Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Zaren.
What, Oh, I'm sorry it's meditating.
Hey, Elizabeth, you know it's ridiculous.
Yes, I do you coming in and imitating me when I'm trying to sit here and meditate and you're like, hey, Saren, I'll need to ask you questions. It's ridiculous. It is, no, but noone else is ridiculous, Saren. Thank you for asking. Saren. So I found something I think that you need.
Okay.
It's the world's most expensive pillow.
Oh tell me more.
Do you know about the world's most expensive pill Are you like down the road on me on this?
No?
No, okay, because there's something called the tailor Made Pillow Gold Edition.
Okay.
Yeah, Now this thing, this this sting, this bad boy, this got gold edition. Here, Elizabeth. It's got a twenty fourth K, twenty four K gold cover, the world's first.
Real gold fabric, golde y fabric.
And you know why it's gold, Great question, Elizabeth, because it blocks out the electromagnetic radiation during the night wrote a safer and healthier.
Sleep get out.
But more than that, the zipper has a huge twenty two point five carrot sapphire with four diamonds.
I am, I would be guaranteed to sleep with that against my face and wake up with a huge divot.
But the core of the pillow is made out of premium Dutch memory foam.
Oh, get on it, and.
Fully tailored to the customer. That's you using a three D scanner. How much, Elizabeth? How much do you think this abomination costs?
I don't know.
I'll give you a hint. It was revealed to the world in twenty seventeen in Dubai.
Let's say thirty five thousand dollars pillow.
The normal tailor made pillows costs three nine ninety five dollars. Okay, how much is this bad Boy the gold edition? It will I can get you in this pillow out the door for fifty seven thousand dollars.
Wow, one pillow. Wow, memory foam inside of the gold rink wrap. That's ridiculous. It's damn is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Thinking you can get away with crime in Flavortown? This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, hets and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free. And one hundred percent ridiculous. You damn right tequila? Do you like Tequila's Aaronara?
I love tequila, Elizabeth. You know it's only a card like ry drink.
I think some of the dumbest, most regrettable things I've done while drunk happened because of tequila, not my own poor judgment. It was tequila's.
Wait a minute, you blame tequila the king of spirits?
Yes, oh, oh, what do you know about tequila? Stop there, I'd rather lecture you about something that you already know about. I don't know anything about tequila delicious. It's made from blue agave. What's that like champagne? You're only supposed to call it tequila if it comes from the Mexican state of Jalisco.
Ah, so there's like a terror for this.
Yeah.
Jalisco home to Guadalajara, which is home to both tequila and Mariacci music. I love Guadalajara, right. There are two main types of tequila. What types? There's one hundred percent agave and then there's meekstos that's like at least half a gave, and then the rest is like various sugars.
Oh, sugars, not like mescal. Oh interesting, okay.
If if the bottle doesn't say one hundred percent agave, then it's a meeksto.
Okay, good.
There are four categories of tequila.
Hit me with them.
Blanco, which is not aged and it's generally like stored in stainless steel barrels. Tell them Pablo sent you blanco. Then there's reposado, which is aged between two months and a year in an oak barrel.
That means rested.
Yes. Then we have on yeho and that's aged one to three years in smaller oak barrel.
Yes, thus on yeho meaning one yeah.
And then lastly we have crystallino. It means crystalline, so that's age stuff like on yeho, but they filter out all of the color before they bottle it through charcoal. I don't know. It's like a kind of new thing within the last fifteen.
Ye I don't know that one.
It's bonus, okay. I only know repo and jehoo exactly. So in Mexico, people either drink it neat or in the case of my family there mix it with squirt soda.
Yeah. The way I drink tequila is with your brother.
Drink so tequila and squirt is a paloma. People try and be fancy time. I had wor and so. In the States, people drink it as shots with salt and the lime. I think you've probably done that, ye or in Margarita's, whether blended or on the rocks. Germany, in some places they do something called tequila oro, which is a tequila shot with cinnamon on a slice of orange. After. That's a party side dish that I used to make.
I'm serious. You slice up a bunch of good oranges like cara cars, and you soak them in tequila and you sprinkle it all with cinnamon. I like to call it the bad Choice express.
It sounds like like another form of jello shot. It's not going to be like chaos tequila.
You know, when you're having like a big party and you're making all this food. It's a great for a kid's birthday party.
Of course.
Good tequila is orange slices. Kids take them to a soccer exactly, let the fun start before the game. Good tequila it's like good scotch.
Oh yeah, so.
You savor it and it's super smooth. There are celebrity tequila brands, you know, Yes, I've ever heard about this George Clooney. He has Casamigos that's pretty well known.
That's him and some other celebrity.
Yeah, I think some other dude guy brown hair. I believe that was so Casamigos well known. There's also Casa del Soul. That's Eva Longoria's brand of tequila. I like her, hundred percent Mexican owned and like really high end. Yes, the label has an image of the Aztec goddess of agave and fertility.
My instincts are sounds. She was like, give it up to the rail.
I do like her too. Then there are even more. The Rock has a brand called Teramana.
Oh god, the rocks like squeezing in there.
Oh yeah. Marky Mark has one called Fletcher Azul Fletcher Fletcher Okay, she is called it Fletch. The brand Cali Rosa was found by Adam Levine of Maroon five out of town.
For real, He's got tequila too.
It was actually a tequila made for three generations by a family in Jalisco. But then I guess Levine and a business partner bought it up. Took Yeah, you got eight one eight tequila.
I'm so glad. I don't keep up on the tequila business.
You're missing out tequila them.
Yeah.
Well, with a family trade of never being one to pass up a marketing opportunity. That one's owned by Kendall Jenner.
Eight the valley the area.
Code for Calabases, the whole valley. Yeah, the whole book.
Come on, Yeah, that's right for Calabas.
It's the center of it. This is turning into like a real murderer's row of an opportunities. Lebron James has one, oh Man King James called Lobos seventeen oh seven. I don't know why he first tasted this tequila while he was on a yacht in the Mediterranean. He thought, I've got to own this, Okay. Don't you hate when that happens.
Yeah, and you're like, oh, I must own this company, Jonah Yes.
And fashion designer John Varvados, Oh Wowvados. Those two they got a brand of tequila called Via one and they brought its like Vo five, but it's like Via like a city, Oh Via one or Villa one whatever they brought in. Godfather, do you know that name? There it is. Then there's the big dog of celebrity tequila's originators, just like you. He can't drive fifty five. That's right, Sammy Hagar. His Cabo Wabo was pretty much the first huge celebrity tequila.
Of course it was let me.
Read to you from the Cabo website. Sammy Hagar, our founder and an American legend in his own right, was devoted to creating a tequila that would embody his beliefs of living free, working hard, and playing harder. A tequila that would celebrate his spiritual stomping ground Cabo See and Lucas please without limitations, inhibitions, boundaries. The result is an unquestionably Mexican tequila made with an undeniably American spirit.
I've never heard of pr like a memo that is sent out and it sounds like a wolf whistle.
Wobbles. The whole thing is totally I know. It started as a nightclub and then was a tequila.
Brand and they just grew into.
Actually it started as a Van Halen song. Yeah. It was on the OU eight one two album, the band's second record with Sammy Hagar on vocals after the departure of mister David Lee Ross David le Ross. The album had the hits when It's Love and Finish what You started, Oh, yeahd treat the big old farted. It also had the tune Cabo Wabbo on there right? Can I read you some of the lyrics?
I was afraid i'd have to have.
Thank you. There's a sleepy town as south of the border. If you go there once, you'll be there twice. Lots of pretty girls coming by the dozens. The white sand sure makes a tan look nice. We can crash on the beach, you know, I want to make love in the sea. We gotta try a little dance. So Cabo Wabo, It's all right by me. Come on, let me take you down. I will show you around. Let me take you down, face down in Cabo kissing the ground. Whoa, yeah,
it just goes downhill, goes downhill from there. So Sammy and the boys they love going to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, right on the Gulf of California, once known as the Sea of Quartez. Great place to make love in the sand and go face down.
I've heard recommendation.
It's right at the bottom of Baja California. A big party place, big tour respond. Sammy fell in love with Tequila while visiting Cabo San Lucas, in the mid eighties, like most of the tequila that made it up to the States was Meexto and he tried the one gave
stuff blown away. Yeah, whoa, he's like ours yourselves. Two years after OU eight one two came out, Sammy and the rest of the band they bought a cantina in Cabo and they called it Cabo Wabbo and the motto was quote where the land ends and the party begins. So it was fourteen thousand square feet in or outdoor seating for one thousand. They had concerts, they had jam sessions.
Place was a flop, just fell apart. Yeah, So Sammy he bought out the rest of the band, revamped it, and then it became this major success because like he he picked it back up. As Cabo San Lucas really starts to develop.
The vision, I said, the man's a visionary, right.
Well, they had like a dirt road to the to the airport when he got.
Into and they had to like, yeah, get the infrastructure, we'll get those expensive.
Tourists, right. And so as the business grows, Sammy decides that he wants to sell his own to tequila. So he hooked up with Juan Eduardo Nunez, a third generation distiller in the highlands of Jalisco. Cool. So at first, Nunyas He's like sending Sammy tequila in five gallon cans that the Cabo Wabbo staff would then like decant into oak barrels and then serve straight to restaurant customers out
of a spigot. That's do, and that couldn't last. So then Sammy started bottling his house tequila in hand blown blue bottles. Beautiful, and it was the only tequila they'd serve at Cabo Wabbo. At the club. You could only get that. So then tourists they'd pick up a bottle from the gift shop there before they headed home. Word spreads. At this point, they're like producing maybe like two thousand cases a year.
Okay.
Nineteen ninety nine, this legendary talent manager named Shep Gordon also happens to be a good pal of Sammy's. He helps him make a wine deal to import Cabo Wabbo into America. Oh wow, so one hundred percent of Gave tequila is just taking off at this time. Brands an instant success. They started selling thirty seven thousand cases first year full distribution.
And Homie can keep up with the demand.
He's just cranking him out. So Sammy he quit Van Halen and then he started his own band, the Wabarritas. Excuse me the what the wabo Ritas is that?
Named after a drink he serves atta.
Their tour was pretty much just like one giant promo for Cabo Wabbo tequila. I'm serious, I like that. And he kind of gets ragged by reviewers for this. But so in two thousand and four he's going to like open a location in Vegas.
He's doing a career backwards like that.
To take this game, you gotta go back so Vegas. He wants the location there two thousand and four, that is like the prime era. Oh yes, please. It didn't work out, so he opened a new location in the basement of Harvey's Casino, South Lake Tahoe, close up for government work. That place isn't there anymore. Two thousand and six, Cabo Wabbo's the second best selling tequila in America behind Jose Cuervo. They're moving one hundred and fifty thousand cases
a year. Damn right. He opened a third location of Cabo Wabbo Cantina in inexplicably Fresno, California, in two thousand and eight.
So you say that because you haven't been to Fresnew.
The place he opens in two thousand and eight, it shutters in two thousand and nine.
But it was.
That was a controversy and lawsuits. So the development where the Cabo Wabbo location opened was like struggling, sure, and right when it got going, two months after the restaurant club more of a nightclub open, Sammy broke ties with the developer. Place shuts down. The developer, Milt Barbois. He sued Sammy Hagar in federal court in twenty ten, saying that Sammy quote doomed the project before Cabo Wabbo even opened in Fresnow.
He didn't give us a chance.
No, he said that Sammy was this crazy micromanager who had no idea about costs or like, and it was just delaying the project.
He's in there picking paints for the bathroom.
No, like they budgeted a sound system for around like two hundred thousand dollars. Sammy's like, you have to use my personal sound system manager. He has a personal sound source. When all said and done, sound system winds up costing four hundred and eighty four thousand dollars more than double. He demanded that a lighthouse be built on the outside of the building.
A real lighthouse, right operating.
Lighthouse, because that's there's one in Cabo. No, you gotta have a lighthouse, and he gets a lighthouse, but that wasn't in the original plans.
Is that expensive?
Yeah, a big lighthouse is big expensive. You know how the well drinks are at most places are like the basic cheapest booze, and then there's the upsell to like better more expensive.
Totally.
Yeah, Sammy wanted Cabo Wabbo tequila to be the well tequila.
Does he not understand how business works?
Like a slash into profits and barbius. He tries to push back on this, but Sammy allegedly said, quote because I said, so, I'm a Hall of Fame rock star, I can do what I want.
Fame rockstar. Yeah, I would love to hear other rock stars brag ab by being in the Hall of Fame of Rock Like does that matter?
Really?
Yeah?
Another blow to profits was that Sammy didn't want there to be a cover charge, so the original budget called for like a twenty dollars cover charge in Fresno with an estimated they were estimating like eighteen hundred to twenty four hundred people a night. What Yeah, at the club that's where Fresno.
Yeah, but from where they would have to draw from other states.
Everyone in Fresno has to go at least once a week. So it's like that's serious cash. Sammy was like, I will back out if you do a cover charge, So like, so long, millions of dollars is what Barbus is saying. He accused Sammy and his partners of emotional distress. He said he got a voicemail where Sammy said, like a bunch of times quote, I'm going to kill you.
Oh. I was about to make a joke him saying I'm going to kill you, Like yes, he's calling.
He had filed his own lawsuit in December of two thousand and eight, like right after the place opened for Prea Chacon to start off that way, and then he and Barbis they got like a confidential agreement March of two thousand and nine to make that suit go away. But in the twenty ten suit, Barbas said he was under quote extreme duress when he agreed to that settlement, and in his lawsuit, it says, quote Hagar told Barbas
that he Hagar was going to kill him. Barbas was told by a third party that there was a hitman hired to kill Barbus unless he Barbas settled the case.
He imagine telling somebody in total straight face, Sammy Hagar hired a hitman to kill.
Exactly exactly, lay up the Kabobo. I'm not sure how that all shook out. Likely a settlement, like.
Maybe just take you right to like rehab.
You're like, you gotta go. This has all been a lot. Let's take a break and hopefully you'll see where I'm going with all of this.
Okay, Saren, hey e, Saren.
After the Fresno Cabo Wabbo canteena tobacle. Yes, Sammy Hagar was undeterred.
I bet he was, man heart.
Cabo Wabbo Las Vegas finally opened in Planet Hollywood in November two thousand and nine, and it caters mainly the Boomers. Yeah, of course, the Cabo Wabbo Cantina still exists in Cabo San Lucas.
Of course, you got to have the main flagship.
This is from their website. Quote since opening in nineteen ninety. The Cantina has long been one of the.
Top most places to eat and party in Mexico in the world. Featured on MTV, VH one, each channel, Travel Channel, and then many dreams of partiers and would be partiers, the Cantina distinguished status among the world's greatest feist goers. Come experience the Cantina and you will quickly see why this spot gave birth to the Cabo wabbo way in life.
There is a partiers and would be parties. That is a great phrase. Yeah, so let me hit you with a quote from the old red rocker himself.
Oh please.
Cabo Wabbo is a lifestyle, something that requires only a willingness to enjoy your life and embrace all that makes you happy. That's the reason that Cantina was created.
Wait a minute, I've been living the cobo wabbo lifestyle all this time.
I didn't know it. You have a willingness to enjoy your life. The trip Advisor reviews of the place are amazing.
Oh my god, did you go pers Of course.
I did so. February twenty twelve, site user green Chili Smuggler Green Chili wrote a five star review titled quote you have no soul if you ignore Cabo Wabbo okay. In it, he writes, quote, Wabo Rita shizam, great vibe, great breeze, great tunes, very much a vacation maximizer. Helpful tip, Park rental car at the mall two dollars and walk to Cabo Wabbo. Walk everywhere as parking as impossible? Did I mention the Wabbo ritos were delicious? Back to Drew
walking everywhere? I mean please. There's also a one star review from user ice Que called quote also got robbed by security slash doorman at Cabo Wabbo somebody else care. Wall of text in the review describes her husband gets a shakedown at the urinals with security demanded he empty his pockets and hand over all his cash, otherwise they were going to call the cops and say he was doing drugs in the bathroom, and they took his two hundred dollars and they kicked him out of the club.
Here's the part I love quote. I am very disgusted that this happened at Cabo Wabbo. I would not be too upset if this happened at a local hole in the wall, our tourists are not invited to come, but happened at Cabo Wabbo. What is more disgusting is that we found a review on this bar of the same thing happening to another family at Cabo Wabbo. I think, Sammy, you need to clean house and get some respectful staff at Cabo. I mean, this happens all the time at
my local dive bar, and I'm cool with it. But if it does happen with the golden sand on my toes and the sun shining down on me through gentle ocean breeze, but the tequila playground taking it too far? Good sir. So we're talking about tequila, we're talking about crime. They go hand in hand. Here's a weird angle, though, you know how tequila goes best with lime.
I thought you said somebody like me from behind. Here's a weird angle.
WHOA, No, most so you're getting too much tequila. Most Mexican food goes best with lime. Yes, one of my hobbies and or interests is finding the best carnitas tacos in the Bay Area.
Yes, that is true. Are you talking about.
Mexican pulled pork? Let's top a tia on Grand Avenue in South San Francisco Primo Jalisco Restaurant on East fourteenth and Oakland Amazing.
Sure, any others, No, not.
That I'm willing to divulge in particular. So the meat has to be super slow cooked, flavorful like a lot of times it's not it doesn't really taste like anything, or it's all bland. Oh pork, yeah, yeah. I find that some of the best add Mexican coke or even milk to the mix. Oh interesting, to the marinade. But what's really important is that they also have to be crispy, no soggy carneathas well.
The problem is is that pork is the tofu of meats.
Let's get out of here. See you got to crisp it up on la plancha, miho, That's what I do, so add in dyced onion cilantro andsmeo. It's perfect, of course, meo. But you also have to give me a lime wedge to squeeze over the top. Yes, like those tacos need limes. Yes totally. I've actually had to give you my lines when we've eat lunch again, bacon of limes.
Huh.
So have you noticed that sometimes you go to a Mexican restaurant or even like a bar, and something you'd normally get with the lime has a lemon instead. Yeah, you know who you can blame for that. No, the cartels.
I hate them.
I hate the cartels. So Mexico is the largest producer of limes in the world.
Yes, I've heard this.
And sometimes there are bad seasons, sometimes there's bumper crops. Cartels put in these crazy controls over producers during bumper crop season, and this is so that they can fund the war in Maturacot between Jalisco New Generation Cartels and then these other local groups known as United Cartels. So Roman, Yes,
Romaine LeCour who's with a think tank Mexico Evalua. He said, quote, the lime trade is a billion dollar industry and for any criminal group, it's very easy and extremely profitable for them to go to the farmers and tell them what they need to pay for protection. It's classic mafia.
So it's like he also do this with the avocados.
Right, yes, yes, So what cartels will do is limit picking to a few days a week. They create this scarcity, they drive up the prices. Some farmers have walked away completely because it's just too much trouble, too dangerous that it was difficult. Yeah, I'm going to get into that. So they're bandits, hijack shipments from the farms to the warehouse. More than twenty eight hundred Mexican Army and National Guard troops were sent to Matulkan in twenty twenty two trying
to like squelch the limes. Yeah, and it was in response to Jalisco the cartel cutting huge ditches into a main road to cut off access.
Oh okay, yeah, so they couldn't get trucks then, And.
Like you said, they're starting to do the same thing with avocados. So I asked Lime Expert, bar owner and Ridiculous Crime musical director and composer Travis Dutton about this. Oh yes, So he told me that in general he gets limes for about twenty five to thirty dollars a case, and that's maybe like one hundred and fifty or you know,
so limes depending on the side of them. So he'll start to see the prices creep up, and he knows that the cartels are tinkering with it again, and so it'll go to like sixty a case, then eighty a case, that's more than creeping up. Yeah, then it hits one hundred for like a week or so. It fluctuates some and then it creeps back down, but it tops out at about one hundred dollars, and then it goes back up, goes back down.
It's over and over again.
Yeah. He said he doesn't let the cost of the limes change how they make drinks at his bar. But he told me that if you go to a Tacorea and they give you a lemon with your food instead of a lime, then the limes are back up to like ninety a case. Okay, and his wholesalers just tell him Mexican mafia and shrug when the prices go up.
I say that too, Like I go to the dentists, They're like, why did you fly us? I'm like, Mexican mafia.
And see, here's the thing, Like we moan about the prices of our food and drink, but there are real world consequences to this, like the people on the other side of the revision absolutely so. Like recently, lime producers in Machoacon they suspended their work due to the extortion by the cartels. According to Texas Public Radio quote, the strike was expected to have immediate effects including reduced line production, higher prices, and unemployment, affecting more than ten thousand families
who depend on the industry. Yeah, so the line producers they wanted their security guaranteed by the government before they go back. And so that's like seventy to eighty percent of the packing companies in the two main producing regions suspended operations and then line prices went up about fifty percent across Mexico. So the people are terrified they lose money.
The consumers hit two. But Choacon is the second largest line producer in Mexico and they supply mostly their domestic market and only a little bit is sent out from the States from Michocon. So there's this incredible writer and journalist, Gustavo Ariano.
Yeah, totally.
He has a book called Taco Usa, How Mexican Food Conquered America. Guys amazing. He talks a lot about the cartel influence on Mexican food. Quote, it's a perfect storm of problems with limes, and sadly, the American consumer only cares about their margarita and squeezing wedges of lime on their tacos. Limes and avocados have essentially become the edible version of drugs due to the misery. Their growing consumption is causing wow yeah, blood free and the consumption is
expanding like crazy. So going back to tequila, please, we see all these celebrity brands total bell weather that the industry is booming. You know, if you know that they want to get their beaks wet, then it's got to be that you.
Don't see celebrity limes.
Right exactly. So, speaking of getting your beak wet, Yes, whatever happened to Cabo Wabo tequila?
Yeah?
What had Zarah Bird? I'm going to tell you close eye, Oh, I want you to picture it. It's two thousand and seven. You are a bikini clad cocktail waitress at Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. You moved down here from Scottsdale, Arizona, about five years ago. You love it, the sea, the sand, the party dibes. You like working at Cabo Wabbos. Tips are great, the bouncers shake people down for cash and the toilets and the owner's really nice,
laid back guy for a celebrity. The other night you were standing by the bar. In the afternoon, while Sammy Hagar lounged in a hammock and chatted with a friend. He told the guy that he'd been getting tons of offers to sell his tequila brand, Cabba Wabbo. He said he'd been given offers of twenty million, thirty million, fifty million, and he'd turn them all down, but that, he said, may all change. Tonight is Sammy's annual birthday bash, a
huge celebration at the cantena. The place will be packed. There's a stage setup where the Red Rocker and his pals are going to perform. Later. You're passing through the cantenas outdoor table area, warm party lights and colorful flag banners waving in the gentle breeze. Above you, servers are setting up the tables and wiping down the bar. Your manager pulls you aside and asks you to take care
of the guests in Sammy's office in the back. You head back to the office where Sammy sits at his desk wearing bright red board shorts, a loud Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down in flip flops. Across from him sit two very European, very fancy looking dudes in very expensive suits. You can hear the muffled sound of the Rodies sound checking the stage equipment outside. Sammy introduces you to the men. Guy on the left is Luca Garavoglia. He smiles pleasantly
at you and nods. Sammy introduces the other guy, Bob Kunsick consuvants. He gives you a big grim. Sammy tells you the men have just flown in from the lawn. You ask the gentleman what they want, and Sammy pipes up to say that all three of them will have glasses of Cabo wabo reposado. You tell them you'll be back with their orders immediately. You head out to the bar and place the order, telling the bartender you need them immediately and who it's for. He pours three neat
glasses at tequila. You place them on your serving train. You head back to Sammy's office. As you head down the hallway, you hear Luca ask Sammy, if that's not enough, how much money would be enough to change your life. You hear Sammy say one hundred million dollars. Just as you push open the office door, Lucas says, you got it. Sammy looks stunned. If you got a deal, he yells. He tells you you're just in time for the drinks, and that you should have brought one for yourself. After all,
this calls for a toast. Sammy just sold eighty percent of Cabo Wabbo to the Campari Group.
Wow, and for one hundred million.
Yeah, very exciting, Zarin. The Compari Group is an Italian company that since eighteen sixty has been peddling fine spirits. So they own they own like more than fifty brand.
Yeah, they like the Bromfmen. They own like most of liquor.
Yeah, Apparol, which is again that's a huge one that took off huge, Yeah, big Sinzano Sky Vodka, Wild Turkey, Oh yeah, Gramollier and now Cabo Wabbo. Interesting so choice. Eventually he sold the rest of Cabo Wabbo to Campari, and then he he signed a tequila non compete clause that would hold until twenty seventeen. So when the non compete was up, Sammy he got back in the tequila game. Oh, let's take a break. No, when we come back, I'm going to tell you all about the next chapter in
Sammy's tequila journey. Zarin. Yeah, I was drinking tequila, getting a little cabo over there. When you wrote for Mel magazine. They made you cook your way through the guy Fiery. Do you remember that? Oh?
How could I forget?
One of the things you you made that I got to witness was like this blue cocktail. Oh god, yes, and I don't remember what it was called. Yes, who knows, but it had tequila in it. And every item in that cookbook had tequila, as far as I chicken, the vegetables you you asked for. My assessment of the drink is.
Very tequila forward.
As a chef, tequila and salt. Yes, so you made the drink. You had to write this article.
I can't remember it.
Something you asked me for an assessment of it, a quote for the article.
Yes, I did, actually, Yeah, I asked you to try.
It, and I did, and I wrote a long take on it, and your editor cut the whole thing that I wrote. Yes, I went back and I found what I wrote, and I'm going to read it into the record here because I think it's an important take on all blue colored tequila cocktails.
That's why I asked you.
This cocktail tastes like impending sunburn. This is what happens when a Bath and Bodyworks customer loyalty card shape shifts into a cocktail. This cocktail really wants you to listen to it. Try to play steel drum. This cocktail thinks Brittany Madison and Chastity are being total bitches about what happened at the hotel's continental breakfast this morning. When you sip this cocktail, you instantly grow a toe ring. This cocktail has a Salt Life sticker on its lifted truck
one hundred and fifty miles inland. This cocktail is super excited to swim with the dolphins tomorrow. Many people believe this cocktail owns a houseboat rental company. This cocktail is the official cocktail of sun damaged and wrinkled Declatage. This cocktail wears cargo shorts and Kirkland elevens. Drinking this cocktail immediately breads and fries all the food around you. This cocktail grows its own coozy. So there you have it.
This cocktail review rose pregnant.
My review meets the light to day. Wait, didn't you have an You wrote something about how another cocktail in the book called you a racial slurt from wy Park. I think, oh it's good, good, good, good times speaking a guy here, all right, PMIL Magazine. Yeah right. Do you remember that the non compete clause that Sammy Hagar signed when he sold Cabo Wabbo remember seventeen?
Yeah? I thought that notes a.
Long time ago back too. Speaking of Guy Fieri, did you know who Sammy Hagar started a new tequila company with?
Wait, he really did go back and you said he did, but I thought it was more like he's planning to who.
Elizabeth the mayor of Flavor toown the bleached out bozo, the right winged chicken wing, the bowling shirt barbecuer. None other than Guy Fieri, Go Guy twenty nineteen. Twenty nineteen, Sammy and Guy.
Friend of the Show, Guy Pierre, they they got.
Together and they started Santo Tequila.
I think our first episode was a Guy Fieri story.
Yeah, I think it was. It was it was his cargeting stolen just saying Friend of the show circle. Here's the mission statement of Santo Tequila.
Please Tonto, the Saint of Tequila's.
Friends and founders, Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri built their own success on artistry, hard work, and going all the way every day, putting their heart and soul into everything they do, and then some Sammy grew up the son of farmers. As a boy, he picked fruit under the hot California son, saving up forty dollars to buy his first guitar. This union of hard work, gumption, and an innate craving for music laid out the foundation of a life spent rock and concert stadiums and building a tequil lampire.
In Sammy, Guy Fieri found a kindred spirit.
Yeah.
Guy also spent his youth in California selling pretzels and washing dishes to fund a trip to France, what where he forged a passion for the culinary arts. His drive to discover and create has culminated in his brand of audacity and in your face flavor that's become ever present. This uncompromising spirit lives on in Santola at the historic Elvieto Distillery. Sammy and Guy have put tradition to work,
tapping into the soul of old Mexico. The result is an ultra premium tequila that stays true to its trus born from the sacred blue weber agave, nurtured with craftmanship and care, no shortcuts, no added anything, nothing had just the fullest, finest expression of a gave flavor turned all the way up of course. Yeah right.
I love that the gumptionen brothers here decide that they're gonna Oh yeah, we hired tradition or whatever you use tradition. I'm like, you mean you you hired the locals and you're paying them under market value in America to make your.
Together in the hot sun I sold Prenz exactly. Oh, to go to France, To go to France. So the big selling point with Santo other than living moss and like turning life all the way up with two bodacious party.
Boys, that this stuff is all natural of course and additive free, nothing to get in the way of the flat.
But like the AEO is like kind of pale. It's weird anyway. So Bourbon Banter my new favorite publication. Oh Bourbon Banter, you you get it at your house. They reviewed it and they said, quote Santo Fino on Yejo isn't bad, but it's bland for the self appointed mayor of Flavortown to scream loudly and seasoned with a big scoop in the food world, yet choose the tequila so bland that it barely whispers to one's taste buds makes little sense. I've had Hagar's Cabo Wabo Blanco and it
was decent, holy suitable for cocktails. So I'm confused as to why he'd sign on to something so bereft of flavor.
Wow, holy suitable?
Was his?
Like cocktails? Like if you mix it with something, I can see where Yeah, yeah, you can put it on the table. A big ouch.
Damn yeah that was that was like it cells everywhere.
The show goes on, Zaren you got words for whiskey words. Now the tequila just sells well, it sells pretty well.
Of course.
The flavor bottle of Santo is very Von Dutch Christian Audigier. Is it really? Oh god, there's like a big cross on the label and old English lettering. I went to the Total Wine and More website, which I seem to be doing a lot these days. Hit more and more why and I can report back on the prices please, So a bottle of blanco sets you back thirty nine dollars bottle, I would have I mean, I don't drink anymore.
I would have taken a hit for the team and tried this, but you know, we'll just pretend I can be the team. Yeah, I should have brought some. I don't want to pay them. You can get a Repisodo for forty two dollars, the Blanco one ten proof, yeah, is sixty a bottle okay, sixty one gets you some nice on yehoe and then a post a bottle of Repisodo barrel select sixty four dollars.
Now we're talking.
Yeah, So I asked my brother if he carries it at the bar?
Yes?
What did they have a huge selection, like really nice and good stuff? Yeah? So the text I got back from him read, no, I'm sure it's garbage. Entertain the idea. Did you talk to your rep no? Stop. It reminded me very much of when you had to cook the guy fiery And you texted me, do you know where I can get medories because you needed like the drink for the mix. Yeah, And I said, hold on, and I texted my brother do you have Madori at the bar? He texted me back, No, it's not nineteen ninety four.
Good with it.
He's good, he's sharp one. So November eighteenth, twenty twenty four, just recently, very recently, Sammy announced a loss of Vegas residency.
Wait, sam the Hagar, Sammy as a musician.
Sammy, son of Hagar. Yes, he yeah, all leaving town. He's like, I don't know.
He was still like that. I didn't know he was.
He swings that way.
Uh.
It's gonna feature his best of Both Worlds band. I don't know what the both worlds are.
I didn't know he had a band.
They gave behind him, the guitarist Joe Satriani, what Joey said Satriani, bassist Michael Anthony, and drummer Kenny Aronoff. Dude, you if I saw if you saw a picture of Kenny Aroonoff, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that guy. He's like this crazy session drummer. He's toured with just about everyone, bald dude, everyone like but extreme. He played with It's more Than Words Darren. He played with Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Seeger, Willie Nelson, Joe Cooking, Tony Iomi, Melissa Ethridge, Lewis, Leonard
skinnerd John bon Jovi. He played drums for John Fogerty, both live and then on recordings since nineteen ninety six. This guy yeah, deep respect So Sammy right, he's like I got Joey, I got Mickey, I got Kenny. Let's go boys, or like a British you know, heist crew. So the residency, he needs a terry. He does need to Everyone needs a terry. Residency is only nine nights. That's a residence to see it is it? Said Dolby
Live at the Park MGM in April of May. The next year April of May, April and May I am April son of May. So Sammy told the press quote, I'm so looking forward to this residency and being able to stay in one place for nine days so we can get the sound and production completely dialed in. It also allows the band to experiment with the setlist every night. That's why it's going to be exclusive to Las Vegas.
Probably want to come to see multiple shows.
It's different every night, instead of traveling all day on tour when there's no time to rehearse and make changes. I plan on digging deeper into the Van Halen catalog, sir, it's not your last name, and my solo career Montros and chicken Foot as well. Montro Are you kidding me? Somebody still can't drive fans are in for a lot of surprises. So as a celebration of the residency, Hagar and then Anthony.
I tease this guy, but God, would I love to be able to go through the world like that?
My God? Yeah, he's so last and ever on the planet exactly.
Sammy Hagen is incredible.
So he and Michael Anthony they performed during the halftime show the Raiders game against the Broncos on November twenty fourth at Allegiance Stadium. So why the big splash about this nine day residence?
Please? Why the big splash?
Elizabeth? That's what I was waiting for you to ask. Well, Sammy had bad news to push out of the news cycle. Oh really, something happened just a couple of weeks prior that rocked his world, and not in a good way.
I don't read the news, so what was it now, I've never.
Heard of the news. So over the weekend of November ninth and tenth, that was recently. Yeah, Santos's trucking partner, Johansson or maybe Johansson Johansson or Joe Hanson, they saw irregularities in their logistics tracking regularities. They're like, these are not regularities. These are irregularities.
Those are the bad kind of regularity.
I look for regularities everywhere I go, and then the irregularities are like I'm about to ruin your day.
You know, some people when they are incontinent, like when you're like all backed up, no one says like, oh, they're like they're feeling regular. No one's like, I'm irregular right now.
Or I'm continent right now. Yeah, that's true, right, I am currently continent for once. Okay, So two trucks carrying tequila made by some anto spirits crossed from Mexico into Laredo, Texas.
Ah.
Yes, and that's how it was supposed to go. So we're okay, great borders crossing, check and check regularities. In Laredo, the loads get picked up by legitimate truck drivers, the guys who are supposed to pick them up.
Another check.
You know what, if you bought it, a trucker brought it, Yes, thank you for saying. So they were supposed to take back to the truckers, big respect. So they're supposed to take the loads to a warehouse in Pennsylvania. And on the way though the drivers they get new orders. They're told that there are huge problems at the warehouse in Pennsylvania and that they have to go to one in Los Angeles instead. Wow, so yeah, not like oh one another one that's on the way, there are another one
of them. No, please turn around and drive in the opposite direction. And they're like, what this looks like a regularity? This is this looks legit.
I get to LA.
So they turn around, they go to the LA warehouses. The warehouses themselves look legit. They're like great, so they left the and took off. Yeah, in those trucks more than four thousand cases of tequila. So basically like over twenty four thousand bottles of Santo tequila. And this is like all of the kinds that they make. Yeah, all the early aughts looking bottles are up in there and crosses everywhere cross. It's it's especially made extra on Yeho.
Though that one takes thirty nine months to make, so it's not like they can just go and fill up extra bottles. It was the first batch available of that extra on Yeho.
It's interesting time three years in one season.
I suppose, so that's weird. And that was the very first batch available of this extra on Yeho, Like sitting in it. Wow, stewing in its own juices, percolating. Yeah. Santo Spirits was like the load was worth more than a million dollars. Oh yes, sure, Yeah. So Johanson, the shipping company, they looked into the missing trucks and they found that they had been quote illegally double broker to
other ship carriers. So they said this report, quote, we believe the GPS tracking signal we were monitoring was spoofed by a GPS emulator application used by the criminals.
Yeah, all that to steal Guy Fieri sequila.
So Santo president Dan butkis Yes, he told People magazine, quote, this is the strangest thing I've ever seen in the spirits industry over twenty five years. I've never seen anything like this too. Of our trucks four days apart to be stolen. It's so out of the ordinary, out of the norm, that we're wondering why our trucks may have been targeted. I agree. He talks like a cartoon carriacter. He is animated, so like, yeah, why did they target Shata.
Other than obviously the Red Rockers involvement? Listen, who doesn't want what he has?
Detective Guy Fiery has a theory.
Oh yes, I love Detective Guy Fier.
He thinks quote someone could be trying to break the momentum that Santa had been gaining. Quote, I mean one is one, but now we gotta have double the amount of people to pull off the double heist. He said, it just seems so much riskier to take two trucks.
He watched like fast and the Fury is too, and then came up with his work.
He's like, how these guys operated. It takes one guy to run one thing. It's going to take two to rob two puts on the trench. II.
You didn't mention getting his own car stolen.
You know, don't don't bring up past traumas.
That's true, that's true.
Sammy Hagar. Ever, the businessman, he stayed away from conjecture. He's like, look, I can't do the one plus one equals to He said. The theft was quote a gigantic setback for any independently owned company and a hugely competitive market. But Guy and I are not the type to sit back. Can wine over spilled tequila. Our distillery is working day and night right now to replace as much stock as we can. He's answered, law enforcement and all of the
jurisdictions got on this. Of course, that's Laredo PD where the shipman entered the country. LA's Cargo Criminal Apprehension Team. This like federal organization called cargo Net, which is just basically like a data analytics and risk assessments and then.
Red Rocker, what do we need to be?
So you got the cops and then you got this robo data thing. They're all trying to track down more than a million dollars worth of missing party dude tequila. Uh and this is going down at the worst possible time because like right before the holiday season, how am I supposed to make my guy Fieri tequila keyla and
pie for wabbo giving Totally horrible. So, a cargo Net spokesperson said, quote, data analytics from various cargo Net project that cargo theft has reached an all time high in twenty twenty four and will be over twenty five percent higher than in twenty twenty three.
So then why do we get cargo Net?
That's what I want to guys.
We're doing on clipboard.
They told People magazine that a lot of the cargo theft last year was for hard Seltzer, which for some reason is absolutely hysterical to me. Yeah, yeah, the.
Real in bubbled water.
That'll get you a little jazzy. This year, the market's changed twenty twenty four. It's all about the hard stuff stuff like Santo Santo. It's hard. Yeah. But Gus, the president of Santo, said, quote, it's unlikely is it bucket? Is it TuS? Okay, yeah, buttcuse but coouse, it's unlikely that they'll find these truckers. They probably rent the truck, get the bid, get the cargo, sell it and then disappear.
Oh yeah, there are some phone lines we have from them that are already disconnected, and they said they're probably parked on the side of the road near Lake have su sitting in a puddle of their own set. No, he added that last purpose. Oh I make myself laugh some, so you know, he didn't say they were fiery though. He's not going to give up so easily.
So no, there's no.
He was like, yeah, they threw up on each other. Do you hear this kind of terrible news? Like okay, so guy, he wanted to offer a ten thousand dollars reward, and that was just for the extra a yeho. Quote, He's like the rest whatever, leave it, he said, quote, because it's like the crown jewel of the company, something that we've been working on. You can't reproduce something that takes four years to make, Okay, well, you know, thirty nine months. So he went on to compare it to
the nineteen seventy eight luft Hans, which we had. Well, we haven't covered it because there's too much murder. It was the largest cash robbery committed on America Oil when it happened. And that's what this is what it makes guys, comparisons seem a little hyperbolic, a little so there's no mention like if he had any actual ridiculous crime episodes that he wanted to draw similarities with, like, for example, the cheese theft. That's where I went with that, he said, quote.
And this is the Actually I'm not making this one out. It's like a movie. I never in a million years thought this was coming down the pike like this, but it's real. Yeah. So Laredo PD, they wanted to make sure people understood A it wasn't a hijacking and B it didn't take place in Laredo, So they put out this statement. They're like, this was next level cargo switcheroo,
not a strong arm attack in Laredo. Then they also slipped into their press release that the freight value was listed at approximately three hundred and eighty five five and ninety eight dollars and not the million. Wow, like a third of what they said. Hey, ps, they're not as big as they think. So people this holiday season, if you're tempted to buy a bottle of black market Santo tequila at a cut rate, I urge you to control yourself. If you see something, say something, Say I don't want
that illegal bottle of Santo. I want a bottle of legists instead. I want the good stuff. So, Saron, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
I'm so thirsty for tequila. Now, that's a good one. But also, like Guy Fieri and the Red Rocket, the Roo Rocket, I really, honestly, I said it earlier. They're so lucky in terms of like life ex right, and like everyone can tease them all they want, but they're laughing at the rest of us till their days. I'm saying, but you want to make fun of like, oh, you got frosted tips. He's like, yeah, I do.
Exactly frost these tips. That's it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime debt com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, Instagram, and then we're on what's the other one? Blue Sky?
Sure? Hey Smoky, you want to you want to talk bout?
Yes?
Please?
Oh my god, did you just see the ill ge?
Hey guys, this is Gravy the truck driver and biscuits. Yeah, and uh, anyway, so listening to the John Dolorean podcast, I'm caught up to there from your beginnings and uh you said that Pontiac produced the Superbird with a crazy wing. That was actually Plymouth and Dodge that did this price word that did the Superbirds.
Uh anyway, just thought right, all.
Right, thank you for the correction. I appreciate it.
And I always like to be on the right road.
Now we know, and knowing is half the bat.
Hey it, as Elizabeth said earlier, if you bought a truck, brought it, so shout out to the truck.
Yeah, big up for the truckers. You want to do something like that, leave it talk back on the iHeart app reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton. And Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Humble Agave Farmer, Dave Kusten, starring Annals Rutger as Houdif. Research is by Classe, Azul Gold, Mursa Brown and Don Alberto Grand Reserva extra
On Jeho Andrea Son Sharpe. The theme song is by Dos Armadillos and Jeho, Thomas Lee and Cadillac Margerita on the Rocks with a stick of Sugarcane Enjoyer Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Casa Dragones Blanco, Ben Bollen and Rooster Rojo Pineapple On Jeho, Noel.
Brown, Ridicrious Cry Say It One More Time, Rudiqlious.
Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from my iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.