Monthly Archives: August 2010

by | August 30, 2010 · 7:13 pm

Weekend Cigars: Oliva, Padron, Partagas and Punch – Monday August 30, 2010

I started the weekend out with an Oliva Serie V Belicoso which was given to me by the Oliva rep who was handing them out on my friend Mitchell‘s New York City dinner cruise we attended back in June.  It was a very nice cigar, a short torpedo more than a belicoso with a very pointy head.  It was pretty full flavored and satisfying.  Nice cigar, I really haven’t been disappointed with anything in this line, especially the Serie V.

Saturday afternoon I enjoyed a Padron 1964 Anniversary Superior in a natural wrapper that was given to me for my birthday last year.  Another very good cigar that burned well and was lush and flavorful, just as it should be.  I can’t recall ever really being let down by a Padron, whether the regular line or the Anniversary.  I can’t say I’ve smoked the higher end Padrons, just a smattering of 1964s and the odd 1926. Later in the evening I sat down with another Partagas Petit Coronas Especiale which has become a favorite of mine lately.

Sunday I celebrated completing yet another journey around the sun, and. after my wife and children took me out to a nice breakfast, I dug deep into the humidor and selected a Havana Punch Tubed Churchill.  This cigar came into my possession sometime in 2000.  It was part of a prize pack that came from a gentleman named John Chunko who started a thread on the alt.smokers.cigars newsgroup and awarded random prizes to contributors.  John was a generous soul who, though various events, was responsible for introducing me to some wonderful cigars that I wouldn’t have otherwise had the occasion to sample.  I’ve forgotten what other cigars were included in this package, except for a Romeo y Julieta Celestiales finos from 1977, which I still have.  I had decided that it would be appropriate to celebrate my 47th trip around the sun with a 47 ring gauge cigar.  This Churchill was really very pretty once it emerged from it’s aluminum tube and lit easily.  I was surprised by the firmness of the draw for such a well aged cigar but the flavors…..oh the flavors!  It was a delicate and subtle cigar, not the full flavored powerhouse one would expect.  I was often amazed by some of the fascinating flavors that danced around my mouth.  Truly a sublime experience.  I smoked this at my local cigar store, JM Cigars in Exton, PA, in their lounge while catching up with an old friend Bruce who recent;y moved into the area.  Often times I felt like I was being rude as I got lost momentarily in the cigar.  I selected this cigar over a Romeo y Julieta Tubed Churchill because I’ve had a few RyJ Churchills (non-tubed) that didn’t really “wow” me.  This one must also be approaching 10 years old, so I have high hopes for it.  It was a nice way to celebrate the day.

That’s about it for now.  Please remember to enter the current contest which will end this week sometime.  You could win a Drew Estate hat, Liga Privada cutter and a Liga Privada T52 Belicoso.  Click here to leave a comment for a chance to win!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | August 25, 2010 · 7:55 pm

The Week’s Cigars So Far: CAO, Dirty Rat, Chateau Real…and a Contest! – Wednesday August 25, 2010

Got the week of to a good start with a really nice CAO VR Moby, a 6″ x 50 maduro toro.  I have enjoyed the three examples I’ve had which my wife bought for me for Valentines Day.  They were part of several 5 pack samplers she got from Cigars International.  I believe these are made for CI.  I think these are a nice, medium maduro that is very well made.  I’m not one for identifying specific flavors, but peppery is definitely a flavor descriptor that I’d use with this cigar.    I don’t know that I would drop a c-note on a box of 20, but I suppose they are worth $5 each compared with a lot of cigars out there.

I decided to wrap up the weekend with a treat and grabbed a Liga Privada Dirty Rat from the humidor.  This was one that Steve Saka had given me a few months back.  I have to say that this is just about cigar perfection.  The corona size is very appealing to me, and it’s just a really pretty cigar.  The dark and oily wrapper, the funny pigtail, it’s just so appealing.  Then you light it, and it burns razor straight with a nice flat coal and draws perfectly.  Steve says they cost more to make than the double coronas, and considering this little corona had five different filler tobaccos packed into it’s stalk cut Connecticut wrapper, it’s no surprise at the cost.  The leaves have to be scissor cut to fit them in.  Lot’s of labor involved but what a fantastic smoking experience.  I’ve enjoyed all of the Liga Privadas I’ve had, and I don’t often spend upwards of $10 on a cigar.  Exceptional cigar that will be worth the occasional splurge when they hit the shelves sometime this September.

Monday I went for a Chateau Real Gran Templar in claro.  Another cigar I really like and is consistently good.  I decided on this particular cigar since I had just come off the excellent experience of the Dirty Rat, and wanted something quite different, but without any surprises.  This cigar shared the excellent construction with its cousin the Rat, and had a clean and smooth flavor.  The Connecticut shade wrapper was without flaw and quite pretty.  Another cigar that’s more expensive than I generally prefer, but worth it. I really think Drew Estate is making good cigars, but I have to say that while their website is nice and flashy, it’s kind of a pain if one wants to link directly to a specific cigar and sometimes takes a little while to load up.  It does have a lot of good information though, which is better than some sites.

On to the contest!

Since I smoked a couple Drew Estate cigars this week, let’s go ahead and give away a DE hat and a Liga Privada cutter.  As a special bonus I will sweeten the deal with a brand new Liga Privada T52 in the Belicoso size.  While I was visiting the IPCPR show and saying goodbye to Saka, he threw several of these at me, so I feel the need to pay it forward!  I have yet to send out a cutter prize without including something to use the cutter on anyway, but this time it’s something that may not be in the stores yet.  So there ya go, that’s the prize.  Since I’ve been having trouble with my feline assistants lately, I’ll work on figuring out a clever selection process.  So leave me a comment which will be your entry.  I always enjoy comments anyway, but for some reason it seems that I get more when I give stuff away…not sure why that is…so bring on the comments and win some awesome stuff courtesy of Drew Estate!

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | August 21, 2010 · 1:01 pm

The Week(s) In Cigars – Friday August 20, 2010

Haven’t had the opportunity to talk about any of the cigars I’ve smoked recently, so here’s a little rundown of the past couple week’s highlights.

Back on the first night of our vacation in New Orleans I went to the hotel pool with my sons and fired up a Flor de Gonzales 90 Miles Robusto.  I’ve enjoyed the 5 pack I won on MyCigarAshes.com several months ago.  They are a nice, smooth tasty cigar that is well made.  If the Flor de Gonzales sandwich cigars are good, and I think they are, (especially for around $2.00 for a large torpedo or Churchill), these are even better.  Recommended.

The next night, as I had mentioned in my previous article, we found ourselves at Tobacco Exchange where I picked up a couple Tabacos Baez  Robustos.  Tabacos Baez Serie Sf cigars are made at Pepin Garcia’s My Father tabacalera in Nicaragua, they are 70% long filler and 30% short filler. It was one of the more reasonable priced cigars in the shop at $3.75 each.  I found it to be a well made cigar that was mild to medium bodied.  I enjoyed mine, but my eldest son felt that it didn’t have enough flavor.  He’s still learning, and has been smoking the occasional Acid and was particularly impressed with a Liga Privada T52, so I really wasn’t surprised by his impression.  I found it to be an acceptable cigar that fit the situation for me, which was standing outside in New Orleans on a hot and muggy evening enjoying The Tobacco Exchange’s block party.

We went out to dinner with our old friends, the Sakas, as well as half the cigar store owners in the state of New Hampshire (2 of them at least, how many people can there be in New Hampshire anyway? :->), but oddly didn’t manage to smoke any cigars.  Steve did pass around a box of Dirty Rats, the first I’d seen with Liga Privada bands and box.  The Dirty Rat box was unique in that it had a notched strip at the head of the cigars to protect the pigtail cap and held 10 or 12 cigars (memory fail…).  I still have a handful of the pre-production Rats floating around the humidor someplace, these are really beautiful cigars. The restaurant was not smoke friendly, but the food was very good, I had a hanger steak which melted in my mouth.

Monday night my boys and I took a wander on Bourbon Street where I smoked a Partagas Petit Coronas Especiale which was just fantastic.  I really enjoy these cigars from Germany.  While we were wandering around we stopped for a while at the Cigar Factory of New Orleans little shop and watched a gentleman bunch cigars and load up molds.  He was a very skilled torcedor and it was educational for my sons.  I had a nice chat with the shop keeper about their cigars, even though I had gotten the whole story before at the main store.  I always enjoy hearing someone speak passionately about his product. I am looking forward to smoking the three cigars from Cigar Factory New Orleans in the near future.

Tuesday morning before we left I stopped in the IPCPR show I introduced myself to Pete Johnson and he very generously gave me an El Triunfador which must have been a No.2, if I remember the size correctly.  I smoked it while I walked around the show floor and found it to be a solid smoke.  It was satisfying without being overwhelming, which was a good thing for the early hour. Pete was a very nice guy, and I haven’t smoked s many of his cigars as I would like to have, so I was grateful for the gift.

After getting home it was back to business as usual.  I have been pretty lazy and have been avoiding some of the new cigars I received at the show and stuck to cigars I could smoke without worrying too much about them.  Smoked my last Vegas de Santiago Secretos de Maestro 4″ x 60, which was nice, but not as good as I remembered.  I had a really nice Chateau Real Maduro Gran Templar, which is a 6″ x 52 Toro.  The Chateau Real line is among my current favorites as far as flavor and consistency goes.  Smooth, low maintenance cigars that always seem to deliver for me.  I like them in both wrappers, but prefer the maduro.  I also smoked a Puros Indios Vieja corona which was OK, and a Maria Mancini Robusto Larga, which was better that the Puros Indios, but the PI wasn’t bad for a $1.00 cigar.  I have to say that the Maria Mancini was better than twice as good as the PI, despite being twice the price at $2.00.  The worst cigar I had over the last 2 weeks was a Vegas de Santiago Chaman Panatela Extra.  These just don’t do it for me, but are well made and certainly a quality cigar.  Not sure what it is that I don’t like about them, maybe a grassy profile or something.

That’s the catch-up for this week.  I have some interesting new cigars from the show that I’ll be getting to in the very near future.  I am really no good at reviewing cigars, but I do know a good cigar from a bad one, and I know what I like.  Hopefully folks can pick out some value from my brief impressions.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | August 16, 2010 · 8:20 am

Cigar Shops in The French Quarter – Monday August 16, 2010

Everyone is reporting on the IPCPR show which I covered from my perspective in my last installment.  I thought I’d try to take a little different angle and present some of the fine shops I encountered on my New Orleans Vacation.

My two sons watching Felipe wrap cigars

The first shop we came across was the Cigar Factory of New Orleans shop on Bourbon Street.  This is not too much more than a kiosk with a couple display cases of their cigars.  Cigar Factory of New Orleans rolls several of their own cigars in their larger shop and factory on Decatur Street, which is much larger and has many tables and chairs where you can sit and smoke and drink to your hearts content.  We made it in to the Decatur Street location and watched a gentleman expertly applying wrappers to robustos.  He was doing beautiful work.  As we were watching, one of the guys who works there came and started explaining what the rollers were doing, and then took us to the walk-in humidor and explained the blends to us.  I picked up a sampler containing the 3 blends, Plantation Reserve, Vieux Carre and  Tres Hermanos in the corona size.  While I thought the prices were fairly high on the cigars in general, considering that they are rolled on the premises and Louisiana taxes, I  suppose they weren’t too far off the mark.  I paid $22.00 for the cedar box of 3 cigars with a box of matches and a paper describing the cigars.

As we were wandering around Bourbon Street on Saturday night, we managed to find our way to The Tobacco Exchange on Exchange Place (an alley between Bienville and Conti Streets).  This was the first full service tobacconist that we came across and was a very nice store.  While their prices were high from my perspective, and remember that I live in Pennsylvania which has no cigar tax, they had a very nice selection of cigars.  They were having a customer and supplier appreciation event at the time and had food and beverages in the alley and I looked out the window of the humidor and Rocky Patel was there hanging out.  I picked up a couple Tabacos Beaez robustos to smoke while we hung out. A very nice store and the staff was knowledgeable and very nice.  They have a beautiful lounge as well.  Highly recommended if you find yourself in the French Quarter.

Another full service tobacconist we ran across was the Crescent City Cigar Shop on Orleans St. They also had a fine selection of cigars at what appeared to be normal local prices.  They also have a nice smoking area and boast the largest walk-in humidor in the French Quarter.  Another shop worth mentioning is Don Leoncio Cigars on Canal Street.  I took a quick walk-through and there was ample seating and a well stocked walk-in.  By all accounts this was a hot-bed of activity during the IPCPR show as I read many reports of folks hanging out there after the show and the various events afterward.

There were a lot of interesting shops along Bourbon Street and around the French Quarter that sold cigars, most of which had a couple boxes of premium cigars at exorbitant prices. As we walked around while we were there we often encountered cigar smokers, I  guess the atmosphere of Bourbon Street with it’s all night, bar-to-bar party lends itself to cigars.  The aroma of a fine cigar was a pleasant change from the other aromas there.

That’s about it for this time.  Next installment I’ll touch upon the cigars I smoked during my trip and since.

CigarCraig

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by | August 11, 2010 · 4:00 pm

My Latest Cigar Adventures, IPCPR Show – Wednesday August 11, 2010

My family vacation to New Orleans this past weekend allowed me the opportunity to make a quick stop at the annual International Premium Cigar and  Pipe Retailers convention.  The IPCPR’s annual show is where all of the manufacturers and distributors gather to sell their wares to the retailers.  I had 3 hours to spend at the show as I had to catch a plane, so I tried to visit as many old friends as I could and meet some new ones.  As I was standing in the wrong line to register I met Wesley Gensel, who handles several brands of cigars from Brazil.  He had been interviewed not long ago on  Dogwatch Cigar Radio, real nice guy.  I moved from the “exhibitors” line to the empty “retailers” line and got my badge and waited to enter the show where I struck up a conversation with Thomas Bender and a couple of his cohorts from Cigar Weekly.  I also ran into Mark Aub from Brother’s of the Leaf/Palio whom I had met a couple months ago.

At about 10 minutes to 10 they opened the doors to the show.  I remember two years ago when we visited the show in Vegas it was like opening the floodgates when the show opened.  This time it wasn’t quite so crowded.  I’m not sure if it was a lower turnout or the exhibit space was larger, but it just seemed like there was a lot more room to move.  I headed over to the Drew Estate booth (which was awarded “Best in Show”) and Steve Saka was there, who is an old friend, and I introduced myself to Jonathan Drew and Johnny Brooke, whom I hadn’t met before.  It was nice to see Marvin Samel again, as well as Dave Lafferty and Kevin McCormack,  the sales guys for my area.  The booth was loaded with sneakers.  Racks of hightops on the floor and shelves of them around the perimeter.  Very cool and quite different.  I didn’t notice if Saka was wearing a pair of Liga Privada Chuck Taylors or not.

I stopped and introduced myself to Pete Johnson of Tatuaje and Dion Giolito of Illusione cigars.  I stopped to see Charlie Toraño, who’s booth was quite busy, said hello to Sam Leccia and  Dave Weber at the Oliva booth.  Stopped by the Camacho booth to see Christian Eiroa, and ran into old friend Bobby Holstein from Fuji Publishing, who used me to mule a cup of Scotch to Saka.  I also stopped by the CAO booth to see Paul Spence, whom I’ve met on several occasions before, and said hello to Jon Huber on the way out.   I was able to meet Bob and Dale from Dogwatch Cigar Radio finally, after having corresponded with them for quite a while, and ran into the crew from Stogie Review, of whom I’d only met Walt White prior. I also ran into Scott Smyth of Scott Smyths World of Cigars while talking to Kurt Kendall of 7-20-4 Cigars, both of whom were very nice guys.  I also ran into Abe Dababneh of Smoke Inn, whom I had met at the 2008 show.  He is on the IPCPR board and gave me some very interesting information about why they have restricted the number of passes available to retailers for the show.  It seems that some retailer was buying additional passes and reselling them to their customers for a profit.  They currently only allow two passes per store from what I’m led to believe.  I may have to break down and get press credentials the next time I go!

One of the highlights for me was visiting the General Cigar booth.  I had been contacted (me and a bunch of other blog types) by Victoria McKee Jaworski, General’s Director of Public Relations, some time ago and stopped to say hello. She was busy with a customer, but her assistant gave me the tour of the booth, introducing me to the brand managers and providing me with samples of some of the new offerings.  In the not so distant future I will be smoking a new Macanudo, the Cru Royale, a couple new La Glorias and a new Hoyo de Monterrey.  What is most interesting about these new offerings is that they are not ridiculously priced.  I’m especially eager to try the LA Gloria Cubana Serie N, which is Nicaraguan and will have an “N” made out of light colored tobacco leaf  as part of the wrapper.  The presentations of all of these new items are very impressive and will stand out on tobacconist’s shelves.  They also have some pretty cool items that will be coming out for the holidays, various collections and samplers with lighters and ashtrays and such.  They also showed me a Partagas 150 humidor and a La Gloria Cubana Travel bag which were beautiful and very high end.  Along with the samples, they provided me with a CD with photos of everything, which is good because I took a bunch of pictures at the show on the macro setting and everything came out blurry…anyway my visit to General’s booth was extremely positive, and I’m pleased that they see a value in what people like me do (free advertising?) and really go a long way to make us feel welcome at what is supposed to be a selling show.

I was a little disappointed  that I couldn’t find the La Aurora booth, either it was hidden away or not as big as I expected, or I was just in such a hurried and sensory overloaded state that I missed it, hard to tell.   There were a few other blogger types that I had hoped to run into but didn’t, but in three hours I managed to cover a lot of ground and make some good contacts.  I wish I had some good pictures, but there will be plenty floating around.

In an unrelated note, I received an e-mail while I was away telling me that CigarCraig.com was included in an article, Top 50 Cigar Appreciation Blogs For Becoming a True Aficionado”, which is pretty cool!  I appreciate being included in their list.

More on my adventures the next time,

CigarCraig

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