Monthly Archives: May 2011

by CigarCraig | May 11, 2011 · 10:43 pm

Take A Cigar For A Walk: The Return of Tommy!

I recently dropped Tommy a line to see how he was doing and he responded with this Take A Cigar For A Walk review:

Well, I have been so busy getting ready to close on a new home for my family that I had put the walking to the back burner…but boy do I need to be walking! So, last night I did just that! I set out on my walk with a very simple cigar, a Don Elias. I had picked up a bunch of these awhile back for little to nothing. These cigars don’t look like much and their bands make them look even less. But, myself and a few other friends have fallen in love with these cigars. They are quiet mild, but burn perfectly, as this one did on my walk…and the flavor is great! My walk went really well. The weather was nice, especially since it has been very windy around here lately. However, I had absolutely no issues with the burn, it burned evenly throughout the entire 60 minute walk. I would highly recommend that you try at least one of these cigars. You will want to get your hands on one…then let it rest in a good humidor for many months…and then I think you will be pleased. Again, this is a mild cigar, but even for me…a more full body smoker…I really enjoy this stick on occasion.

On my health, I have not been walking as I should and I am paying for it! I cannot wait until this move is out of my way so I can stop making excuses and move on with the walks. I did do one thing for myself this weekend…I signed up for a former Marine ran Boot Camp that I will be joining in a few weeks! Now, a lot of folks think that these “exercise” Boot Camps are just for girls…no, they are for us all! I am looking forward to being able to get started…and hopefully be whipped back into shape soon. I am looking forward to the military aspect of it, as I know that I need someone in my face making me go further and pushing me to places that currently, I don’t think I can go to. This will be a good eye opener for me. Health is important, and I have put this on the back burner for way too long. With this, this should give me more time with taking a cigar for a walk as I will be required to exercise daily and give feedback to my sergeant. I will keep you all posted as I get closer to the starting date.

So, get out there…enjoy the warm air and light up a good cigar for yourself.

Long ashes to ya! –Tommy

As for me, I took a special cigar for a walk last night, a God of Fire from Prometheus, generously gifted to me by my favorite USAF Lt. Colonel, DB. This was a torpedo with the secondary band identifying it as a Carlito 2006, which isn’t listed on the webpage. The webpage doesn’t list too much information about these, but it does indicate that they are pricey as all get out. I usually don’t pay too much attention to cold draws, but this one tasted just like milk chocolate! It lit and burned very nicely, and had a nice flavor. I’d call this medium myself, but others may lean more toward full. Overall it was a very nice cigar on a very nice spring evening and it was a great accompaniment for my walk, a special treat I never would have otherwise had the chance to smoke. Thank you very much DB, you sent me some extremely nice cigars for the very small favor I did for you. Totally over the top! I think I’ve mentioned before that DB sent a few cigars in a very nice Casa Magna box which I’ve since pressed into service in the coolerdor holding the prized cigars I brought back from Cigar Safari! I hope to one day have the pleasure of meeting you and sharing a cigar. Tonight I grabbed an old standby as I had limited time, a Partagas Petit Coronas Especiales. I broke into the bottom layer of the box and these just keep getting better and better. Another fine way to get a little exercise on a beautiful evening.

That about wraps it up for now. Best of luck again to Tommy in his house buying AND his boot camp!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Guest Review, Review, Take a Cigar For a Walk

Tagged as cigar, cigars, God of Fire, Partagas, Take A Cigar For A Walk

by CigarCraig | May 8, 2011 · 9:47 am

A Para Japon, a Rodrigo Toro and LGC Serie N Cigar Contest Winner Announced!

Today is Mother’s Day, so take care of the mothers in your life today instead of reading this nonsense you goons! I’ll be selecting something nice to smoke in honor of my mother, my children’s mother, my daughter the new mother, and moms everywhere. So do something nice for all the mothers in your life!

This week I smoked one of the Para Japón cigars from La Aurora which I won in a contest on CasasFumando.com. This is one of the blogs in my regular rotation that I recommend, Tony and Daniel produce some very nice reviews on a regular basis. Although I don’t drink, they always seem to pair their cigars with interesting looking beers and beverages. If you don’t visit regularly check them out. Thanks to them as well as the folks at Miami Cigar and Company and La Aurora Cigars for the opportunity to smoke this cigar which I may not have otherwise had the chance to smoke. The proceeds of the sale of these cigars will go directly to relief efforts in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck that nation on March 11. I remember seeing the devastation on TV while we were in Nicaragua. The cigar is a 5″ x 50 Robusto that has been aging at La Aurora for several years, they had made these and had them aging. When a group of bloggers were visiting the La Aurora factory and suggested this project, they decided to use these cigars and came up with bands and packaging in a very short time. Kudos to all involved in getting a cigar to market so quickly for a noble cause. On to the cigar, it has a fairly dry Nicaraguan wrapper and woody flavor. The burn was excellent and I enjoyed it to a finger burning nub. A very nice cigar.

I decided to continue on a Dominican theme and selected a Rodrigo Toro for my evening walk last night. Fellow Pennsylvanian George Rodriguez generously sent me a sampler of these and I had previously smoked the Robusto and Lancero, the latter being my favorite of the two. The toro is 6″ x 50 and the example I smoked was badly cracked at the foot. The crack wasn’t too detrimental but it did effect the burn a bit as the wrapper separated from the binder a little and it required a few touch ups. The wrapper was what I would call “rustic”, not the prettiest cigar. The Lancero remains my favorite so far, with the torpedo remaining. The flavors were nice enough and it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t work as well for me as the Lancero did. Still a nice cigar, I’ll be interested in seeing where these fall retail price-wise.

I promised to announce a winner of another five-pack of yummy La Gloria Cubana Serie N JSBs and I am a man of my word. I’d like to thank Team La Gloria, as well as Victoria from General Cigar Co. for providing a box of these fine cigars to give away. After this there will be one more fiver for next month’s contest, after which I’ll have to start scrounging for some more contest prizes. I still have a few items in the contest box though, so never fear! Anyway, the winner of a five-pack of Serie N cigars is Allen, selected randomly using the random number generator at Random.org. Congrats Allen, please e-mail me your address so that I can send these out to you!

That’s it for now, Happy Mother’s Day all,until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Review, Take a Cigar For a Walk

Tagged as cigar, cigars, Contest, general, general cigars, La Aurora, La Gloria Cubana, Para Japon, rodrigo

by CigarCraig | May 4, 2011 · 7:24 pm

La Aurora Puro Vintage 2003 and Emilio AF1 BMF

Today I am bringing you a contrast of sorts. Two very different cigars, both excellent. The first was a gift from Chris Lenzo, the Miami Cigar & Company sales rep whom I met on Saturday when I was celebrating the birth of my grand-daughter with Guillermo Leon at the Wooden Indian in Havertown, PA. The second was a sample provided by Gary Griffith of Delaware Cigars for review. Both were enormous in size and pleasure!

The La Aurora Puro Vintage 2003 is a very special cigar. My understanding is that there were only 12,000 of these produced in 2008 from 5 year old tobacco that was entirely from the 2003 crop. It’s a big beautiful figurado shaped cigar, measuring a whopping 7.2″ x 52, but it felt bigger! The wrapper was stunning and it was well made, a tribute to the few rollers that can make this shape cigar. It held the ash for my entire 1 mile walk, it looked like I was just getting started when I got back to my front porch, where I spent the next hour and a half luxuriating in the delicate nuances of this cigar. What a special treat that I dedicated to my daughter the new mom. It is definitely a rare and expensive cigar that I won’t likely have the chance to smoke again anytime soon! A special treat, thank you Chris!

Last night, after Alan Price had inquired on Sunday, I decided to sit down with an Emilio AF1 BMF for the evening. This is another enormous cigar, 6″ x 58, with a dry, dark Mexican maduro wrapper (one of my favorites!). I was thinking about the front-mark BMF, trying to work out it’s significance. I ruled out “By My Father” since it’s a published fact that this is made by A.J. Fernandez in Esteli, not Pepin Garcia. I haven’t looked up the price on these, so “Blow My Fortune” is a possibility. I settled on “Big Mother F***er” since that seemed to fit the best, because it is a gigantic cigar. This cigar is bold out of the gate. It’s very much in line with my cigar preference, it’s full bodied, it’s full flavored, and has the dark roast, dark cocoa flavors I look for in a maduro cigar. This is another cigar that occupied nearly 2 hours of my time. It burned dead even and had a perfect draw, neither too firm nor too loose. I can’t wait to smoke the other sample, which is a standard 6″ x 50, toro I believe. Gary has something with the Emilio and the Grimalkin, (which maybe could be called a BMF too?) which, while very different cigars are both excellent. I may have to grab a few the next time I visit the Wooden Indian as they are listed as a retailer.

Just prior to writing this post I received an e-mail from Tommy Berry, Jr., who has been busy purchasing a house and passing his ham radio license test. He admits to slacking off and not sending “Take a Cigar for a Walk” updates. I hope when things settle down he can get back to walking and sending in some reviews!

Don’t forget to leave a comment on my last post for a chance to win a five pack of La Gloria Cubana Serie N cigars, and also see the bottom of this entry for information on a discount code generously provided by StogieBoys.com!

Until the next time,

Cigar Craig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, Contest, Emilio, Grimalkin, La Aurora, La Gloria Cubana, wooden indian

by CigarCraig | May 1, 2011 · 12:37 pm

An Exceptionally Good Saturday: A Celebration Cigar with Guillermo Leon and a contest!

Yesterday was a fantastic day. It kind of began Friday evening with a call from our daughter that her water had broke (it’s VERY important to know at this point that she was pregnant at the time, but not due for a couple weeks). We received a text message at 3:30 yesterday morning that she has delivered a 6 pound, 13 oz baby girl, much to our delight. Naturally, there’s no getting back to sleep after receiving such news! We were at the birth center before 7 to meet our first grandchild. We spent a couple hours admiring the child and left them alone to get their new parent training. They were in a “birth center” that was very small, not really conducive to visitors, and very busy. Under normal circumstances they would be sent home twelve hours after delivery! Crazy stuff. So we went about our business running usual Saturday errands. “Pop” and “Tynnie” are very proud grandparents!

After lunch I took a ride down to The Wooden Indian in Havertown, PA (coincidentally where my daughter and son-in-law live). They were having a La Aurora event with a longest ash contest (in which I didn’t participate), hosted by Guillermo Leon, as well as Chris Lenzo of Miami Cigar & Co. Another point relevant to this story: Our daughter’s name is Aurora, and the first box of premium cigars I purchased were LA Aurora Bristol Especiales back in 1996. So with the intention of smoking a celebratory cigar, and meeting Señor Leon, I picked up a La Aurora 107 Lancero and a Guillermo Leon Signature Corona Gorda and got to work celebrating. I expected a large crowd. Previous events I’ve attended at the store have been packed. I wish the event had drawn a bigger crowd, but it was much more comfortable and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to hang out with Guillermo and really get to chat with him. Such a gentleman, very easy to talk to and really embraces the “new media”. Of course, I had to smoke the Signature Corona Gorda that he handed me, and it was a dynamite cigar. Very smooth and flavorful. He told me that it has two binders, one of which is Cameroon which definitely comes through midway through the cigar. Very complex and interesting, and ideal cigar to celebrate the day. Havertown is about 45 minutes from Downingtown, and the ride home was wonderful.

When I got home I watched the last period of game one of the NHL Eastern Conference Semifinals in which the Flyers lost badly. Besides that it was a great day. My wife and I then went shopping for baby girl stuff and went back to the hospital to visit baby and parents, who had been checked in as a precaution and are going home today.

I’m often asked what this blog is about, and I tell them it’s about what I’m doing when I smoke a cigar, and why I like the cigar I’m smoking. I am not a good technical reviewer, there are plenty of them, (CasasFumando.com and Stogiereview.com come to mind immediately. BTW, many thanks to Tony at CasasFumando, I recently won a pair of Para Japón cigars by La Aurora from him!) see the sites in the left hand sidebar for some of my favorites, so I don’t feel the need to compete. I simply relate the things I’m doing, some my be exciting, some may be mundane, but it’s my way of enjoying cigars!

In my estimation, the recent turn of events calls for a contest! I have another 5 pack of La Gloria Cubana Serie N JSB cigars, generously provided by the fine folks at General Cigar. Leave a comment with your guess of my new grand daughter’s name to enter. Just leave a comment. In the moments after publishing this article, my daughter and her husband settled on the name Willow, so guessing it would be very easy. I’ll select a winner randomly. Contest rules can be found on the Winner and Rules page. Keep in mind that I don’t know the baby’s name at the time of writing! She was a couple weeks early and the kids hadn’t decided yet!! Honestly I’ll accept any comment as an entry, just trying to make it a little interesting, guessing baby names isn’t exactly a guy thing, is it? I’ll pick a winner next weekend sometime (it’s Mother’s Day, don’t forget!)

Anyway, I’m trying to decide between the enormous La Aurora Puro Vintage 2003 or the 107 Lancero for today’s walk, or there’s a really old Perferido someplace, or even a Bristol Especiales that’s probably 10 years old….

Until the next time,

CigarCraig