RUSH: This is Bill in Mount Wolf, Pennsylvania. Hi, Bill, great to have you here.
CALLER: Ah, mega dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you. How are you today?
RUSH: Good. Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Great show. Hey, I have a of couple questions about cigars for you.
RUSH: Yes, sir?
CALLER: I started buying some La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisels —
RUSH: Good man!
CALLER: — I guess, last year. I actually talked to the salespeople at the shop where I buy my adult beverages and my cigars.
RUSH: Yezz?
CALLER: And they gave me some hints on how to cut these things properly.
RUSH: You don’t cut ’em!
CALLER: You use a plug cutter about a quarter inch up to the tip?
RUSH: No, no, no, no! You don’t cut the La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel!
CALLER: Good! This is what I was looking for.
RUSH: You don’t cut that thing! Why get rid of the chisel? The purpose of the chisel is to focus and concentrate the smoke as you draw it from the cigar. If you put a hole in that thing, you’re defeating the purpose.
CALLER: Well…
RUSH: All you do, here’s what you do with the La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel. You take the end of the chisel, and you pinch it.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: And the wrapper leaf will split at the end and there you go. You never cut a La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel!
CALLER: Okay. Well, let me explain myself a little further.
RUSH: Brian, go grab me one out of the humidor.
CALLER: They were using a plug cutter, and they would go about a quarter inch up the flat.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And cut into the side of the chisel.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: The tip of the chisel would stay intact, and you would have a plug cut removed from the top or the bottom of that chisel.
RUSH: Yeah, but how far up? I mean, you don’t want to have to swallow the damn thing to smoke it.
CALLER: Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t have to get very far. It seems you can direct the smoke to the top of your mouth or the bottom of your mouth, but you’re telling me all you do is just pinch the end off?
RUSH: I’ve got one in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers right here.
CALLER: Okay, sir. If you’re looking at…?
RUSH: Let me ask you a question. Are you a member of my website?
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Are you watching right now on the Dittocam?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Well, you will be able to see this later on the Dittocam, if you go to my website. Right?
CALLER: Okay, well, my computer right now is a little slow and a little down.
RUSH: You mean it’s not working?
CALLER: Uh, it’s working, a little bit, but…
RUSH: All right. So what you’re saying is you can’t watch video?
CALLER: No, I can’t.
RUSH: Okay, this is easy.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: What I’m going to do is I’m going to have the webmaster grab a still shot of what I’m going to do here.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: We’ll put the still shot on the website this afternoon when we update it, and you will see exactly what I’m talking about.
CALLER: Great!
RUSH: Okay? Now, I’m going to have to beg your indulgence because I’ve gotta zoom in the Dittocam here to the Double Ligero Chisel, and there it is. Oh, it’s going to refocus. Let me back it out. There it is, the band. What he’s talking about here, folks, is getting a circular cutter just put right in the top there about there and just go about an eighth of an inch in and pull that plug out — and then, with that, you put your cigar in your mouth and that way you have the smoke coming out of the top of the cigar.
CALLER: Absolutely correct.
RUSH: But this is not the way to do it. I’m going to point out, show the chisel here, and get it up against my black shirt so you can see why they call them a chisel. You just take your finger, pinch it like this. It now draws great. Let me back out here. I’m going to light it. I have not cut it. There’s not one hole in the wrapper, top or bottom. There is a barely detectable slit at the very end of the chisel. In this way when I draw the tobacco and the smoke from the cigar, it concentrates through that chisel for one of the finest tastes a cigar smoker will ever experience. The La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel is the strongest cigar I have ever smoked from anywhere.
CALLER: Well, you know, down at the shop that I buy mine from, I also buy other Double Ligeros that are not chisels, and they’re kind of astounded because I’ve smoked up to five of them on a Saturday afternoon.
RUSH: Well…
CALLER: This was the question, because my regular everyday cigar is a Punch Elite.
RUSH: Well, it’s like a much, much —
CALLER: Or sometimes if I don’t have the time, I can go with a Punch Rothschild.
RUSH: Well, those are much, much milder. Are you one of these people that start out with a mild cigar at the beginning of the day and then you get stronger as the day goes on?
CALLER: I’ll tell you how it happened. I was handed 55 Te-Amos back in 1990 by a friend of mine, and I was on third shift, and I used to listen to you religiously every day because I couldn’t sleep during the daytime.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah.
CALLER: And somewhere along that line, I heard you talking about the La Flors. I was a little reluctant to buy ’em at the time because I didn’t have the cash flow I do now, and they’re a little pricey.
RUSH: What do they cost you?
CALLER: A Double Ligero Chisel is about seven bucks a pop.
RUSH: Oh, you’re getting a deal.
CALLER: Well, I don’t know. There’s a couple of places that I found them a little cheaper if I buy ’em by the box load.
RUSH: Well, the point is this. You talking your Punches, your Rothschilds and —
CALLER: Yeah, I —
RUSH: No, no. Do you start your day with a mild cigar and then build up to a strong one after dinner? Is that what you do?
CALLER: My cigar smoking starts when I come home from work, and that could be anywhere from 6 to 6:30 in the evening.
RUSH: Oh, okay, well, then — because most people make the mistake of starting mild in the day and then get stronger as the day goes on.
CALLER: Oh, no.
RUSH: The first cigar you smoke of the day, I don’t care when it is, you smoke your favorite because that’s when your pallet is most receptive to the flavor.
CALLER: Saturday and Sundays are when I usually burn my La Flors, and I have sitting here in my… My humidor is a Ziploc bag with one of those (garbled) things or whatever they are.
RUSH: Well, everybody has to start somewhere. I’ve been there.
CALLER: Right. But I have three. They look like about a Churchill size or maybe a little longer.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: It’s called a Factory Press. They were not cellophane wrapped.
RUSH: No, of course. That’s a special edition cigar. I’ve got a box of those. Look, go to the website tonight. You’ll see what I’m talking about, on how to pinch this. You never cut one.