Blog & Cigar News | Mardo Cigars

Neil: What's up everybody? This is Neil and Gerard with Mardo Cigars.

Gerard: What's up? That's right.

Neil: And you're watching Mondays with Mardo's.

Neil: How are we doing today, guys? Neil and Gerard coming at you live from mardocigars.com.

Gerard: What's going on?

Neil: This is Mondays with Mardo's.

Gerard: That's right.

Neil: Today we are going to be talking about Cigars 101 topic that has been in our minds for quite some time. It is the infamous Lancero cigar and the 6X60 Gordo.

Two Unique Sizes

Neil: So the first size we're going to talk about, which these kind of have a little myth about them, is the Lancero size of cigars. Now, G, tell a little bit about these sizes and how we've come to know a little bit about these in our own experience.

Gerard: Okay, so obviously we want to talk about the little thin cigars, better known as a Lancero. And for the longest time Lanceros, whenever I saw them inside a humidor I thought, "Nope, not going to happen." Because first off, I thought it maybe be very tight draw. It's kind of very feminine.

Neil: I thought it was strictly for gals, myself early on.

Gerard: Yes, so I want really much into it, until we started getting schooled on Lanceros, and that's why we're going to talk about some Lanceros.

Neil: So, that being said, we have a buddy of ours, we call him Lancero Mike at our retail shop in California, and he is a huge Lancero guy. He got me going on one of these probably about a year or two ago, that once I lit this sucker, I couldn't believe how good it was, especially with so much wrapper that was giving this thing a hell of a lot of flavor, that Gerard will definitely talk about.

Gerard: Yeah. So one of the biggest things that we learned is since a Lancero is a smaller ring gauge, the outside wrapper ... So we have three parts of a cigar, right? We have the outside wrapper, the binder, and then the filler. So hence in this one, the filler is going to be a lot less ratio to a wrapper. So the wrapper is going to consistent majority of the cigar. Therefore, you're going to get a lot more flavor of the wrapper. And that's what's so big on Lanceros, is you get very well defined flavors of the wrappers.

Gerard: So now, if it's a very high grade wrapper and it's very expensive ... And that's the most expensive part of a cigar, is wrappers cost anywhere between 20 to what, $60 a pound.

Neil: Very well could be.

Gerard: So with that being said, Lanceros have made a pretty big jump in the industry, I would say. Hence why we have put together a five-pack here for you guys. And my gosh, let's say just right here, Southern Draw, Aladino, Foundation, My Father, Sinistro, all these guys are jumping on the wagon making very, very good Lancero. So that's my take on it.

Neil: I agree completely. And after ... You know, before I had such a closed mind about these skinny, long cigars, but you guys got to give them a try, especially with the wrapper that Gerard was talking about, and they are flavorful and delicious.

Neil: Now next on the agenda for regarding these sizes is the 6X60. Now, Gerard is going to get into it in just a minute, but back to what we were talking about regarding the Lanceros, a very similar mindset that I had prior to getting into these things, again, because of the size, these big, fat ring gauges, obviously a 60 ring gauge or bigger, which is just under a inch in diameter, didn't appeal to me out of the gate.

Neil: But he'll tell you a little bit about our experience and how these came about with obviously a lot of filler, that gave this sucker a heck of a lot of flavor. But go ahead, G, talk about these.

Gerard: Yeah, so a 60 ring gauge basically coming off of an inch, so we have 60 fourths of an inch. That's why this means 60th of an inch. And it's pretty big. This one's hexagon shaped. So when we were down in Dominican Republic, we're blending cigars, and we're talking about what size are we going to introduce to our cigars, and we're thinking about the Churchill, and then somehow, some way, we got into talking about 6X60. We're like, no, we don't want a 6X60.

Gerard: Until we blended it and we're like, "Wow this is amazing." Why was that? You're going to have a much better description, right? Because you fell in love with it. So I want you to say more about it.

Neil: So we we're sampling all kinds of stuff out of the gate when we were down in the Dominican. That being said, we were kind of going between, like Gerard was talking about, going Churchill or Gordo within our own lineup.

Neil: Again, I had a closed mindset. And that's kind of the whole thing about all this. With the Lanceros, with the Gordos, with these preconceived notions that I had in my mind about cigars, about flavors, about sizes, about the industry as a whole. Now again, I was taken to school by this, by the standpoint of getting myself out of the equation, opening up my mind, and giving something a try.

Neil: When we tried these 6X60s with some of the fillers and some of the blends that we were working with, my mind immediately said, "No way." And one of our master blenders down there said, "Just chill your little butt out and give us a chance." And I said, "Fair enough." So when we lit up that 6X60, holy moly, I could not put it down. I couldn't believe it. So I thought this big filler would be really grassy, disgusting, and God, wasn't it smooth?

Gerard: Yeah.

Neil: It was so good.

Gerard: The thing is, we thought it was going to be a very overpowering, a lot of tobacco, it's just going to knock us on our ass. What we found out was the ratio of filler is greater than the wrapper and the binder. So if you have a very good creamy filler, very good flavors, you're going to get that overpowering the binder and the wrapper, so you're going to get more of the influence of what the blend is.

Gerard: And we're like, "Oh, that's what a 6X60 is doing." So we got to understand that it's introducing you to the actual filler blend. And with our education on it, we were amazed, we were drawn to a whole new way of doing things. So we tossed out the Churchill, and we brought in the 6X60 in our arsenal.

Neil: So after getting into this, that's why we wanted to bring some of these to you guys, some of the off size cigars that we weren't necessarily drawn to out of the gate. But after getting a little more education, it's something that we've added to our repertoire and we enjoy all size sticks.

Gerard: Yeah.

Neil: Do not want to be closed minded on anything. So Gerard's going to go over a couple of these samplers that we're going to put together. So don't forget to click on that link below because we always got something special for you. But tell them a little bit about these samplers, G.

The Cigars

So what we've done, we put together five cigar samplers. We have here a sampler of Lancero. This one includes the Habana Vieja, and it has the My Father La Promesa, the Wise Man Maduro, which is a new size, Wise Man Maduro, Aladino Elegante, and also, obviously the Southern Draw Lancero is included in that five pack. So get on our website, check it out. Go to Samplers, go to the Lancero title and then you'll see that.

Gerard: Next what we have is the Gordos, and these are all 6X60. I specifically make sure they're 6X60, and not a 6X58. I want to stick around this 60 ring gauge. We have a Connecticut from My Father, we have the Back2Back, which has been a very big hit with our website, the very popular hexagon shaped 6X60 Placencia Alta, excuse me, Alma Fuerte. We have the new Farce Maduro from Room 101. And then obviously, the very popular Leaf by Oscar, a 6X60 Maduro.

Gerard: So the way I designed these is from mild to full. And that's what we're going to talk about, I'm assuming, next week?

Neil: Yes.

Something for you

Gerard: So we're going to go over that. I don't want to spoil any more of that. That's basically what we put together. Get on the website, you guys. Check out what we have at samplers. And also, you can always go and make your own sampler by clicking on single sticks that we have all over the website. So without that, that's what I put together, Neil. Maybe we'll put some more later. I'm not really sure.

Neil: Absolutely.

Gerard: This is great.

Neil: So we're always trying to bring something good to you guys, so check these out. Make sure you tune in for us. Make sure you subscribe to our channel. Hit the bell to be notified because we're coming out with new stuff constantly, and want to keep you guys in tune.

Neil: So Gerard and Neil signing out. See you next week on Mondays with Mardo's.

Gerard: That's it.