because maybe you  live in the city, and you've never been to a

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campfire outside, you know, the city limits,  which is different than barrel burns- Sure.

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-around the corner. A little different scenario.  Yeah, it's a little bit different smell coming

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from that one. Like they might not know what  toasty meant. Right. Right? They wouldn't have

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that association with what toasty is. So it's  it's about saying, it's not that I don't know,

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I need to associate them. And there's a way  we can do that. Well, and it's, aromas are so

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interesting. They say that your sense of smell  brings back the, like the richest memories. So,

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if you can tie an aroma to a place in a memory,  or a flavor, you really can lock that in and go,

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oh that's that. And like I know I've tasted cigars  where I might call it floral, but to my brain it

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smells like walking through a garden that has  some flowers and some herbs. And, like tomatoes

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have a really characteristic smell when you touch  them with your fingers, like it really lingers.

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And, like I wouldn't say it's like a great smell,  but it's a really characteristic summer smell. And

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all of that combines into like, it feels like I'm  walking through a garden. Okay. I can't tell which

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flavor I'm picking up right now, like sometimes  it might be, oh, shoot, it could be roses. Yeah.

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That's a really you know characteristic, memorable  scent. But, that to me is a connection that I've

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made in my brain, because it's a flavor I like  in cigars. And like your grasses, your hay,

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your- things like, that I almost kind of call  them like a vegetal,- Yes! if that's a word?

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Absolutely. Yeah, I think it is. Yup. -but that  vegetation grown- Of course. -kind of lumps into

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its own. Yeah. And your chocolates can almost be  mixed in with your coffees. They kind of can tie

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in together.Yep. People say spice a lot, I mean  I don't know how many times you guys have heard

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people say, oh it's spicy. What spice? People  look at me and go- which one? Yeah, exactly.

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Because there are so many of them. Because  you've got cinnamon, you've got vanilla that

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all fall into the spice category. You've  got jalapeño, that's spicy. Black pepper.

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Uh, you mentioned that before. Or you know,  there are a lot that fit in some of those

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categories—like which end of that spectrum are  you on? White pepper, cayenne- Uh-huh. I mean,

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but spice I think a lot of people associate  that word spice with the almost, the overdraw.

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Drawing too fast creates that bitter, that  bitter "bitey-ness". It's like the heat drawn

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kind of zest that can come from  tobacco. If you're drawing in too fast,

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too much. You're hitting it too hard and that heat  just creates that spicy flavor. Right. Yeah. Like

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right now I'm smoking the H. Upmann Heritage.  And I know I'm gonna have spicy notes because

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the wrapper leaf that's on here, it's a Brazilian-  Sure. -from the Mata Fina region and this has been

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triple fermented by by AJ, so I know it's going  to have that little bit of spice at the beginning.

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But once I get, I got, you know, like maybe a  sixteenth of an inch in, not even a quarter of an

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inch. It really toned that down, but I know that's  more of a black, like a cracked black pepper,

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feeling out of it. Right now I know I'm getting  a lot of leather notes, because I know leather.

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But, you may smoke it and go, I don't get  the leather. Sure. But how can we say,

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how do we do this? How can we get it to go- I  get the association with what the flavor and

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the aroma is supposed to be. Yeah. Especially  if you don't know leather. Yeah. I have an

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interesting connection with, you mentioned the  smell of, essentially, really hot sweaty leather

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coming off the back of a horse. I worked  in footwear for years and years and years,

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and that—you don't notice it when you're in it all  the time—you kind of become nose blind to it, but

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if you haven't been for a few days and you walk  back in and you open up a box of handmade shoes,

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it smells amazing, like it's a smell that I'm  very, very fond of. And it's hard to pinpoint,

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like, what does it smell like? Ah, it just smells  like leather, but it's a very comfortable smell.

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I had a dad that really liked leather goods, so  that's the connection- Yeah. -I have with my dad,

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so it's, a lot of those things come to the  forefront when you think of those aromas,

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I think it's great. No, it's good. Now like in  your cigar, yours is going to have a little bit

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more of, you'll get more of, some of those  woody notes, maybe a florally aroma. Yup.

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Possibly even earthier tones. Yep. If I my  memory serves on the blend that we put with

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that one. Yep. But I know that the the woodsy is  kind of the aroma-state and the floral-state or

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the flavor notes, so, are you tasting them?  Are you sure you're tasting them correctly?

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Um, cedar for sure. And I think cedar, at least  for me, I tend to tie cedar sometimes into floral,

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because it has kind of a very aromatic, um almost  like smelling a fine cologne or a fine fragrance.

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Right. Fragrance, like an aromatic cedar.  Yeah. -as opposed to like an American cedar,

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which is odorless. Exactly. So, it's got, I think,  kind of a floral note to cedar, I mean, because it

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is a plant. Uh-huh. This has lots of cedar and  then kind of in the back, you get sort of like a

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dark sugar, like molasses or brown sugar, almost  kind of like a bourbon quality, without the,

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like the burn or the spiciness, that you would  get when you sip a glass of bourbon. Okay.

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It's really pleasant. The cedar, it's getting a  little more now, just on the last couple puffs,

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when I retrohale back through my sinuses, I feel  a little bit of that tingle come in, whereas the

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first third of this cigar was, or a quarter of  this cigar, was just creamy and mild. Uh-huh. I

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get a little bit of that tingle, which tells me  it's got a little bit of spiciness to it, so maybe

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a little bit of some type of like white pepper or  mild pepper. And you may dance around with flavors

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on that, all around the board, because that's  one of the few cigars in the industry that's

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actually using tobacco from five different- to  Five regions. Yeah. -and I mean in regions, it's

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literally like you think of different countries  around the world, Indonesia to Colombia to- Yeah,

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Indonesia, Colombia, Ecuador, the Dominican  Republic and- Nicaragua. Nicaragua, yeah. [Music]