Episode 32 | Crowned Heads Tennessee Waltz | Americano

Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. We are back again for another podcast of the Sticks and Stones. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. We are back with another episode of the Sticks and Stones podcast. Sticks and Stones, where we talk about life, we talk about love, and we talk about premium tobacco products, the brotherhood of the leaf. And today, I'm not going to [ __ ] you guys. I'm excited every episode because premium tobacco products and cigars as a whole excites my life. It's the reason why we are building this brand. It's a reason why we built the podcast. It's a reason for a lot of things. Now, having said that, what are we smoking today? Well, today, this is a newer brand that really excites me cuz all of their [ __ ] is really good. Uh as a matter of fact, I'm going to be doing another Crowned Heads cigar soon on the podcast, but right now, what really got me on this cigar is actually the the branding, the packaging, you know, the the beautiful Connecticut broadleaf dark tobacco as the background and the gold and orange band wrapper. So, this is the Tennessee Waltz from Crowned Heads. So, I'm going to give this a snippy snippy and I am enjoying an Americano, two shots of espresso and hot water. If you missed last episode, I have started a journey for a weight loss journey, a healthier life journey. So, I have cut out alcohol for the time being for I'm not going to say indefinitely, but for a long while. I need I need to drop some weight drastically. And, you know, as means of an update, I haven't weighed myself in over a week, and I weighed myself this morning and I'm down 2 lb. So, and that was previous to me starting this. So, I don't know what happened, but cuz I was eating like [ __ ] and drinking my ass off. So, I don't know what I don't know what the hell happened, but going to give it a snippy snippy. Okay, let's give it a cold draw. This is going to be interesting. I mean, look at the Look at the beautiful band, the intricate art, and the ribbon and the foot ribbon. Beautiful. Crowned Heads, shout out, man. Great job on this one. Well, I mean, they the branding on everything they do, the bands that they put on all of their stuff is phenomenal. You know that I think they're they're a brand out of Tennessee, which you don't you don't hear very often. Cigar companies like coming out of states that you wouldn't even, you know, you don't you don't think of cigars when you hear Tennessee. You think of bourbon. You think of whiskey. Ooh, that lights up really nice. Really good light. So, like I was saying, you don't you don't think of cigars when you hear the state Tennessee. You think, you know, whiskey, bourbons, uh you think Jack Daniel's, but um if you were going to brand yourself as a cigar company coming out of Tennessee, you know, normally it's it's Nicaragua, Honduras, you know, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador. Those are the places, you know, Florida. There are some some Florida-based companies. So, if you were going to base yourself out of Tennessee you would A have to have a really really great product, and B have really great marketing and branding and production and packaging, you know, that kind of thing. And I think my opinion, they're killing it on all those fronts. So, let's get down to the nitty-gritty of this beautiful cigar. So, the story behind the Tennessee Waltz is Jon Huber named this cigar as tribute to the classic song Tennessee Waltz. It was playing when his maternal grandparents met, and he heard his grandfather whistling it throughout his childhood. This cigar was created to honor the state of Tennessee, which is home of Crowned Heads as a brand. So, the blend specs, the vitola is 5 and 1/2 by 52. Robusto extra. I think they only have one size and that's that's pretty much across the board for Crown Heads. Wrapper is the USA Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro. Binder is Nicaraguan filler. Nicaraguan factory is the My Father Cigars SA. Ooh, excuse me. Esteli, Nicaragua. So, they have this white box to for them. Basically. So, appearance and construction. The Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper is really dark brown, almost black, which it is, with a few veins and bumps giving it a rustic look. There's no traditional headband, just a striking bright orange ribbon footer band. No, that's not true. I mean, this has got two bands. That that might be some old information. Construction Construction is nearly seamless and evenly rolled with uniform firmness. The pre-lit cold draw reportedly delivers molasses sweetness and soft leather. Yeah, I agree with all that. Very consistent, but I mean, it's rolled by My Father's cigar. I mean, would you expect anything less? So, flavor profile on the first third opens with chocolate and peanut brittle with a good amount of spice on the retro hale. Then, coffee, earth, and slightly salty notes emerge. I'm not getting I'm not spice. Yeah, you get spice on the retro hale, but I think you get some bit of spice on any retro hale of any cigar. Having said that, on the second third, the spices tone down, flavor shift to coffee, leather, earth, wood with a much sweeter finish. Third, final third is chocolate returns, strength builds into a medium to full range, and spice comes back on the tongue and retro hale. Overall profile across review, wood, leather, touch of sweetness, peppery spice, dried fruit, charred oak, black coffee, dark chocolate with a long, elegant finish and lasting tingle of spice on the plant on the pa- Now, my personal opinion, guys, on tasting notes, you might pick up on a couple of things, but all of that, I mean, wood, leather, charred oak, dried fruit, black coffee, dark chocolate, I don't think you're going to get all of that. You might get some of that here and there. Like, you're not going to get all of it at once. You're going to You're going to pull in and you're going to get something and then you're going to pull in again and you're going to, you know, get something different on that puff. That's my own, you know, personal opinion on that. So, for strength and body, they say this is a medium to full body, not a powerhouse, but definitely not mild. It builds as you smoke. Yeah, definitely not a powerhouse. Definitely not mild. You know, the average or newer smoker do not recommend smoking this with morning coffee. So, availability and release. Originally, a Tennessee only regional release, Crowned Heads allows one per year one day per year for retailers nationwide to purchase this to purchase this cigar, making it extremely limited and a bit of a hunt outside Tennessee. Only 250 boxes of 20 cigars were produced in the original release. It comes in a 20 count box. Obviously, this was this cigar was not just released um because I found it and there were multiple boxes at uh Cigar Heaven. Second. So, pairing, pair it with a good bourbon and enjoy. Given the broadleaf Maduro and Nicaraguan core, all allocated Tennessee whiskey fitting, right? Or a dark rum would complement it beautifully. I'm enjoying it with coffee and it's great. Or an Americano, sorry. It's great. Yeah, so I don't remember I don't remember what I paid for this. And and there again, it's not relevant because unless you live in the Houston area of Texas, um doesn't matter what I paid, what they claim is a $9 per stick at retail. I would definitely call this an underdog. This is definitely an underdog cigar, but you know what? Crowned Heads is an underdog brand, you know, because it's it's swinging with all the big boys cuz this is a premium hand-rolled cigar. They are out there swinging with all the big guys, Fuente and Drew Estates and Alec Bradley, My Father's who who rolls this for them. I would say the whole brand is an underdog brand of cigar, but fa [ __ ] nominal. Blood Medicine is great. La Crema is amazing. Now this Tennessee Waltz, shit's awesome, guys. Get out there, take a look next time you're in the cigar store, take a look, ask the guy or the girl if you have they carry Crowned Heads. Try some of this [ __ ] out, man. It's good. You know what? I'm just going to do this for What are some of the greatest underdog stories of history? The Battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartan warriors plus a few thousand Greek allies held off an estimated 1 300,000 Persian soldiers for 3 days at a narrow mountain pass. King Leonidas and his men brought Greece enough time to ultimately repel the Persian invasion. They all died, but the legend never did. That's the story of the 300. You ever watch that movie? Gerard Butler. Awesome movie. The Battle of Agincourt. So the Battle of Thermopylae happened in 480 BC. In 1450 AD, Henry V's exhausted, outnumbered, dysentery-ridden English army, roughly 6,000 men, annihilated a French force of 20 to 30,000 knights in full armor. English longbowmen changed warfare forever that day. Shakespeare immortalized it. We few, we happy few. You know about that one, the longbow, interesting. The Winter War, Finland versus the Soviet Union, 1939 to '40. The USSR invaded Finland with nearly 600,000 troops against Finland's 300,000. So, double. Finland fought a force double theirs. Finland held them off for over 3 months in brutal winter conditions inflicting catastrophic Soviet casualties before eventually signing a peace treaty. They lost some land but kept their country. Interesting. Battle of Rorke's Drift, 1879. 139 British British soldiers, many of them sick or wounded, defended a mission station against 3 to 4,000 Zulu warriors for 12 hours overnight. They held 11 Victoria Crosses or they held 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most ever for a single engagement. Interesting. The American Revolution, this is political and social. A loose coalition of farmers, merchants, and militiamen with no professional army, no navy, and no money took on the most powerful military empire on Earth and they won. Mahatma Gandhi versus the British Empire. No army, no weapons, a man in a loincloth wielding nonviolent civil disobedience brought the most powerful empire in the world to its knees and freed 400 million people. Nelson Mandela, 27 years in prison, emerged not with bitterness, not with a vision that united a nation teetering on civil war, Wait, wait, hold on. 27 years in prison emerged not with bitterness but with a vision that united a nation teetering on civil war, became president, presided over a peaceful transition out of apartheid. Science and ideas. Galileo versus the Catholic Church. Stood nearly alone against the entire institutional weight of Western civilization asserting that the Earth moves around the Sun, was forced to recant under threat of torture, spurred legend says, "And yet it moves." He was right. The church eventually admitted it in 1992. Wow, 1992. Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian doctor in the '80s who figured out that doctors washing their hands before delivering babies would save lives. The medical establishment mocked and ostracized him. He died in a mental asylum. Germ theory later proved him completely right. Wow, that's crazy. Dude died in the cuckoo house and he was [ __ ] right. Unbelievable. Now to sports. 1980 US Olympic hockey team, Miracle on Ice. There was a movie about this. A team of amateur college kids defeated the [ __ ] Soviet Union, the most dominant hockey program in the world, a machine that hadn't lost an Olympic game in years, during the height of the Cold War. Then they won the gold medal, arguably the greatest moment in American sports history. Leicester City, 2015-16 Premier League season. A club that had just barely avoided relegation the prior year with a roster assembled of roughly 22 million British sterling pounds won the English Premier League title against clubs spending hundreds of millions. Odds at that start of the season. The odds of that happening at start of the season were 5,000 to 1. Oh, here's one that I'll enjoy cuz this is combat sports. James Buster Douglas versus Mike Tyson, 1990. Tyson was 37 and 0, considered unbeatable. Possibly the most feared fighter in boxing history. That's that's the truth cuz Mike was an animal. Douglas was 42 and one underdog. He was a 42 and one underdog. His mother had died 23 days before the fight. He knocked Tyson out in the 10th round. To go 10 rounds with Tyson, I remember this fight. To go 10 rounds with Tyson, the Mike Tyson, and then knock him out in the 10th round. Can you imagine that? That's nuts. Rulon Gardner at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a farm boy from Wyoming defeated Alexander Karelin, a Russian Greco-Roman wrestler who hadn't lost a match in 13 years and had never been scored upon in international competition. Gardner won gold. Karelin wept. I bet he did. Business and innovation, Apple in 1997. On the verge of bankruptcy, 90 days from insolvency, could share in the low single digits. Steve Jobs returned, negotiated a $150 investment from Microsoft, of all companies, and within a decade, built the most valuable company in the [ __ ] world. Ain't that some [ __ ] I remember that, too, '97. And like right after that, they came out with all the computers, the iMac, that were like bubble-shaped and different colors and stuff, and the the Power Mac, that was like a tower. I had one of those and then didn't realize that I just spent like two, three thousand dollars on a computer, which at the time was ridicu- might as well been $15,000. And then I I got the Mac Power Mac, and it had no software. Like I was like, [ __ ] I thought it came with all the good [ __ ] that helps you do stuff, and nope. It was like an additional couple thousand dollars for software and stuff, which I wasn't going to pay for. Probably a stupid part, stupid on my part. I don't know about you guys, but if you ever see me taking these off, I actually I save all my bands, and I'm going to do something with them. I have tens of thousands, probably 50,000 bands. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but I'm going to do something with them. Fred Smith and FedEx. Fed and FedEx ran out of money in the early days of the Fed of FedEx, flew to Las Vegas with the company's last $5,000. Holy [ __ ] With the last $5,000, gambled it at blackjack, won $27,000, and used it to keep the company alive long enough to become the global logistics empire it is today. Holy guacamole. Ernest Shackleton. This is survival and exploration. The Endurance Expedition, 1914 to 1916. His ship was crushed by an by Antarctic ice. He and his 27 men stranded on floating ice for months. Months. Holy [ __ ] Then he sailed across 800 miles He sailed 800 miles across the most dangerous ocean in the world on a 22-ft lifeboat to reach South Georgia Island. Then crossed its uncharted mountains on foot to rescue his crew. Not a single man was lost. Just think about that. Back in the day where there was no motors on boats, I don't think. There was no GPS, no sat phones, no high-tech climbing gear, no climbing shoes that that I can think of or that I know of, survived on a [ __ ] piece of ice for months, and then sailed 800 800 miles on a 22-ft lifeboat, then to climb Georgian mountains to save his crew, and out of all 27 people, all 27 dudes came back. Wow. What is the common thread of all those stories? Every one of those stories share the same DNA. Belief, preparation, and refusal to accept a script someone else wrote for them. A [ __ ] right. [ __ ] A right. The odds didn't define the outcome. The people did. That's right. Interesting. Interesting stuff. Still enjoying my Americano. Still enjoying this Tennessee Waltz. The day of this recording is a Sunday, so I'll be meal prepping today. That way I don't have to think about meals throughout the week. Grab a few with me, heat them up in the microwave. So, yeah. That's uh that's the outlook for the rest of my day. I'll be meal prepping, scheduling my week, and then we go from there. Planning things out and whatnot. So, verdict on this cigar, go find it. Find it, light it up, enjoy it, buy a box. I'm going to. That's actually that's one of the things that I want to do. I want to list out all of my favorite cigars that I don't have boxes of, and I'm going to go buy boxes of them. Lately here, it's been windy as [ __ ] like every day, which makes it very hard to do these podcasts, cuz I've got ashes blowing everywhere and all kinds of stuff like blowing around. It's crazy. But, I will be thinking of new content to post and new episodes to record and all of that good stuff for your entertainment. I hope this is entertaining for you or you're learning something or a little bit of both. We will keep producing the content if you keep listening and watching. That's what I got for this episode, guys. So, stay blessed, stay grounded, be your natural, amazing selves, and above all else, keep it rolling, baby. For Sticks and Stones, we out.