Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate. And I'm Mike. What have we got here now? We have, as a part of our Rocky Patel Edge series, a shorter torpedo edge. Looks to be about six inches long, and yeah, it's kind of like the baby brother of the Howitzer. All right, and it's got the, what do you say, this is a Maduro? This one is a Maduro, yes. Very dark wrapper. It does have some spice. Does have some spice on the wrapper I tasted. For sure. Smells pungent. At least mine does.
Not that that means anything. And I did a cross cut on this. All right, I did not. I was debating, but you know, with the torpedo ends. On a more moderate sized torpedo like this, I still like to do a cross cut. Okay. Well, it does taste a little pungent. Not necessarily like in a bad way. No, this is a stiff cigar. It's good, good, but definitely strong. As strong as the Howitzer was. Yes. The Maduro Howitzer. That one was almost too strong, I think. I think it was because of the size too.
I mean, the thing is huge. Well, the size and I think, you know, we were, at least I was kind of smoking it as if it weren't a big strong cigar. So kind of crept up on me at the end there. That'll happen with the big strong ones. That is what I've heard. So. So did we, I know we'd mentioned it a few episodes back, but the Dutch farmers protests, did we talk about that fully or? I just made a quick mention of it. Okay. Not a whole lot. I'm certain that they're still ongoing.
I haven't seen anything in American news. Yeah. I was trying to Google other, you know, lesser known protests that might be happening. And there's just a huge long list. And but the site was kind of neat. I don't remember what site it was, but you kind of told you when it started, how long it lasted and then what the political outcome was. And the few that I clicked on the political outcome was all nothing changed. So I guess, I don't know how effective protests are.
Cause we had the Occupy Wall Street protests here and I don't think that that actually changed anything. No, it didn't. And I did the Occupy Wall Street protesting way back when in the city of Fargo is they have a huge Wells Fargo compound there. And not a damn thing changed. The cops were cool. Yeah. Fargo is a relatively, I mean, it's not a small town, but it doesn't have like huge city policing issues either for the most part. So they weren't about to beat up a bunch of college kids.
Well, they don't have the same mentality that the big city cops have. I mean, the big city cops see way more people just like driving. You know, if you're driving in the big city, you're going to be angry because you encounter you. You don't encounter more percentage of bad drivers, but because there's more people, you're encountering more numbers of bad drivers. The stats probably work out the same, but. Right.
And we were all clearly college kids and they don't want to hurt their moneymaker in Fargo. So at that time, I think there was 45,000 college students in that community. Okay. And that's pretty big, you know, you know, an area that really doesn't have more than 200,000 people, even with the college students. So I used to ride my bike around drunk and all sorts of shit. That's definitely illegal, but the cops just turn a blind eye to it because it doesn't hurt anybody.
Yeah. So some states riding a bicycle intoxicated can actually get you a DUI and points or stuff your driver's license even revoked and suspended. Which I think is stupid because you don't need a driver's license to ride a bicycle that I'm aware of. No, you do not. And in certain areas like downtown Fargo, they require you to ride your bicycle on the street.
That's the only hard time I ever got by an officer in the four years I lived downtown there was I was riding on the sidewalk and he was like, get on the street. Yeah. So they were more okay with a drunk college student driving a bicycle on the street than the sidewalk, which was fine. He wasn't that bad about it. He didn't even stop me. He just told me to go get on the street, you know? Yeah, I always try and take a bike path or bike lane if there's one available.
But you know, some of those laws in some of those towns where it's like no riding on the sidewalk, but they didn't do anything to accommodate bicycles. Right. And Fargo is the same way. But this traffic is really slow downtown. They almost want the bikes to slow traffic down more. Okay. Because there's so many people walking around. It's actually a kind of a vibrant cool area to hang out in, you know? And they want the traffic to be slow. Which is a good thing.
Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with slow traffic. Not in, you know, where there's houses and stuff for sure. Yeah, on the freeway that's a different story. Right. Yeah. If you're on a highway or even a county road, like I'm not a fan of driving slow. But in city areas, I drive 20, 25 most of the time if there's houses on both sides of the road, you know? Yeah. Which can frustrate people. But whatever.
I'm the one that gets frustrated when people go 45 miles an hour down a county road. Yeah. Or even I know like, you know, in a lot of the freeways, the minimum is 45, I think, like the legal minimum. So you can actually get pulled over for going slower. But if you're going 50 in like a 65 or 70, it's still awfully slow. Oh, I mean, going the speed limit a lot of times in certain parts of the freeway system is dangerous to yourself and others.
Yeah. You know, I know that I-94 right around Maple Grove in a work vehicle, I drive the speed limit and it's crazy, insane, dangerous. It's like being a rock in a river. You know? Yeah. And then on my personal vehicle, I'll drive through there and it would go 94 miles an hour and I'll just be with traffic. I won't be passing anybody. I'll just be with everybody else. It's like that's pretty fucking fast. Yeah. So that's one less than my governor.
But it's always fascinating driving in heavy traffic. Yeah. So how was your weekend? Pretty good. Just, you know, I think you must have saw my Sarah sounded like. I didn't see her. Oh, you talked to her. On the phone. Yeah. On the phone. Yep. So yeah, her and Viv are up there and in your neck of the woods for the weekend. Oh, okay. You have chilled out at the palace.
Yeah. Got to do some of my other like little personal projects instead of, you know, doing bigger house projects or things like that. So it's kind of nice. Yeah. What about you? I wish I had more time to do small projects. Saturday we went to a huge antique fair. Drove down to Cambridge. We went to an antique fair there. And it was good. Bought a lot of stuff, of course. And you know, trailer it all back home. Yeah. Was that where you found that glass set and everything? Oh, okay.
That was pretty cool. I saw that online. The glass set or the... Or like the glasses. No, that USSR... Yeah, that stuff was cool. No, no, no. We got that up north. Oh, okay. We were screwing around up there two weekends ago. Okay. We got that chandelier. I don't know if you saw a picture of it. I sent it to Seren. I didn't see that. Yeah, we got a Tiffany chandelier for like 30 bucks. Nice. Can't go wrong. Can't go wrong for 30 bucks and other stuff like that.
You got to get to you guys down here because Hopkins, their main street is either a sweet vinyl shop, a bunch of antique stores or breweries and bars. So it's like the perfect, perfect destination. Yeah. Oh, we went down there several years ago. Was I living in the Metro then? Probably. Probably. I know. That was when you and I walked down there. Yeah. I don't know how much was open though. I think we just walked down there to meet Sarah, my Sarah at the bar or whatever. Remember?
Yeah. We met her at the bar and they were like super packed and then we walked around a couple antique stores. Oh yeah, a couple of them. Yeah. So that was a good time. And now that you moved to the sticks, you never come down here anymore. Well, very rarely, unfortunately. We need to get down there more often. It's definitely a weekend adventure to go down, which is good.
That makes it nice as far as get to see all the nice stuff and not have to deal with all the bad stuff because everybody's driving north as you're going south and vice versa. Yeah. So they've got at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which I know we talked about, I think last episode about different art museums and things, but I saw they've got a special exhibit on Van Gogh and his olive trees. Yes. My Sarah wants to go bad. Yeah. I want to go too.
Yeah. We should, well, we'll have to see when you guys want to go and when Sarah wants to go. We could go together. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We got to wait for her to have a weekend off again though. So, so is that. And then you both did the immersive Van Gogh experience and we did as well. Yes, we did. So maybe we should talk about that a little bit. Absolutely. For those who haven't gone. Or if you have gone, you can see if our opinions mirror your opinions or not.
Yes. I'll guess I'll go first being not from the Metro. The parking situation was awful. And we went when Sarah had her old car. Okay. Was your location the same as ours? Ours was like right next to the cider company. Ours was in like a weird art place in like North Minneapolis, I think. Okay, because I think ours was raped by Sociable Cider Works and we actually just parked at Sociable Cider Works, drank a bunch of apple cider and then walked over.
Gosh, I don't think that ours, maybe it was, it was like very busy, very packed full of stuff and no parking. You had to pay for parking in the parking lot and it was all ripped up and pothole filled and just a shit show. So we ended up parking, I don't know, quarter mile away and walking down the ice covered sidewalk, you know. Yeah. And it was a real sketchy, I thought it was pretty sketchy, you know, window is broken out of building sort of like.
Okay. You might have been, I don't know if you're in the same spot or not or if they've moved. I don't know. I think they're still running it though. But we went in the summer or spring, so I'm not 100% sure. We went spring, winter. Maybe it was next, you know, I don't know if it was next to Sociable. I know I was not very happy with that. Yeah. I'm like. So parking aside. Summer's gone, you know.
Yeah. And getting in was a hassle because they wanted the COVID cards and Sarah forgot her card, of course. Yeah. See, I just took a picture of mine on my phone and then saved it as a favorite in my photo album. That's what I did. Yeah. Sarah's the one that told me to do it and she didn't have it. I was like, it's so funny. So they had a weird database and it took us, you know, 25 minutes to get in there. Okay. And we bought the VIP tickets so that we had some leeway when we got there.
Sarah wanted the extra poster and the weird seat cushion thing. And it was fine. She got a VIP ticket and I didn't. Let's put it that way. Yeah. But and the gift shop was horrible. Yeah. I don't know if you guys swung by there, but it was like the typical. You had to. We had to. There was no way out of it without going through there. That's right. Yeah. And they wanted to sell like Van Gogh table copy books for $150. Yeah. Everything was like crazy expensive.
And it was kind of like that scene in Spaceballs where Yogurt is like, Spaceball is a t-shirt. Spaceball, they had, you know, Van Gogh umbrellas. I don't know if they had any like Starry Night thongs, but we did. We did each buy a Van Gogh mouse pad because they were bigger than your standard like freebie mouse pads. And I think they were only like five bucks. Oh, that's pretty reasonable. That was like the most reasonably priced thing in the entire store. We got a print.
Even the Van Gogh pencils were like $20, I think. So yeah, it was crazy. Some of it was just insane. I got a magnet for my gun save. Okay. Megas are always good. Yeah. People were throwing money away, hand over fist. It was crazy. And my magnet was like an inch, you know, a square inch size and it was like five bucks, you know. It was all right. It was at the almond trees. I like that. Sarah got a print, which were pretty reasonable. The prints weren't bad. Oh, okay.
It's like 20 bucks or something, which is not terrible really. Yeah. No, yeah, not for a print. I mean, like band posters are anywhere from like 40 to 60. Right. You know, more if they're signed. So right. It was interesting. It was not what I thought it was going to be. I thought, yeah, I was just going to say, you know, the experience, what it said online and what the pictures led me to believe. And then I walked in and I was like, this is not what I was expecting.
But you carry on and then I'll tell my thoughts too. Sure. I thought it was going to be like an art installation where you walk through smaller rooms, maybe 10 by 10, 15 by 15, something like that. I thought they were going to have the projections of the paintings on the walls so you could kind of, you know, pretend like you're walking through the paintings. And I assumed that like that's what I thought it meant by 3D paintings or whatever.
Yeah. And the pictures led me to believe that from the marketing, you know. Yep, because they took pictures of them right by like a big, huge projected, you know, like haystacks or something. Yes. Yes. And it was in a corner, you know. Yep. And I thought, you know, that'd be kind of cool. You walk through the exhibit or whatever and that is not what it was at all.
No. So I guess I was expecting, you know, maybe, I don't know if it was 10 by 10 rooms or if they were, if they would set up like, do you remember going to, I don't know, they were, these things are huge. Like in older museums, the dioramas, you know, you'd like go in and it was like the 360 ring of, I don't know, like a painting or, you know, but it was like a 360 all the way around you. You had like walk up into the diorama room at like these museums and stuff.
Yeah. So I was kind of expecting something like that where they'd have multiple little pods that had the paintings projected and you could actually go and you would be anywhere you would look, there would be starry night, you know, like. Right. That's kind of what I was thinking. Similar, but different, you know, similar concept. I mean, we were both thinking like, and I remember we timed it and what it was when we walked in and you can tell me if it was the same for you or not.
They literally did no work. They rented an empty warehouse. They threw up a bunch of projectors and they had, I think it was an eight, eight or 15 minute video on a loop. Yes. And you could stay as long as you wanted. The big room in the front. Yep. Two rooms. And you could stay as long as you want. And so they rented an empty warehouse for whatever that costs. They had probably eight projectors because there's four walls in each room. They need one projector per wall.
So that's eight projectors figure 200 bucks a projector. And then boom, you're done. And then you're just making bank after the first, like, I don't know, three people visit because the tickets were way more expensive. I mean, I would pay, I think for the experience, I mean, the video is kind of neat, but I would have rather just buy the DVD for like 20 bucks, you know? Right. It was well over a hundred dollars for us. Yeah, it was, it was ridiculous.
Just for the tickets, you know, it is ridiculous. And you're better off. It was just a projection on the wall and it was like a section of the wall. And then you could see like this is overlapped. The scene. Yeah. The scene between projectors or whatever. Yep. You're better off going for free or making a donation at MIA and seeing a real van go. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was very disappointed.
You're better off getting a Greyhound ticket going out to Washington, DC for 55 bucks or whatever it costs for a Greyhound ticket. Yeah. Walking through the Smithsonian, getting on back on the Greyhound and coming back. Which would have been almost as long as me going down to the fucking Metro. Yeah. And then walking through the ice hell, you know, the pothole infested shit show, going through the line that took, you know, an hour. It would have taken me the same amount of time.
Yep. And probably less headache. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The cross country trip. It was effort to get into it. It would have been cool if I would have been high maybe, you know. That is incorrect. That is incorrect. Oh, is it really? Yes. I thought when I was watching, I'm like, you know, I guess I could see if I was ripped. You know what the problem was? The problem is that it was like an eight minute video. So it really doesn't matter.
And so it doesn't matter how much drugs or alcohol are in you. It's an eight minute video or, you know. Oh, alcohol would have been a major mistake for me. That would have been a huge mistake. Do you want Mike to get angry because Mike's about to get angry. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I would have been really sour. But yeah, I don't know. It was definitely not worth the money. No, absolutely not. Better served to go to the MIA or to go to the Walker.
Yeah. You know, obviously you're not going to see Van Gogh at the Walker, but. No. I mean, you could even go to the Wiseman if you want something a little more off the beaten path down here. But you're probably just better off watching one of the like Willem Dafoe was in a Vincent Van Gogh movie, which I think was fairly good because he plays he plays Vincent. And then there was another Vincent Van Gogh movie that came out that was animated. That one's quite a bit newer, I think.
And that one was really good. So you're better off like even if they were in theaters, you'd be better off buying two like Primo Deluxe 4D Van Gogh experience movie theater tickets and the expensive popcorn and you'd still save money. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Because it was extremely expensive. Sarah, she didn't think it was as bad as I did. Yeah. But I also tend to be more negative about just everything that she is. But yeah, and maybe she had different expectations going into. Right.
I think that could be some of it. I mean, for the amount of money that the tickets were and the marketing that they did online to show up and step into an empty warehouse that had projectors on the ceiling and then for them to call it an immersive experience. Right. Well, we went springtime. So I was wearing my Iron Rangers. These are those who don't know. They're like nitrile cork sold work boots. Well, not work boots. They like dress boots. Yeah, they're nicer shoes. And it was slippery.
I mean, I thought I was going to fall. Yeah. That definitely primed me to be already agitated before I got there. Well, you were agitated before you even walked in. I was agitated before I walked in. We were the opposite because we had a nice dinner and then we had a couple hard siters and then we just walked over and got in line and our line wasn't that long. It only took us, I don't know, five, 10 minutes to get in. We must have just had a really good time slot, I guess.
I think it was a weeknight. I don't think it was a weekend. Yeah, we went on a weekend. I think we, I'm pretty sure we stopped by your place after that. Yeah, I think so because I think we did talk about it. Yes, we did at the time. But I was still seeing like advertisements for it even when we were in New York because they do it all over the country.
Sure. So it's not even like a traveling show where it's like, hey, this like off Broadway theater company is putting on Wicked or Hamilton or something and they're only going to be in your town for like a month and then they're moving to the next town. This is, it's literally in every major city. Why is it still so expensive? Yeah, they like torrented the file to some punkster who, like you said, bought a bunch of shitty projectors. They weren't shitty, but you know what I mean?
No, they were fine, but they're not, it's not like going to the IMAX at the science museum. No. I mean, that's more immersive because the screen curves, the camera was designed to film that and watching it as a film person, they did a lot of the Van Gogh's art as the backdrop and they told the story or did some stuff and they animated little bits and pieces of it. The whole time watching it, I was like, that's how you're choosing to animate it.
It's like you gave somebody PowerPoint and told them to animate a Van Gogh painting and then you thought, my God, this is great. Let's charge a hundred bucks for people to go see it. Yeah. They put like the Dune soundtrack over the top. Yeah. That's all I remember. I was like, wow. Like, okay. And the Dune soundtrack is bad ass, but it's not really like, not a Van Gogh. The Dune soundtrack is wonderful for Dune.
I am not criticizing the Dune soundtrack, but I don't need to listen to the Sardaukar army march. Yeah, I just want to check yourself before you wrecked yourself. Yeah, it's good, but you're not going to put that over Mary Poppins, right? No. It didn't fit the visuals. Right. Yeah, it's, I don't know. But that was the only royalty free music they could find. So cut them some slack. It's just two guys out of their mom's basement trying to put on a Van Gogh thing because they love Van Gogh.
Okay. Oh, I know. They're probably artists in residence at some government agency. Yeah. Well, you know, ever since world war two, you can't get declined to go to art school. So Oh man. So I think I'm about halfway done. I am not halfway yet. I'm three quarters of the way or so. Okay. I should also mention that I'm fairly bad at visually estimating distances and things. I'm about four inches left. I will say I'm very bad at visually estimating things, but I feel like I'm about halfway.
How do you like it? I guess I'm maybe like an inch more than my lighter distance. Half an inch more than my lighter distance. Because everybody can see my lighter, you know how much I have left. I like it. I like it. It's not as big and bold as the Howitzer Maduro. To me it has a similar flavor profile. It's got a similar flavor profile. Yeah. It's more enjoyable to me. Yes. I like this one. I get a lot of cedar, a very strong cedar taste from it. Yep. In a good way, not in a bad way.
Yeah. It hasn't really done a flavor change. No, mine hasn't either. It has kind of mellowed out towards the middle, but there's no new flavors or anything. I like it. I really like this one. I think the size is perfect for the strength of the tobacco, the wrapper. All in all good so far. I think so. I'm drinking Stella right now. I'm about to switch to a Northeast. Okay. I think that it pairs well with Stella. We'll see about Northeast.
It pairs well with the Sierra Nevada hazy little thing IPA. The hazies are typically a little more fruity. Yes. So not overly fruity or overly, but just enough to where it kind of is a nice counterpoint to the strong cigar. Yeah. I used to be big into the pairing. I always drank coffee with cigars for a long time. That would be interesting. Do we ever do like the Irish coffee with cigars? We haven't drink Irish coffees with cigars. We should do that.
I think that the sweetness would ruin it though. Maybe not if you have a real strong cigar. Yeah. I think it depends on the cigar for sure. Right. Yeah. I always used to drink black coffee. Yeah. I love black coffee. That's all I drink really, unless you're going to put booze in it. Right. I always drink a plate pot, main coffee with anything other than just black coffee. Even my cold brews, I just drink straight. So do you guys have an instant pot, right? Yes, we do.
So I saw something and I don't know where or why I saw this or how it came across other than to say that I get bored at work quite a bit. And somebody was saying that they made, oh, because one of my friends made me join the Instapot Facebook group. Oh, they forced you to. Well they were like, I'm like, hey, the Instapot's cool, but I really just use it for rice. And they're like, oh my God, you got to use it for all these other things. And so they sent me the link. So then I had to join.
But somebody made cold brew in their Instapot. They made a huge Instapot full of coffee for cold brew. What? Were they just steep it in there? Iced coffee or something? Yeah. And they used it as like a pressure cooker thing to like, I don't know how they did it. I didn't read the thing. So I was like, that's a lot of coffee. How would you? I don't know how you would. Cold brew is like, you know, the whole beauty of it is that you just put it in the fridge. Yeah. Like you brew it when it's cold.
You don't add heat. So I don't know how they did it or what they were doing, but they were like, oh yeah, it was great for making cold brew for the heat wave that we had recently or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know. I would never think of using an Instapot for that. No, I use mason jars. Yeah. Or you can get one of those big, like those big lemonade, like dispenser things. Yes. Like Sarah has one, you know, this glass has got the little spigot on the bottom.
Yep. And it's, I don't know, a couple of gallons. Yeah. The gasket leaks on mine, of course. Yeah. Always. Ours has been fine and I was surprised because the gasket is actually plastic and not metal. And I was like, that's the weakest part of this whole thing and that's going to fail. But we've been bringing it out when we have people with kids over and stuff and filling that thing full of Kool-Aid and it's been fine so far. So that's great.
I made some cold brew tea over the weekend that I had a cup of that today. That was good. Okay. One of our friends, his wife went, has a bunch of family back in South Africa and they're both from South Africa and so she brought us back some South African Roibos tea that I guess you can only get over there. I've heard of it but I've never had it. Whatever the variety is, is like specific to South Africa.
So next time I see you I'll have to bring you, I don't know if it's in like pouches or what, I don't know what the status is inside the tin. I haven't opened it up yet. Well, hopefully it's loose leaf. You would hope it was loose leaf. Hopefully. Who knows? I'm a loose leaf guy. We've got some tea but we're not like huge, huge into the tea. So if it was loose leaf, I don't know.
Well, actually we do have a little thing because we used to, back before, in the before times, before the pandemic, we got one of those little, it's like a single cup tea brewer thing from like, I want to say Teavana or something, but it's a little like, looks like a little like travel mug with a lid that flips up.
When you pour the leaves, you put the leaves in there and then you put hot water in there and you let it steep and then you set it on top of your coffee mug and it dispenses all the stuff and keeps all the tea leaves in the thing. Sure. So that works pretty, pretty slick, I guess. Do you have an electric kettle? We have two electric kettles. I had one and Sarah had one.
Okay. Like I remember I had heard about them before, but you sometimes see these like posts online, like, here's the wild thing that's taking America by storm and it's an electric kettle. And then you've got all the British people like, how backwards is America? They don't know anything about electric kettles. Right. But you know, like tea isn't as big a part of our society as theirs. No, I like a French press too. I've had the same one since I was in college. So the carafe lasted me.
That was like one of my handful of things I brought traveling with me. And the carafe was just glass, stayed good the whole time until Sarah and I moved in together and she banged it against the fucking garbage and broke, shattered the carafe. On your French press? On my French press, yeah. And I'm like, I've had that thing for how many years, you know, it's been all over the country.
Yeah, we've got a French press and then we have a, I think it's a 10 cup pour over carafe, you know, with everything. And my sister-in-law works at a coffee roasting house, a roastery, I don't know what you call them. Coffee roaster, I don't know. Fortisserie. But when they come to visit her, if we go there, she's got a little kitchen scale.
So she like measures out precisely the amount of coffee that is needed and the amount of water and like the exact temperature of the water to pour over those beans. So I mean, it's some phenomenal coffee that she makes. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. I've tried to do the measuring in grams a couple of times and it's just, it's not any better than when I use a tablespoon. You know what I mean?
Well, for me, what I usually do is I just, I mean, we grind our coffee, you know, we buy the whole bean grind it and then I just program it to be done when I wake up, you know, so I don't really have time during the week anyway for fancy coffee shenanigans. Right. I try to drink cold brew during the week. It's easy. It's summertime right now, so it's fine. In the wintertime, you know, I guess if maybe if I woke up 15 minutes earlier, I could drink some French press coffee.
Yeah. What is your sister a lot? Does she make it? She make it in a French press or? No, well, no, she does it in the pour over. So and she's got, because, and so that's why we, well, we didn't have to buy a pour over thing. Something like that.
Yeah, I think that might even be the brand, but it's, I know it's like bulbous on the bottom and flat and then it's got a like a plastic kind of like neck collar thing and then it comes up into a like a funnel shape up top and then it has a insert just like your drip drip brew coffee maker would have, you know, so you put all the grounds in that, you know, it's like metal mesh and and it's got a spout and so it's got the plastic thing
around the neck so that once you've done doing the pour over, you can pick the thing up and pour it into a cup. You know, you take the grounds basket out and do that. But with the pour over, we and we have a little stainless steel hot water thing with a long spout and so apparently the way it works is you you fill that thing with, you know, the right temperature water and then you systematically like pour it and move it over the grounds and it's coming out of a tiny little spout.
So your your goal is to have the water touch as much of the coffee grounds as possible and because you're controlling the flow, you can like pour it through and let that stuff kind of filter through before you add more water and you can make sure every area of it is wet. So it's kind of, you know, a lot more.
I don't know how you would say, but you know, it's it's very system oriented or, you know, like you have to cover every bit bit of it, but you have so much control over it and she's done it a lot. So when she makes it, I mean, it takes a lot of time to brew the 10 cups for the for the thing, but it's phenomenal when she does. And I've tried it on my own too, and it's it's pretty good.
You know, I think I might be a little impatient because you have to be really patient, I guess, with the pour over. Sure. I bought a it's one of the bonds, but it's not the standard one you get from, you know, the target. It's certified by the Fancy Coffee Drinkers Association or whatever it is in America. And it's got the right brew temperature and it's okay. Right. Water, the speed at which it puts the water out. And it takes like 17 minutes to brew a pot of coffee.
And that made a huge difference in the quality of brewed coffee. I don't have time for that. I'll just set the timer and let it go. Yeah. Yeah, we've got a I think it's a Cuisinart and it's a fairly expensive one. It's got the metal basket so you don't have to use the paper filters. Right. Yep. And that's slick. And then you can control like it's got the bold setting and it's got a setting for if you're brewing like less than four cups, which who's going to do that? Not me.
Yeah, we always brew like a full pot. But then you can set the hot plate temperature too, you know, for like low, medium or high so you don't ever end up with like burnt coffee. Sure. So I'm sure it's not as fancy as yours, but it's fancy. This fancy is the one that we've had. It sounds way fancier because mine is just like you bruise it and then it's got an eating pad. It's very simple. It's as simple as a bun, but the components in it are extremely high quality.
Well I'm sure your components are better than our components. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. We're not doing a coffee maker showdown. All I'm saying is that, you know, with coffee makers, usually I would say or I would think that the more you spend on a coffee maker, the better your coffee is going to taste. Generally, unless you get a French press. Unless you get a French press. That's just the best that I've ever consistently at home. Why is it so easy? Right. Yeah. You pour it in.
I've checked out different methods. Yeah. I watched James Hoffman videos and he's got a very specific method to brew in a French press and I've tried it and I don't think it's better. Yeah. That just pouring it in, setting the timer for five minutes and pressing it down and pouring it out. Yeah. I think the caveat is, you know, if you're making really crap coffee, don't go out and spend like 200 bucks on a coffee machine. Right.
Because the difference in the taste is probably going to be mostly imperceptible if you don't and I don't have a highly tuned palette so I'm not trying to sound like an asshat by saying if you don't have a highly tuned palette, you're not going to notice the difference in this coffee. But it's probably like the beans you're using, you know. Right. And sometimes it's the grinder too.
And sometimes it's the grinder and that's what I want is I want to get a really nice burr grinder, but they're like expensive. Well, the Barazas are 140 bucks and that's about the standard. Yeah. From my research, which I own a Barazas as well and there's a local coffee place that I visited and they make beans there or they roast beans and that's what they use at home too. It's a Barazas. Oh, okay. And they're 140 bucks so it is expensive. I bought a really nice hand grinder.
It's stainless steel with, you know, the burr grinder in it and for camping. And I bought a really nice like camping coffee pot. Well, you know, percolator is one of the percolators for camping, but it makes a mean cup of coffee with the grind because you can set your, just like a burr grinder, you set your desired coarseness or fineness and you just hand crank it. Yeah, we just have, I think it's a Cuisinart grinder, but it's just got the blades in the bottom.
Sure. Yeah, but it's a Barazas on the door. And I think you really need, you really need like one of those burr grinders or something where you can set the coarseness for like a pour over. Yes. And for, and even for French press, you know, like if you can get your, it makes a huge difference to grind size, the right size. Espresso and obviously pour over for the French press. And it's nice to have something like that.
I used to have a blackened decker and it was like, it was like 50 bucks and it worked for years and it was actually really good. But the Barazas way better. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I would say, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, cause I'm not a huge like coffee snob, but I do know that after we first got introduced to Trader Joe's, like a lot of the stuff Trader Joe's has is like really great for the, for the price. Yeah. Really good quality.
Their coffee, however, is not, we tried a couple different other coffees and it was like the grossest coffee we've had for a long time, unless that's the coffee that you'd like to drink, Mike, or you, the listener, like to drink. That's my favorite coffee in the world. Happy to drink, drink a cup with you. But you liked the beer that I brought you from there. The beer was awesome. Yeah. That was a truly wonderful beer, which I like beer. So yes, hard to go wrong.
They've got some really good ethnic foods. I feel like they've got a really good like frozen Mandarin chicken thing. Oh, and they've got some really good Indian, they're not microwave meals.
I mean, all of the stuff you can make in the microwave, but they all come with like oven instructions and the thing with Trader Joe's is always go with the oven instructions is going to taste really good versus the microwave instructions, which yeah, it might be ready sooner, but it's not going to make you want to buy it ever again.
The same is true with coffee, you know, like if you are used to drinking Folgers, like Sarah's parents, they used to drink a lot of Folgers and flavored coffees and then we brought some coffee up or they had some coffee at our place and they're like, oh my God, your coffee is so good. What do you guys do? And it's like, we just use the Camerons or whatever. I think it's the local to us, Minnesota. Yeah, they're statewide. They sell it at like every grocery store.
Well, yeah, but you know, it's cheap and it tastes good. You know, depending on the variety or the roast that you're buying, but yeah, it's not crazy. I mean, a lot of communities now even have roasters. Um, no matter like even rural areas will have a roaster or two. Yeah. That's the same like with the micro breweries and stuff. Yep. You know, a lot of communities have those now. I think that the roasters are usually pretty good. I know breweries and this is my opinion.
There's a huge difference in quality between brewers depending on who's doing it. Yeah. Well, and, um, but I think that's like the other thing too is like a lot of the breweries you can go to and you're like, yeah, the beer was fine, but what, what one did I like or what one did I drink or you're like, you don't even remember because they all just kind of taste the same.
If you go to enough like micro breweries, unless they really know what they're doing and you know, it's not just like a quick cash grab for them, you know, it's like, oh yeah, I really love this beer at this brewery and I can't find that same flavor anywhere else. But by and large, like most of the micro brew IPAs all tastes the same. All the sours tastes the same. All the lagers, all the stouts, they're all kind of like very, very similar unless you find some of those really good ones.
Um, right. Which is maybe like the immersive sours. Uh, I've been to a few of them where they actually make the sours with fruit, real fruit, like they get a delivery and then it's good. But you're right. Yeah. Yeah. The IPAs especially, it's all the same dog roll, you know, which I'm not a fan of IPAs in general anyway, but I like IPAs. Um, but I've, I've gotten more into the hazies. Uh, and I mentioned this before on the podcast too.
Uh, I think there's more flavor, more like it's not the full like kick you in the face hops, you know? The hazies I think are a little more complex tasting. I might just be full of shit, but I drink a lot of goose Island. Goose Island's really good. I like goose Island. They have it at a lot of bowling alleys. Yeah. Which is why I drink it. You really can't go wrong with goose Island. Right.
They'll have a, for those who are not acquainted with bowling alleys, most of the time they have like Miller Lite, Bud Light, stuff like that. Then they'll have one beer that is not Miller Lite, Bud Light, Coors Light, and it'll typically be goose Island. The distributors up North here must have it for cheap. You know, they usually sell for 25 cents more a can or something like that. It's a Chicago beer. Oh, I didn't know that. And uh, Fulton, Fulton is really good.
And that's a Minnesota beer, you know, Minneapolis. Their brewery is right by the twin stadium. And we actually went because they got big enough to no longer be able to legally sell growlers on premises. So we went to their death of the growler party and that was pretty cool. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. They were complaining about that at Castle Danger too. Oh yeah. Yeah. They didn't want to do what Bent Paddle did, which is too bad. Yeah. What did, I've never been to Bent Paddle.
What did they end up doing? Did they shut down their tap room and stuff or? No, no. They have, they, uh, they're, uh, located in the old warehouse district, like the old industrial area. Yeah. I've driven by it before. We've just never had gone. We always usually go to, uh, Fickers. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So they're kind of by frosts, but they have a separate building, their original building for brewing.
And then they bought another space and then they opened up a tap room and that's all it is, the tap room. Oh, got it. Yeah. Okay. And it's in the same area. You know, what's that other brewery, um, downtown there? Cause Castle Danger's outside of town, but there's a one right by the. Castle Danger's in two, two harbors. Yeah, that's two harbors. But, um, in Duluth there, there's like Bent Paddle in the warehouse district. But then if you're over in the, uh, what's the, that park by the bay.
We were there. Gosh dang it. I can't remember what it's called. Are you talking about in Superior? Cause there's a brewery over in Superior. No, in Duluth. It's right in Duluth, right by the, uh, it's a couple blocks from like, from the maritime. No, Lift Bridge is out of Stillwater. Lift Bridge. No, no, no. Yeah. It's right over the big hotel there next to the, uh. Yeah. Yeah. And then like the candy, the candy chocolate shop is like right there.
And then you walk a little further and like the maritime museum is down there. Is that called Highland Park? No, Highland Park. What's the name of that damn park now? I don't know. Uh, I think it's named after the park. That's right there. I remember that one being pretty good. Yeah, but I would like to go to Bent Paddle at some point and I'd like to actually go to Castle Danger. Cause I do like the Castle Danger beers. Uh. There's a third brewery in Duluth too. And that was okay.
They kind of all tasted the same at that one. But that's kind of like in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It's like Northman Brewing or something. Yeah. Well, and you know, I mean, to be fair, almost anything you get fresh from a brewery is going to be better than anything you can get in like cans or bottles at a liquor store.
So you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to say like, Hey, don't open a brewery if all your beers taste the same or all your beers tastes like the other breweries beers, because on tap beer that's not, you know, bud is going to taste better than anything else. So it's not, it's not really like a diss on any of that stuff. It's just, you know, I don't, when we first moved down here, we were like, Hey, we got to go to all these breweries and then more opening up like every week.
And it's like, we just, we can't make it to all these breweries. We don't have enough time. They're not all unique enough, you know, to warrant. So you got to find, you know, a couple of breweries that are close to you that you like. So there's a brewery in superior, maybe half a block from the anchor bar. And we had their Imperial stout and it was one of the best beers you've ever had. It was wonderful. I can't remember the name of the damn brewery now, but Google maps will tell everybody.
I would be very interested in trying that Imperial IPA because I do like the Imperial IPAs. But no, they're, it was good. And that was during the pandemic and they just opened up kind of like the old school walkup order counters that you see in the Imperial Queens. They have that on the side of the building and you could just kind of like get it. It was really good. And of course we went to the anchor bar. Who doesn't want to go to the anchor bar?
But if anybody, if anybody has not gone, who's listening to the anchor bar and you are in Duluth area, go to the anchor bar. It's worth every penny. It's not even expensive. It's super cheap, but it is, it's really good. So have you ever been to the anchor bar? I do not believe so. Really? Gosh. So I haven't, are you talking about earth earth rider brewery? Yeah, I think it might be earth rider. Is it right next to the anchor bar and superior?
That's saying whiskey's last resort lost in the fifties is close. Is he's barbecue. This is, yeah, it's just, it's right down the corner from the anchor bar. All right. That's gotta be it then. Yep. I think I've been to the earth rider. Yep. Earth rider. That is the location. Yes. Right there. Yep. I've been to earth rider. I haven't been to the anchor bar, but I've been to earth rider, but I don't know if I had their, I don't know if I had their. Imperial or not. It's good.
Yep. Very, very good. So, and then, yeah, next time you go, go to the anchor bar. It's definitely. All right. We should do, we should do a nice Ash's road trip up there. Yeah, we could. We could. See if they'll sponsor a lunch for us or something. Oh, it's cheap enough. We can sponsor our own lunch. I know. I'm just saying. My brother and I went there when he, he, that was one of his haunts when he was younger. Okay. We went there. It was like $5 for a pitcher of grain belt. Oh yeah.
Yeah, like $5 for a pitcher of grain belt, like $3 for a burger. It's like Wisconsin is the greatest when it comes to drinking. And I'm from Wisconsin, but I never drank when I was there because my dad was super strict. And that wasn't one of the issues I wanted to like press him on as a high schooler. But anyway, we went, I don't know if I told this story on the podcast or not. And if I did, I'm sorry, everybody listening, but we went back for a, like a white tails unlimited thing.
And I went up to the, and they had special pricing then, right? Cause it's a, like a big banquet, you know? And but it was at the American Legion. So it's not in a small, small town. And so we go there and I go up to the bar and I'm like, Hey, I'd like a two spotted cows because you can only get a new glare spear in Wisconsin. And like, okay, three bucks. And I'm like, okay, three bucks each, right? And they're like, no, three bucks total. And I'm like, are you shitting me right now?
Like spotted cow on tap for a dollar 50 for a pint. That's awesome. And we went back later, you know, months or a year later, I mean, we'd been back before, but like the next time Sarah and I went out drinking, we went down to the bowling alley, which you would love. You've got, I think three and a half lanes and, but we were like, okay, so how much like for new glare? It's like, ah, it's, you know, like $3 for a pint, which is like fucking dirt cheap.
It's like eight to 10 bucks for a pint of anything on tap down here in the twin cities. And I was like, okay, well, how much for like a pitcher and like, ah, five bucks or whatever. And I'm like, all right, like, so we've got like two pitchers instead of like two pints. And the great thing about Wisconsin is they don't care. They're like, Oh, you want like 15 pitchers? Great. We'll pour up. We'll bring them over to you. We don't need to check IDs or see who's all drinking.
Like if you want to drink 15 pitchers, that's on you. You know, they just don't care. No, they don't give a shit. There was a beer bar, uh, that why I used to go to with a friend and they had $3 pitchers. Nice. And it was, it's like a race. It was $3 during happy hour and like four or 50 during regular hours. Yeah. In college once.
And this was, um, I went to school at, in the university of Oklahoma and they, they made it into a dry campus because like a frat guy got drunk and decided to play chicken with a train coming at him while he was on foot and he was drunk. And so they, you know, like they overreacted and like, it was a dry campus now. And if you're, even if you're a legal drinking agent, you get caught with booze in your dorm room, then you're like going to be in trouble or something.
There's this bar just off of campus and my roommate and I, we went there and they're like, it's happy hour for another like 10 minutes and we're doing dollar pints. And so I was like, oh, okay. I will take 10 please. And she's like, what? Like, I would like 10 beers put in front of me. And she's like, okay. And then my roommate goes, I too would like 10 beers. So I have a picture of us somewhere. We've got 10 beers in front of us each.
So we drank 20 beers that night for, you know, 10 bucks, you know, 10 bucks each. That's awesome. There was a bar in downtown Fargo called the old Broadway and they would do 25 cent beers and you had to order two. Okay. And you can only order four at a time. And they were like six ounce beers. They were just little tiny ones. Yeah. But what you do is you would just continually walk.
You'd have one guy sit there and you would sit at your table and you would just walk back and forth and you'd get beers and you would stack the beers up in like a pyramid where the table was full. And then you'd start to drink because it was a quarter of beer, you know, whatever. Yeah, for sure. And it's like, you know, 50 cents for a 12 or it's like, who gives a shit? Yeah. And they would let you stack them up. They just wouldn't sell you more than four at a time.
Yeah. Well, that's like the legal thing kind of gets in the way of what it's intending. And at 20, you know, like even at six ounce of beers, it's going to take a long time to drink enough to be like completely unruly or blackout, you know. Right. Well, I know that certain Western states, they can only serve you two drinks at a time. So you'd always get a liquor drink and a beer, you know. Well, and sometimes like sometimes here in the cities, they ask for IDs.
Like if you go and order two beers, they say, well, I need to see two IDs. That might just be at like concert venues though. I'm not sure. I've never had that problem at concerts. They've always given me two beers, no problem. Yeah. And I can't remember where it was, but I remember somebody was doing that. A couple of places we went to were doing that. And I'm like, this is the stupidest fucking thing ever.
I can go and buy like a 12 or 24 pack from the store and they're not checking for 24 IDs, you know. Right. Yep. If you think I'm, if you think I'm out of line, you cut me off. I'm like, I'm going to have to pay you for 13 bucks at a gas station. Yeah. Or any, any shop that you stop in at, you know, your tire went out and you stop and some neighbor or some like residential house like comes out and they help you and they're like, Hey, you want like a spotted cow or something while I fix your tire?
And you're like, shit. Yeah, son. So actually we went, go ahead, go ahead. We went, well, I think it was the first time I went to St. Louis because Sarah's got a bunch of family down there. And her cousin who's our age was working as a tour guide for the city at the time. He goes, I got to take you to the shop. It's the coolest shop ever. We walk in and of course like Anheuser-Busch is right there. So they've got all the, but they've got a lot of really cool microbreweries too.
But we walk into this shop, you know, and it's like, I don't know, you know, it's kind of like one of those touristy, but not like super like lame touristy where it's like, you can get your St. Louis magnets and you, you know, but it was like a more unique shop than like your standard tourist trap shop. And it was run by this really old woman and she's like, Hey, would you like a beer while you shop? And I'm like, yes. She goes back to the fridge and help yourself.
Oh my God. She had it like stocked with, you know, Budweiser or whatever. And I was like, fuck yeah, I'll, I'll drink a Bud while I'm perusing your shop. That's great. She didn't charge us for the beer, but I bought something from her cause you can't not buy something after she's like, here, have a beer. It's a great sales pitch in a way. You know, you're guaranteeing it's still damn near. Yeah. So they have the drive through liquor stores in South Dakota, at least they used to.
Yeah. And we, uh, I was visiting a girl I was dating at the time, a woman, and uh, we went through the drive through and we got some liquor and we ordered, she's like, Oh, watch this. And she ordered a, like a fosters, you know, a can of fosters. Okay. And they gave it, they gave us the fosters in a paper bag, no way we were going to open the fosters and drink it in the car. So we drove out of the liquor store, out of the drive through.
Yeah. I do like the, I do like the liquor stores where you can buy a per can and you can do that at Trader Joe's is you can open most of the packages, most of the six packs and you can buy a per bottle or per can. Oh, that's cool. I mean, I was buying like the six pack because like, why wouldn't I? But, but yeah, if you want to try a bunch of different beers, like the beer walls are slick, you know, build your own six pack or whatever. Yeah, they are.
They're obviously more expensive, but you know, a lot of stuff I'd really don't want more than one of anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what you're going to get. No, that's, I don't know, Manny stayed making everything horrible. I know that when I first lived in North Dakota, a DUI there was 13 points on your license and they have a point system there at 15 points revokes your license.
So if you get a DUI, it was like a trip to jail and it was a traffic violation and it was 13 points on your license and your insurance and everything is based on the points. So as your points go down, your insurance goes down, you know, and every six months a point drops off. So your punishment is you have to pay expensive insurance for the next seven years. Yeah. And you can't fuck up again. The worst liquor laws I've ever encountered. So the second, I don't know, this is probably the worst.
The worst liquor laws I've ever encountered. I had two really bad liquor law experiences. One, so I lived in Oklahoma for five years. They're a three two state. So if you're in the bar and you're drinking beer, it's all three two beer. The breweries that make the high powered beer, they all brew special like three two versions of that beer. So even if you think like, okay, well, I'm not going to order a bud then I'm going to order, you know, like a summit or Odell's or Sam Adams.
Nope, they're all three two. Anything that they serve in the bar is three two. So for the price, you're better off drinking the liquor, you know, the hard liquor. And then at the liquor, at the liquor stores, and they're like in the heart of the Bible belt. But if you go to liquor stores, you can buy beer that's over three two, but it has to be sold at room temp. So all of the three are all of the over three two beer was sold from pallets in the middle of the floor.
So they couldn't sell it to you cold. That is interesting. And you know, if you're into beer, you always try and buy the cold stuff, not necessarily so that you can drink it right away, but because the temperature has been more constant for that beer, you know, over the course of its life. And maybe when it's transported, it's not I mean, I don't know who knows, but that's crazy. And then the other worst place was in, I think it was actually Missouri.
I went hiking in the mountains with my girlfriend at the time, and she didn't tell me that it was like a booze trip. Right. And so she like loaded up her suitcase or whatever. Then she loaded up, you know, like a 24 pack of I can't remember what she drank, like wine coolers or something like that. And I was like, well, I don't I don't have any beer to bring along on this camping trip or like, you know, I mean, we're staying in like a cabin or like a log cabin. Or something.
And so I was like, Oh, no big deal. Just grab some when we stop at a gas station. So we stop at this gas station and there's zero alcohol of any kind. And so I go and ask the station attendant and they're like, Hey, this is a dry county. Oh, I think it was Arkansas. And they're like, this is a dry county. And I'm like, are you telling me that there's not a single drink to be had in this entire county? And I guess that that was true.
So you have to drive across county lines in that state to go get beer. This relates, I don't know if we should talk about it this episode or not. I don't think I have enough left to talk about it this episode. Alright, perfect. Then we will bring it up next time. Marijuana laws. Alright, listen. Marijuana laws. In the next episode. Marijuana laws. It's definitely newsworthy because of the Brittany Griner sentencing that just happened. Oh I did want to talk about Brittany. I did.
We'll do it next episode. I'm of two minds to an extent as usual. I think I'm of one mind but we'll see. Maybe you can give me a second mind. I am of two minds for sure. How many minds are you of this cigar? I think it's good. I think it's one note. It didn't really change flavor. It's not as good as like a series Arlegoria Cubana or something like that. I would say so far, yes. So far the Rocky Patels, I gotta say that Connecticut Howitzer was phenomenal. It was absolutely phenomenal.
Lovely. I'm not usually a Connecticut guy. Maybe I'm becoming more of a Connecticut guy. Maybe people change, Mike. People change. They do. I still like dark roast coffee. I remember I used to not like black beers and now I pretty much only want to drink black beer. That's not true. Obviously I just drink Estella and a Nord East. Coming from black beer Mike. Black beer Mike. You drink a lot of those porters and stuff. Those just fill me up way too fast.
The snow drift that Lightning Gugles make is just wonderful during the winter. I like a lot of the black stuff. I like the black ale from Pet Paddle. Do you like the black butter, black butter from the Shoots? That one's pretty good. I don't think it's as good. You've drinking more porters than I have in my life. Yes I have. I'm like a Guinness guy too as you know. I like Guinness quite a bit. I drink a lot of Guinness in college.
I always keep a case of Guinness in the basement and I drink it at that temperature. I had one last time I was up there. We had some Guinness and walked around your property. Yeah. Like the compound. Yes. I didn't want to call it that in case the FBI is listening. But if you are listening FBI, like, comment and subscribe. It's always enjoyable. I don't know. Maybe that was like the lightning in a bottle. I think so. That one was so good. It was so good.
Stay tuned. Next week, Brittany Greiner, marijuana and another Rocky Patel. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you next week. Cha cha.