Beat THIS ONE Palate Snobs

[cfc1016]

1 minute ago, Ken Gargett said:

no, you completely miss the point if you think this is about refined palates. that is not what i said at all.

i have no doubt that any level of "palate" can enjoy cigars, wines, flavours as much as another (to slightly digress, a good mate of mine who is a highly regarded international wine writer tells the story of how he was introduced to wine by his uncle. even as a beginner, he knew that the wine his uncle served him every visit, which he made himself, was severely faulty, but the uncle loved it. he thoroughly enjoyed drinking wine even though he clearly had a useless palate, if we are looking for refined or any level, for that matter). if only refined palates enjoyed cigars or wines etc, then there is no point in beginners bothering unless they hope things will change at some stage. 

our friend above has said that he does get anything. can't detect any flavours. that is completely different. if you do not get anything, i don't follow where the enjoyment comes from. our friend has mentioned red wine as well. if you get no flavour from it, then basically it is tasteless alcohol, or am i missing something. 

I was embellishing to make a point. I failed.

I can not speak directly for smokyfontaine, but I think I've seen this movie before. He gets plenty of enjoyment from smoking his cigars, but simply doesn't have the ability and frame of reference to put names to *why*. I don't think he's claiming that he can't taste the cigars. I think he's just pointing out that he can't put words to the roots of his enjoyment. One needn't be an epicurean to derive joy from flavor. My dog's never given me tasting notes, but I'm damned certain he enjoys it when I give him foie gras.

I don't think we're arguing, btw. I think we're just seeing the same picture through different lenses.

[El Presidente]

10 minutes ago, cfc1016 said:

 

I can not speak directly for smokyfontaine, but I think I've seen this movie before. He gets plenty of enjoyment from smoking his cigars, but simply doesn't have the ability and frame of reference to put names to *why*. I don't think he's claiming that he can't taste the cigars. I think he's just pointing out that he can't put words to the roots of his enjoyment. One needn't be an epicurean to derive joy from flavor. My dog's never given me tasting notes, but I'm damned certain he enjoys it when I give him foie gras.

 

 

I get this type of email regularly.  "I can't taste anything" or "I can only taste this". 

I don't buy it and always recommend they have a notebook and pen the next time they smoke a cigar by themselves......and just right down what you are tasting......+ anything else going through your head. 

Before they know it they have a quarter page of cigar notes done.  They surprise themselves  

[Habana Mike]

32 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

no, you completely miss the point if you think this is about refined palates. that is not what i said at all.

i have no doubt that any level of "palate" can enjoy cigars, wines, flavours as much as another (to slightly digress, a good mate of mine who is a highly regarded international wine writer tells the story of how he was introduced to wine by his uncle. even as a beginner, he knew that the wine his uncle served him every visit, which he made himself, was severely faulty, but the uncle loved it. he thoroughly enjoyed drinking wine even though he clearly had a useless palate, if we are looking for refined or any level, for that matter). if only refined palates enjoyed cigars or wines etc, then there is no point in beginners bothering unless they hope things will change at some stage. 

our friend above has said that he does get anything. can't detect any flavours. that is completely different. if you do not get anything, i don't follow where the enjoyment comes from. our friend has mentioned red wine as well. if you get no flavour from it, then basically it is tasteless alcohol, or am i missing something. 

I guess if you can't taste tobacco you might just enjoy the nicotine. If you can't taste wine, maybe you enjoy the alcohol. And with either, perhaps the rituals...

 

[cfc1016]

1 minute ago, Habana Mike said:

I guess if you can't taste tobacco you might just enjoy the nicotine. If you can't taste wine, maybe you enjoy the alcohol. And with either, perhaps the rituals...

 

And regardless, it doesn't matter. We all enjoy our hedonistic pursuits for our own reasons. Doesn't matter what they are.

[Ken Gargett]

10 minutes ago, Habana Mike said:

I guess if you can't taste tobacco you might just enjoy the nicotine. If you can't taste wine, maybe you enjoy the alcohol. And with either, perhaps the rituals...

 

entirely possible and if that is what floats the boat, terrific. my original comment was out of curiosity. i suspect what rob says it much closer to the truth than we often think. in this case, who knows. 

[NickV]

On 10/30/2020 at 11:24 PM, WABOOM said:

I've gotten hints of Turtle Wax car polish a couple times. It took me a while to identify what I was tasting. Also gotten hints of toy cap gun/gunpowder. Odd but good aroma.

Here's the crazy one... slight hints of roadkill. But not in a disgusting way. More like that strange funky smell on a very humid summer morning around a lot vegetation, like boggy weeds in a ditch. I didn't mind it because it was so mysterious and intriguing.

 

 

How does one know what turtle wax and roadkill taste like?

[Bijan]

Just now, NickV said:

How does one know what turtle wax and roadkill taste like?

I think it's association with the smell/aroma of those things. Same as wood/cedar/leather flavours which we hear all the time, without ever having chewed oak or leather.

[Ken Gargett]

3 minutes ago, NickV said:

How does one know what turtle wax and roadkill taste like?

turtle wax, no idea. 

roadkill, you need to read more carl hiaasen. 

[NickV]

My two cents on this are I think anyone whose had a fair amount of cigars can taste the differences and nuance. That’s why we have our favorites, Cubans, non Cubans, etc.. Personally my issue is explaining those tastes. I find that cigars taste like cigars. I’ve never eaten barnyard hay or paprika or wood to know the taste profile. So I never really get what reviewers are talking about when they say that. Stuff like honey or pepper or cherry I can pretty easily pick up on. I also clearly know the difference between each brand and stick etc to distinguish what I like. I find it easy to know what’s light vs medium vs full both in flavor and body. It’s the obscure tasting note references that is reference to things no one actually ever eats that always confuses me. 

[NickV]

2 hours ago, Bijan said:

I think it's association with the smell/aroma of those things. Same as wood/cedar/leather flavours which we hear all the time, without ever having chewed oak or leather.

Right but isn’t it a pretty big leap to say this tastes what I think something would taste like based off smelling it? Like there’s plenty of cheese that smells like feet but tastes good but feet smell like feet and I imagine taste rather lousy. 

2 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

turtle wax, no idea. 

roadkill, you need to read more carl hiaasen. 

I don’t think I need to read a book to know that if my cigar tastes what I imagine roadkill tastes like, I’m not buying another box of those lol. 

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, NickV said:

Right but isn’t it a pretty big leap to say this tastes what I think something would taste like based off smelling it? Like there’s plenty of cheese that smells like feet but tastes good but feet smell like feet and I imagine taste rather lousy. 

Taste/flavour in cigars at least for me is mainly smell/aroma associations. It's smoke after all not solid or liquid food, doesn't hit the tastebuds the same way. And there's the retrohale where it's clearly related to sense of smell. Although some flavours you can taste clearly, many are just a hint you detect.

To me to a certain extent it's also a convention of what to call the different flavours. Certain cigars have wood flavour and I know that that flavour is called wood flavour and what it tastes like but if I didn't know that the cigar was supposed to have wood flavour I probably would have chosen some other word to describe it.

[NickV]

3 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Taste/flavour in cigars at least for me is mainly smell/aroma associations. It's smoke after all not solid or liquid food, doesn't hit the tastebuds the same way. And there's the retrohale where it's clearly related to sense of smell. Although some flavours you can taste clearly, many are just a hint you detect.

To me to a certain extent it's also a convention of what to call the different flavours. Certain cigars have wood flavour and I know that that flavour is called wood flavour and what it tastes like but if I didn't know that the cigar was supposed to have wood flavour I probably would have chosen some other word to describe it.

Totally agree. I find myself basically piecing together what each taste is by finding people using the same description across different smokes and kind of figuring it out as I go.

[Ken Gargett]

22 minutes ago, NickV said:

I don’t think I need to read a book to know that if my cigar tastes what I imagine roadkill tastes like, I’m not buying another box of those lol. 

i was not that serious. fans of carl hiaasen will know what i mean. he has a character, the ex-governor of florida, who lives in the swamps and exists by eating roadkill. in the latest, 'squeeze me', he captures a heap of the very largest burmese pythons and releases them to disrupt the "fictional" president. it is a lot funnier than it sounds. 

[cfc1016]

27 minutes ago, NickV said:

Right but isn’t it a pretty big leap to say this tastes what I think something would taste like based off smelling it? Like there’s plenty of cheese that smells like feet but tastes good but feet smell like feet and I imagine taste rather lousy. 

Not at all. Smell and taste aren't actually different senses. They're just components of the olfactory system. Describing an aroma vs a flavor - it's whatevs. We associate smell with the nasal cavity, and taste with the mouth, but we actually need both, *for* both. It's all of a piece.

Re: feet - don't kinkshame ?

[Ken Gargett]

11 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Taste/flavour in cigars at least for me is mainly smell/aroma associations. It's smoke after all not solid or liquid food, doesn't hit the tastebuds the same way. And there's the retrohale where it's clearly related to sense of smell. Although some flavours you can taste clearly, many are just a hint you detect.

To me to a certain extent it's also a convention of what to call the different flavours. Certain cigars have wood flavour and I know that that flavour is called wood flavour and what it tastes like but if I didn't know that the cigar was supposed to have wood flavour I probably would have chosen some other word to describe it.

i'm sure the scientists among us could explain this far better than i can manage but my understanding is that taste is pretty much limited to sweet, salty, umami, bitter and sour. these combine to give us perceptions. it is the olfactory receptacles which give us the cornucopia of flavours we discuss. smell gives us way more than we realise, way more than taste in many respects. 

it is why it is very rare to smell a wine and then get a different impression from taste. happens but very rarely. 

[SmokyFontaine]

2 hours ago, cfc1016 said:

I was embellishing to make a point. I failed.

I can not speak directly for smokyfontaine, but I think I've seen this movie before. He gets plenty of enjoyment from smoking his cigars, but simply doesn't have the ability and frame of reference to put names to *why*. I don't think he's claiming that he can't taste the cigars. I think he's just pointing out that he can't put words to the roots of his enjoyment. One needn't be an epicurean to derive joy from flavor. My dog's never given me tasting notes, but I'm damned certain he enjoys it when I give him foie gras.

I don't think we're arguing, btw. I think we're just seeing the same picture through different lenses.

FWIW, I don't think Ken was commenting on my post, it was another poster. Having said that, I was sarcastically saying I don't tend to notice off the wall notes. If I truly got no meaningful flavor out of cigars, I wouldn't keep dropping coin on more, so I get that point. 

I roast my own coffee and do pretty well with it, but if I could enjoy Folgers instead, I doubt I'd roast. Wouldn't be worth my time. 

Anyhoo, as you all were

[Bijan]

8 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

i'm sure the scientists among us could explain this far better than i can manage but my understanding is that taste is pretty much limited to sweet, salty, umami, bitter and sour. these combine to give us perceptions. it is the olfactory receptacles which give us the cornucopia of flavours we discuss. smell gives us way more than we realise, way more than taste in many respects. 

it is why it is very rare to smell a wine and then get a different impression from taste. happens but very rarely. 

The odd thing is I can taste sweet, salty (rare), umami (savoury) and bitter (generally not a good sign) in different cigars in different amounts. But I don't think I've ever smoked anything sour, always something like a hint of citrus at most. I wonder if it's related to the basic PH of cigar smoke.

And yes many more flavours than those 5 taste bud sensors would suggest. Mint, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, wood, etc.

[SirVantes]

4 hours ago, cfc1016 said:

I do bite my thumb.

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

[Woody Hayes]

6 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

not trying to be funny here but if you cannot detect any flavours, why do you smoke? 

I find smoking very relaxing.  I can detect some flavors but can't specify what they are.

[cfc1016]

37 minutes ago, SirVantes said:

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

John, will I get banned if I say yes?

[BuzzArd]

On 10/31/2020 at 5:38 AM, chuckpnoy said:

I smoked a Sig IV back in August and for a few puffs I tasted bubble gum.  I mean it was in your face bubblegum.  The flavor was so prominent.  Then it went away.  Never had that taste before or since.

 

20 hours ago, KCCubano said:

I had that happen on OR Trini T from 09. It was like smoking Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum.

When your roller chews Hubba Bubba it’s bound to end up in your cigars....

Was it Awesome Original or one of the myriad recent flavors? 
 

AEB8294A-747D-4505-B332-5308AD24BC08.webp

[PigFish]

15 hours ago, cfc1016 said:

??

The english language is such a malcontented, self-confused, mutant bastard stepchild of so many forebears, it's as if matisse made a painting, and a sculpture, and a poem - in one piece of work, using anything he found lying around in a scrapyard. There's beauty in it, to be certain, but it's a godawful gaudy mess, on the balance.

I've spent the better part of my life availing myself of the myriad different ways it can be used as a toy and a tool. One mightn't earn the moniker of silver-tongued lothario, be they not a cunning linguist. I'm not blanketly besmirching the tongue. You've got to admit that it is the language of bad intentions, though.

Rules are established, only to be broken - but only in certain scenarios. Some root declensions are honored, others patently disregarded. The word "lisp" has an ***S*** in it. The rules are intentionally convoluted so that the laity may never grok it, and the highborn may use it as a tool of confusion and oppression. 

My father was regarded among his fellow career linguists as "obsessed". He wished for me to surpass him in mastery and comprehension of everything 'the english language', past, present, and future. I was brought up with only "The King's English" permitted in the home - unless he broke the rule first (embracing the meta narrative of: rules are for peasants). I was forced into (and winning) spelling bees when I was 4. I was forced to play deviously complex word games, and punished when I would lose. I digress.

I've had the gospel of the king's english beaten into me enough to form a well educated opinion that english is a 'expletive deleted' language, I dare say. I take umbrage at the assertion that I'm merely attempting to break a beautiful stallion.

I do bite my thumb.

(Edit: this is as close to the common parlance as I'd've been permitted to dare speak in the home as a child. I got beat up A LOT as a kid. I chose to depart from the lingua franca in this diatribe merely to elucidate the foundation of my assertions that english is 'expletive deleted'. In case you've noticed, I don't normally speak this way - and no, I'm not just breaking out the thesaurus)

Almost perfect. A few well located expletives, universally understood and articulated by most, would had certainly elevated this bar...

However, I have to agree generally with the 99. Some on this continent have devolved English into a mass oscillating pressures waves resembling orating flatulence.

the- p. pa . pi.  pig

[KCCubano]

1 hour ago, BuzzArd said:

 

When your roller chews Hubba Bubba it’s bound to end up in your cigars....

Was it Awesome Original or one of the myriad recent flavors? 
 

AEB8294A-747D-4505-B332-5308AD24BC08.webp 46.45 kB · 0 downloads

It was the most unique profile I've seen in Cuban Cigars. It was GOP or GLP MAY 09. I don't recall now. I never thought about the possibility the roller was juiced on Hubba Bubba!

[SirVantes]

1 hour ago, PigFish said:

Almost perfect. A few well located expletives, universally understood and articulated by most, would had certainly elevated this bar...

However, I have to agree generally with the 99. Some on this continent have devolved English into a mass oscillating pressures waves resembling orating flatulence.

the- p. pa . pi.  pig

All true, on the one hand.  On the other, one could advance a load of reasons to reverse that opinion - a pallet appellate, as it were.  

Among which is this: no one gets to complain about homophones until they've tried to learn Mandarin.

[Fugu]

17 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

17 hours ago, NickV said:

I don’t think I need to read a book to know that if my cigar tastes what I imagine roadkill tastes like, I’m not buying another box of those lol. 

i was not that serious. fans of carl hiaasen will know what i mean. he has a character, the ex-governor of florida, who lives in the swamps and exists by eating roadkill.

Just to help further derail this thread - I’d come to enjoy some excellent roadkill in my life. Friends in Scotland developed a habit of collecting roadkill on their commute to work, living in a rather remote region (well, what’s not remote there...) adjacent to the Highlands. During the cold (colder, I should say) season, they would collect anything freshly/newly killed. Driving the route everyday they’re pretty sure about what’s recent. End of spring they usually got a freezer filled up to the top with the nicest game. Enjoyed some delicious wildfowl at their place.

There’s roadkill and there’s roadkill. I think there doesn’t exist a typical flavour or smell of „roadkill“. What is meant is probably the decay scent of an older carcass, „fermenting“ in the sun.... ?. Perhaps, and if just lightly, sort of an ‘hautgout’ scent.

To contribute on topic - among the oddest for me had been a delicious aroma of roast goose in RA 898 Alemania, or the fragrance of „new car interior“ in a fresh MdO4. Strikingly, not at all that unpleasant.