Monthly Archives: January 2012

by | January 11, 2012 · 7:41 pm

A Few Short Smokes: Chateau Real, American Eagles and a Griffin’s

I dipped into the little guys for the early part of the week.  It’s been cold, and time has been limited.  I usually save up the little cigars for this time of year, coronas, half coronas, short 30 or 45 minute cigars that taste good, and are perfect for a quick mile or so walk around the neighborhood.

 

I began the week with a favorite, the Chateau Real Small Club Corona Maduro.  I believe these are discontinued, which is a shame, because I really like the Mexican maduro wrapper on these. As with everything from Drew Estate, they always burn well, and, let’s face it, a four inch cigar doesn’t have a lot of room for error.  I bought a box of these sometime in the fall of 2009, and just dug into the last half of the box.  Nice little smokes!

 

Last night I grabbed an American Eagles Half Corona, which I received a few months back from Chris at Sardell Imports.  This is a camouflage wrapped cigar, it had a beautiful Connecticut shade wrapper that’s overlaid with maduro and candella pieces to give it the camo look.  Sure, it’s gimmicky, but it’s a really solid cigar, perfect burn and draw, and a rich mid to medium bodied flavor that is really nice, smooth, creamy and delicious. It a fun cigar, quite tasty and well behaved. I have a whole comedy routine ready for the day I smoke one in a public place and someone complains about it. Seriously, a  portion of the proceeds from these cigars go toward the Semper Fi Fund, and they are blended by Hendrick Kelner, so they are very high quality. I side note, there was a cigar shop in the hotel I stayed at in the Dominican Republic that sold these.

 

This evening I decided to break into one of the boxes of Griffin’s 500 coronas that I inadvertently won on a face book contest. I swear, I have no recollection of entering, although I must have because a beautiful Griffin’s Humidor and two boxes of these beauties showed up at my door last month.  I can always use more humidor space, and these cigars are nice.  These 5 1/16″ x 42 coronas are a classic Connecticut shade cigar. Mild, but no shortage of flavor. Of course, the construction was perfect, as these come from the house of Davidoff.  I honestly have never had a Griffin’s before, always priced outside of my comfort zone.  This will be a great cigar for that first balmy Saturday morning on the deck with coffee.

 

Don’t forget to pester your elected officials about the FDA nonsense! It’s important!  Here’s the link to the form again:

 

That’s all for now, Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | January 8, 2012 · 10:08 am

Take A Cigar For a Walk – A Gurkha, a Maldonado Dynasty and a Rodrigo

We had our first taste of brutal cold here in the North-East, with night-time temps in the teens or lower with no shortage of wind. I guess I’m just a wimp, but I can’t do that kind of cold long enough to enjoy a cigar anymore! However, Friday turned out to be unseasonably warm, getting into the 50s.   Perfect excuse to smoke a cigar or two without shivering so much that I get ash everywhere.

 
I grabbed a Gurkha Seduction Robusto and went for a walk. I received this cigar as an unexpected gift from Gurkha, and I want to thank them for reaching out to me. Looking at this cigar, I had an idea it would be up my alley, nice, dark Habano wrapper, a chunky 5″ x 55 size, and the band is quite attractive, although the second band is a little too much, but you know how I feel about bands (I’m lazy and the fewer the better!). The cigar had a very open draw, I’ll probably use a punch on the next one and see how that works, but it really wasn’t too big a problem. The burn was just about perfect and required no attention after the initial light. The flavors were those nice, dark, rich flavors that I enjoy on a crisp evening, really a nice cigar in my opinion, I enjoyed it quite a bit, so much so that I smoked it to a finger burning nub.

 

Saturday brought even warmer temps and I took a nice long walk with a Maldonado Dynasty Mogul Toro. I’m a little conflicted on this cigar that I won a five pack of on CasasFumando.com.  An aside: I didn’t mean to enter their contest.  I made a donation to Daniel’s Movember project, just wanted to give some dough to a bro for his mo. I should have made a note to exclude me from the drawing, but I never thought I’d win.  I did, tried to get out of it, but Tony threatened me.  Back to the cigar.  This is the second one I’ve smoked, and both had some wrapper cracking issues. The flavor is nice enough, although not particularly mind-blowing to my palate, but I expect a cigar at this price point to not split. The wrapper is a really lovely rosado with a velvety appearance, very nice looking when you get past the tears in the leaf. These have been in my humidor for several weeks since receiving them, along with all the rest of the cigars I smoke on a regular basis.  Strange.  I have three more, which I will leave in the humidor for a few months and see if that makes a difference.  I look forward to revisiting these in a few months, because based upon the two samples I smoked so far, if I had smoked them blind I would have put them in the bundle cigar category, and I know these are sold as a super-premium luxury cigar.

 

I completely forgot to mention my first cigar of the new year, one that I smoked while taking the outdoor lights down on New Years Day.  I had a Rodrigo Habano Classico Belicoso that George Rodriguez had sent to me some time ago rolling around the humidor.  Out of the four he sent me, one of each vitola, this was my second favorite of the line behind the lancero. This beautifully made belicoso was a treat, and it burned perfectly, and was really tasty.  George seems like a really nice guy who makes some terrific smokes, even though he’s from Pittsburgh and is probably a Penguins fan.  I know some people from Pittsburgh that are Pens fans that I don’t hold that against, but not too many.

 

That’s it for today, don’t forget to write to your elected officials about the FDA nonsense, as our cigar smoking future depends upon the FDA NOT regulating premium cigars.

 

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | January 4, 2012 · 8:07 pm

The J. Fuego Originals and Citizens for Tobacco Rights

I realize that I’ve gotten everyone used to morning posts, but it’s back to work and back to writing when I can.  I have to admit, I’m experiencing some writer’s block at the moment, so bear with me please.  It’s gotten bitterly cold here in south-east, Pennsylvania, which is not awfully conducive to the proper enjoyment of a cigar.  My normal routine is to take a walk, which usually keeps me moving enough to enjoy a small cigar, as it turns out, the rigors of returning to work after a week plus off has left me without the energy to bother.  That’s my excuse, I’m sticking to it.

 

Monday I received a call from my brother-in-law, Jeff, who has recently taken to fine cigars.  He’s been picking one up at his local shop in New Jersey, and called me from my local shop while visiting for the holidays.  He wanted some inexpensive “everyday” cigars, and wanted my advice.  Oddly, on my last visit to the shop the previous Friday, I failed to really take a good look through the humidor.  I was able to direct him to the National Brand bundles, which happened to be in the same place I remembered thme being. Since he really enjoyed the Acid Kuba Kuba I gave him, and had been enjoying working his way through the Alec Bradley range, I figured they’d be a good bet.  I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share of National Brand maduros, and I hope he likes them too.  Naturally, since he was in the area, I invited him over for a smoke.  I had picked up a pack of the Jesus Fuego Sangre de Toro Originals while I was at the shop Friday.  I had been offered a sample at the IPCPR show by Jesus, but I never managed to get one for one reason or another.  I had enjoyed the heck out of the robusto in this blend, so I figured for $12.95 for five cigars I had to try them.  I’ll eventually try the other two blends in this size as it seems to be a very good “winter” size.  I really enjoyed the cigar.  Great flavor, the mold-less old style shape is fun and burned well, and I can’t wait to smoke another one.  That may be my equivalent to a “10” or whatever rating scale one uses.  Very good smokes.  I gave Jeff a Maria Mancini Magic Mountain to try which he enjoyed.  That’s a hard cigar to beat and they can be purchased for around $2.50 a piece if you find yourself in a JR store.

Editorial

In the “Editorial” department, I wanted to encourage everyone to sign up at Citizens for Tobacco Rights, which is sponsored by Philip Morris USA. Now, I understand that this site is not cigar specific, and is provided by a cigarette company, but the challenges we face as cigar smokers certainly run parallel to those of our other tobacco product using brethren.  So far I’ve received no unwanted e-mail from them, and found no reason not to add my name to their numbers. Registration is free and they provide many of the same tools as Cigar Rights of America and IPCPR for contacting your elected officials. It can’t hurt to take every opportunity we have to have our voices heard as our rights are being eroded. Please write to your senator and congressman about the FDA issue too, there’s a link in my sidebar to enter your zip code and take you to a pre-writen letter you can send.  It really will be a problem if the FDA is allowed to regulate cigars.  Our hobby and passion will be ruined at best, and criminalized at worst.

 

I guess I did OK considering I had no clue what I was going to write about. Please let me know what you think in the comments, and feel free to share your smoking experiences as well!

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | January 1, 2012 · 10:02 am

Happy New Cigar Year! A Macanudo, an Emilio and a Gurkha

Welcome to 2012 on CigarCraig.com!  I can’t imagine that this year can be better than last year for me cigar-wise, but I’ll do my best to at least come close.  2011 saw trips to Nicaragua and The Dominican Republic, as well as a trip to the IPCPR show in Las Vegas.  I made a lot of new friends in the industry, including a bunch of fellow blogger types.  We culminated the year with a huge series of contests that broke all kinds of records here.  Thank you all for a great 2011!  Looking forward to seeing what the new year brings.

 

While I’ve had the week off this past week I’ve had a few occasions for a cigar, but I’ll just mention the notable ones.  Most of them were good, most of them I’d smoked before and don’t want to be repetitive.  I kinda wanted to take the week off from what passes as reviews around here after the rigors of posting 14 days in a row! Here’s a couple cigars that were notable, at least to me.  First I had a Macanudo 1968 Robusto on Christmas Day, with my brother-in-law, who is finding that he enjoys good cigars.  I set him up with a little travel humidor for Christmas and he seems to be getting a lot of use out of it.  The 1968 was from a box that I brought back form my General Cigar visit. I’ve smoked a bunch of these over the past few years and I’m still surprised by how strong they are.  The Macanudo name on the band always fools me.  It was a notable cigar as much for the company and occasion as anything else, but I do enjoy the 1968 line quite a bit.

 

Friday I paid a visit to my local shop, JM Cigars in Exton.  I met an old friend, Bruce, there for a smoke and to catch up. I had hope a few more friends would stop by, but was more than happy to while away the afternoon with Bruce and a Emilio AF2 BMF.  I picked up a couple of these 6″ x 58 monsters because I hadn’t had the AF2 in this size, and I really liked the AF1 in the same vitola. These were very reasonably priced and I thoroughly enjoyed this cigar for 1½ to almost 2 hours. Loads of flavor and well made.  I was really glad to see these in JM’s and wouldn’t have even thought to look if my wife hadn’t spied an empty box by the door on our last visit.

 

Saturday I took an uncustomary early walk so I selected a Gurkha Cellar Reserve Churchill, which came last month in a truly unexpected package from the manufacturer.  This cigar boasts 15 year aged tobaccos and is a stunning cigar.  I wonder why a 7″ x 54 feels so much more massive than a 6″ x 58 or 60? Does length play that much of a roll in our perception? Maybe….anyway, this was a nice enough cigar for a pre-lunch smoke, looking forward to seeing how some humidor time treats these, even though they have 15 years age on some of the leaf. I’m also not a huge Criollo wrapper fan, but this one was pretty good..  Not overpowering, enough flavor to maintain interest, and a perfect burn.  Many thanks to Oliver at Beach CIgar Group for thinking of me.

 

I had another Berger and Argenti Mooch Loll Maduro this week which was really tasty too!  I love this line.   Also, Santa brought me a new video camera and an IPod Touch which have already been used for some of the pictures on this page, and will simplify things for me here and there.

 

That about wraps it up for today. Enjoy the holiday, watch the Winter Classic tomorrow and I hope 2012 can be even better thank 2011 was!

 

CigarCraig

 

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