Monthly Archives: June 2012

by | June 27, 2012 · 6:17 pm

A Visit to JR Cigars, Peter of ACigarSmoker.com, Nat Sherman, Don Pepin, etc.

Sunday I took a two and a half hour drive to have a cigar.  I went to JR Cigar’s store in Whippany, NJ to meet up with Peter Glad from ACigarSmoker.com.  The plan was to have a nice relaxing lunch and smoke a cigar, but it turns out that the restaurant is closed on Sundays in the summer!  This was a disappointment, as there’s just something special about sitting down at a table with a knife, fork and a Montecristo Tubo wrapped in a napkin.  Here’s a little suggestion for the folks at JRs, sell some beverages in the store?  They have all sorts of candy and nuts and baskets and leather jackets and assorted stuff. Get a cooler full of sodas, for crying out loud!  Anyway, my first stop was the gents room, and as I was coming down the stairs a guy asked me where the restaurant was and I pointed it out and went into the cigar shop to pick up a few things.  My phone rings a moment later and it was Peter, who turned out to be the guy who I had just directed to the apparently closed restaurant.  We picked out a few things including a Nat Sherman Omerta #7, which is a big 7″ x 54 double corona with a nice dark maduro wrapper. We repaired to the lounge and fired these bad boys up and spent a good 2 hours getting acquainted and trading stories and smokes.  Peter is doing a nice job writing for ACigarSmoker.com. He had big shoes to fill and seems to be keeping up rather nicely.  The cigar was very good.  I hadn’t had a Nat Sherman in a very long time, and this Nicaraguan was quite nice. I smoked Nat Sherman cigarettes briefly in the ’80s, and this was nothing like those, but it was chocolaty and with a nice amount of sweetness and it was good to the last drop.  I’m sure Peter will have a good review on his site (here it is).   I always enjoy meeting fellow cigar bloggers and have been fortunate to have met a bunch.  It was a great day and well worth the 5 hours driving time!

 

Last night I decided to smoke a cigar that I picked up at JRs, in retrospect I should have put it back after I cut it and found that it had a tight draw. Believe it or not, I had yet to smoke a Don Pepin Garcia Series JJ and was overly anxious to try one.  Nice flavor when I could get some smoke out of it, but I mangled it pretty good trying.  My mistake not letting a new purchase rest for a few weeks.  I also picked up a five-pack of Maria Mancini Robusto Largas and should have pulled an old one of those out of the humidor instead, but I didn’t.  I can’t wait to smoke one of the Series JJ in the future and hope that this one was a fluke.  JR’s is an interesting store. It’s owned by Altadis, but it has a great deal of General Cigar product, owing mostly to the close ties Lew Rothman, former owner of JR’s, had with Villazon, which eventually became General. I miss Lew’s stories in the old JR catalogs.  Lew may be able to claim credit for giving the term “Herf” a wide distribution by featuring the word on a fighter pilot’s helmet on a catalog cover (winter 1997, if memory serves).  Prior to that point the term was unknown outside the alt.smokers.cigars usenet group (at least in the context of cigars!).  That’s more of a history lesson than I planned, unfortunately I don’t have anything more to say about the Series JJ, as I was left unsatisfied, but I’ll accept responsibility for this one.

 

That’s it for now, I’m going to try to pick something out that won’t disappoint me for tonight’s smoke.  Check out Peter’s take on our meeting Sunday here, and  don’t forget to give a listen to last Saturday’s Kiss My Ash Radio show, where I didn’t make as much of a fool of myself as I expected!  Keep an eye out for another quick contest coming up and get on over to HoyodeMonterreyCigar.com and enter to win a box of Reposados!

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | June 24, 2012 · 8:39 am

Accessory/Website Review, Flor de Gonzales, San Lotano, KMA, Alec Bradley and Partagas

Last week I received an e-mail from CigarBargains.com about a Combo Cigar Cutter/Knife w/ Belt/Money Clip.  CigarBargains.com is a site run by CheapHumidors.com which allows one to negotiate with “Suzy” and work the price down.  I thought it would be a neat experiment and always kinda wanted a knife like this, knowing full well it would be crap for properly cutting a cigar (more on that later).  I buy stuff for a living, Buyer is actually my job title, so I know how this works.  I start out looking at the shipping and deciding how much I’m willing to pay. In this case, the farther under $10 the better.  Their starting offer for this item was $10.99, so my opening offer was $3.  “Suzy” replied with “I might have peed myself a little at your offer of $3.50. You need to be closer to $9.68.”.  This went on for a while, with various comments about needing a new purse, feeding the kids and such.  When all was said and done, I ended up getting this for $9.05 delivered, which met my requirements.  Shipping from Florida was reasonably quick as I received it on  Thursday after completing the transaction last Friday.  As anticipated, the knife does a reasonably good job of mangling a cigar, I had the strangest cut, but I have to admit it cut cleanly and I ended up having an excellent smoking experience.  I think it would work better using the blade to make a V cut, or, and I haven’t tried this yet, putting the cigar in the hole, putting the blade up to the cigar with a little pressure, and rotating the cigar, then pealing off the cap.  It was a worthwhile experiment, and there are some decent deals to be had with enough patience to follow through with the negotiating.

 

The cigar I cut with the new knife was a Flor de Gonzales 90 Miles Robusto, the last of a 5 pack I won well over 2 years ago.  I’ve enjoyed smoking these cigars, the construction was flawless and the flavors agreeable.  The poor cut, while offensive to my CDO (OCD in alphabetical order as it should be)  addled brain, was not a factor and didn’t take away from the experience.  It was a smooth, flavorful medium bodied smoke which I enjoyed to the fullest. The two years or so of age didn’t hurt this cigar either.

 

Friday evening calls for a little bit of a special cigar, so I selected a San Lotano Habano Lancero for my evening walk.  I had picked this up at a San Lotano event at Olde World Tobacco in Lancaster, PA several months ago.  This is a beautiful 7″ x 38 lancero, with a nice little pigtail cap.  I went back to my regular cutter for this one, no reason to risk mangling this cigar.  Burn was perfect.  I love it when a cigar burns with a nice flat ember, not pointy, all the tobaccos burning at exactly the same rate.  It’s a miracle that this can be accomplished and I always appreciate it it when I see it.  AJ Fernandez makes some terrific cigars, this was no different.  I love the lancero format.

 

Saturday morning I had the great pleasure of being the guest on Kiss My Ash Radio‘s Bloggers Corner segment.  I was nervous as hell, and there were some things I planned on mentioning but missed. Fortunately, Abe had done a piece on pairing root beers with cigars, which I’ve been doing for years.  I wanted to suggest Victory Brewery‘s root beer, as it is exceptional and made right here in my home town.  I even had notes and in my nervousness I didn’t look at them!  Oh well, I hope I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself, I appreciate being invited on the show.   Saturday afternoon I stopped by JM Cigars in Exton, PA to say hello to Jon Lipson, the Alec Bradley rep, who was having an event there.  I picked up a few American Classic Blends in Corona and Robusto and smoked a Corona while catching up with Jon and the folks at the shop.  For an absolutely stunning day I was surprised at the traffic in the store.  I guess I figure people have better things to do on a stunning Saturday, I know I did.  I enjoyed the American Classic Corona very much and went home to change the oil in the scooter and mow the lawn.

 

To finish up the day I fired up a Partagas 1845 Gigante that I received in a sample pack from General Cigar.  It’s a 6 x 60 that feels much bigger for some reason.  I took my son’s dog for a nice walk and enjoyed the heck out of this cigar. So far I think I liked the Robusto better, but this monster was very good, burned well and lasted for quite a while.  So far I’m impressed by this line, although I really can’t think of a Partagas cigar I really haven’t enjoyed, General Cigar Co. or otherwise.  Dirty little secret: Havana Partagas Presidente is one of my all time favorite cigars.  Give the Partagas 1845 a try, it’s a very tasty smoke.

 

I’m off today to Whippany, NJ to meet up with ACigarSmoker.com‘s Peter Glad at JR Cigars‘ store and lounge.  It’s always fun going to the store there and having a nice lunch and cigars, and I’m looking forward to meeting Peter.  Of course, stop on by if you’re in the area and say hello and join us for a smoke!

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | June 20, 2012 · 8:38 pm

A Monte Pascoal Cigar, Beatles and Other Assorted News Items

It’s been an odd week!  Since Sunday I’ve only managed a couple cigars, one of which was a Monte Pascoal Corona and the other doesn’t warrant mention, unfortunately.  The Monte Pascoal is a Brazilian puro and a very nice cigar. I’ve heard it described as “Cubanesque”, but I don’t get that.  What I get is a well made and tasty smoke.  I’ve smoked several sizes and I think this corona is one of my favorites.  It’s loaded with flavor.  The other cigar I had, which will remain nameless, was a disappointment, it didn’t draw well, and wasn’t particularly pretty, and the flavor was just OK, nothing special. I could excuse some of these in a cheap bundle cigar, but not in a Super Premium cigar.  I’ll write it off as another failed experiment and more forward.

 

News

In an odd cross-over, my friend Mitchell Orchant, of C.Gars Ltd., recently came into possession of, and sold, a rare framed presentation of Beatles banded cigars.  The story is currently featured on BeatlesNews.com.  I guess I need to hold on to the Burt Reynolds and Mickey Rooney cigars I have buried in a humidor someplace (I always wondered why the Mickey Rooney is a Churchill and not a robusto!)

 

In other news, I received an e-mail this week from Enrique Seijas telling me about his new project since leaving Altadis. CigarCountry.com sells name brand, premium cigars, and you can get them with custom printed cello or cedar sleeves.  The price is extremely competitive and I’m seriously looking for a good reason to buy a box with my name and website on the cello.  I wish they’d been around when my daughter was married, and they are a great step up from the usual “It’s A Boy/Girl” cigars.  It’s a very cool idea, check it out.

 

Some upcoming events to look forward to:  The Chattenooga Tweetup in August (info here). The Delaware Cigar Festival in September (info here, apologies to non-Facebook users!) I got an e-mail from Sir Stogies, a really nice little shop in Gilbertsville, PA saying that Jose Blanco was going to be there on Tuesday, June 26 at 11am. Another case of the day job getting in the way of fun!  Another event I plan on trying to get to is a Drew Estate event on Thursday, June 28 at a much more realistic time of 6pm, at the Humidor at the Leaf, which is Famous Smoke Shop’s retail store in Easton, PA.  Of course there’s the Jose Blanco blending event hosted by Buttheads Tobacco Emporium tomorrow, June 21, which will be a first of it’s kind live stream event.

 

I’ve come up with about as much non-sense as I can muster, but I have one more piece of business to attend to.  It seems that our winner of the last contest never came forward to collect his prize. I sent two e-mails and didn’t get a reply.  So I have to select an alternate winner.  Random.org spit the number 18 at me this time, which corresponds to my old buddy Bob Greene.  I’ve known Bob for years, and I’m certain he will enjoy Mitchell’s book!  Bob, please send your mailing address so I can get this stuff out to you!

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | June 17, 2012 · 7:03 pm

Father’s Day Cigar: Esperanza Para Los Niños, an Emilio and Some Odds and Ends

As has been my tradition for the last 13 years, I smoked a special cigar for Father’s Day.  I wrote this in my June 20, 2010 post:

Since purchasing a box of Esperanza Para los Niños in 2000 for Father’s day I have smoked one of these every year since.  The cigar is a beautiful box pressed maduro that was made by Christian Eiroa of Camacho to raise money for children orphaned by Hurricane Mitch, which devastated Honduras in 1998.  Christian was an active contributor to alt.smokers.cigars at the time and brought several people to his facility to work on the blend for this cigar, with the proceeds going to charity.  They came up with this amazing blend and sold 45,000 cigars through their dedicated website.  I purchased a box of toros, of which I have one left after smoking and gifting them sparingly over the years.  Tonight I smoked a Chruchill which was gifted to me by a good friend who won a box a few years ago and knew that they were very special to me.

I smoked the second to last Chruchill from the above mentioned batch and it smoked perfectly.  What was once a powerful cigar has mellowed, but is still loaded with delicious chocolaty flavors and was a great after breakfast cigar. Sure, it could have burned a little straighter, but it was exceptional tasting and I smoked it to a nub. Several other cigars from this batch had trouble around the band, an ammonia flavor that I wouldn’t expect from such an old cigar.  This one was outstanding.  I believe I have 3 left, one more Churchill,  a Torpedo and the last toro from the box I purchased in 2000, which will be the last one I smoke.  It was really dis-heartening when I came across a batch of these on close-out for $50 a box in 2002 when I was in a state of unemployment and buying a box of cigars wasn’t a possibility. When these are gone, they will be missed, but not forgotten.  Thanks to my kids for a nice Father’s Day!

 

Rewinding to Thursday, I needed a sure thing in anticipation of a long weekend (I worked at my second job both Friday and Saturday nights, I generally only work every 3rd Saturday, so this schedule wiped me out).  I selected an Emilio AF1 that I had picked up at Classic Cigar Parlor in Doylestown, PA a few weeks back.  They were clearing them out at $5 each so I cleared them out!  Like the above cigar, this is a great maduro, I love San Andreas maduro wrappers, and this is a great one.  It’s got a little bit of strength to it,  but is always a solid smoke and always hits my tastes just right.  It was the perfect cigar before taking a few days off from smoking.  Some of my favorite smokes have this wrapper. Maybe it’s because I started smoking Te Amo maduros years ago, or maybe the wrappers are really exceptional lately, I don’t know, but give me a San Andreas wrapped cigar and I’m a happy camper.

 

I apologize for the brevity of this installment, but I’m tired out from a busy weekend. To add insult to injury, a routine WordPress update caused my access to the dashboard (and thus, my ability to update the site at all), which caused me no shortage of grief.  All fixed now.   In unrelated news, I saw this on Antiques Roadshow last week and thought it was cool.  It’s a smoking jacked made from “cigar silks”, the ribbons used to tie half-wheels of cigars back in the late 1800s.  I recognized Upmann and 7-20-4 brands represented. What a lot of work went into making this!   Every now and then you see some neat tobacciana on there, I remember seeing a quilt as well as a really neat Hindenburg ashtray.

 

I’ve generously given the winner of Mitchell Orchant’s book, “Once Upon a Time in Cuba“, one more day to get in touch with me to collect his winnings.  I see I’m going to have to add some wording to the rules regarding getting in touch with me to collect the prize!  I naively expect people who enter to follow up to see if they won, or, at least, respond to direct e-mails!  Silly me!

 

Enough for now, it’s time to grab some “Z”s before the work-week begins again tomorrow! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

 

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by | June 13, 2012 · 6:49 pm

A Gurkha, An E-Doble, a Romeo and Some More News

Sunday my wife and I decided to take nice long walk before the heat of the day kicked in.  We needed to tire out the son’s dog, so she came along.  I grabbed a Gurkha Cellar Reserve Churchill since I wanted something reasonably mild for an early cigar, yet big enough to last the entire walk.  For some reason I have trouble walking now without a cigar!  Anyway, this is a nice enough cigar, it’s pretty big at 7″ x 54, and it’s well made.  The dog got a kick out of running into the creek, and we managed a 3 mile walk (through the park with the “no dogs” signs….oops!  what’s next, no smoking”)  I’m not a huge fan of Criollo wrappers, but I like this one enough for it to hold my interest through out the smoke.

 

After a day spent doing something other than what we had planned, I finished the day with an E-Doble from Smoke Inn.  This is such a beautiful cigar, burned perfectly even, has a terrific flavor, it’s hard to believe it’s a $50 per bundle cigar.  I can’t even begin to recall how many cigars I’ve smoked that have cost two or three times the price of this and was dissapointed by them.  Eric Espinosa (of EO Brands, 601, Murcialago, etc.) has a winner with this one.  I can see myself getting a bundle of these at some point, and I want to turn my brother-in-law on to them as well.  This is a cigar that he will enjoy, as will just about anyone especially if you don’t have a lot of cash to drop on cigars.  Really, really good. Thanks to Abe at Smoke Inn for sending me samples, I’m super impressed.

 

Monday evening my hand came out of the humidor holding a Romeo, the new offering from Altadis and Romeo y Julieta.   There are a few in the Romeo y Julieta range that I like, but most of them don’t do it for me.  This was a good cigar, the ash held for nearly half of it’s 5″ length, which I found to be impressive.  I suppose it was stronger than many cigars in the range, it wasn’t unpleasant at all, it just wasn’t really my cup of tea.  No fault to the cigar, it’s just me.  Technically it held up it’s end of the deal, it burned perfectly, and produced mouthfuls of smoke, and the wrapper was very pretty.  Try it if you get the chance, never rely on my tastes, I like Hamburger Helper for crying out loud!

 

News

 

Lot’s of news coming out recently!  Emilio Cigars had the Draig K leaving the factory at the end of the month.  The Draig K is a terrific cigar if you like a good maduro.  Gary also has the AF Suave hitting the shelves by the end of this month.  I haven’t had the opportunity to smoke this one, but it’s an Ecuadoran Connecticut wrapped cigar reportedly on the milder end of the Emilio range.

 

General Cigar has the Hoyo Reposado Box a Day Giveaway going on, the CAO Last Stick Standing promotion, as well as a Father’s Day contest on the La Gloria Cubana site.  I’ll have more on the Hoyo de Monterrey contest in the near future.  Follow the links for information on these promos.

 

Butthead’s Tobacco Emporium in Connecticut will be hosting what’s belived to be the first Virtual Cigar Workshop with José Blanco of Joya de Nicaragua on Thursday June 21.  José does an excellent presentation on cigar blending that’s a real eye opener.  He has cigars made with 4 different wrappers so one can taste how the wrapper effects the flavor of a cigar.  There’s some video and my impressions on my post from last year’s IPCPR show where I caught his blending session.  It’s a pretty cool experience and I recommend it highly. there is info available on the Butthead’s Tobacco Emporium site.

 

That’s about all I have for now, except to announce that if the winner of this month’s contest doesn’t contact me by Sunday, I may have to select another winner! I e-mailed directly, I shouldn’t have to work this hard to give stuff away!  Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

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