We’ve been having unseasonably warm weather here, not particularly warm, but not sub-zero winter weather either. I certainly prefer balmy temps but I’ll take not getting frostbitten fingers in January over the alternative. Not that the weather generally keeps me from my enjoyment of a fine cigar, I am more likely to try something new when I know that shivering isn’t going to knock the ash off.
Thursday I grabbed a Padilla Reserva Maduro that my local Oliva rep, Mike, handed me when I met up with him last month.
He was delivering the very impressive prizes for Day 12 of the 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways and slipped a couple Padilla cigars to me (Oliva is distributing Padilla cigars). I haven’t smoked many Padilla cigars over the years, and the few I’ve smoked I’ve really enjoyed. Of course, if I have some cigars to smoke and one is a maduro, you know that’s the one I’m smoking first! This was a beautiful dark and oily toro sized cigar, in the neighborhood of 6×50. The band has a really cool lion with the secondary band identifying it as the Reserva Maduro. I looked, but the website doesn’t have any information, but I bet a dollar that this is a San Andreas wrapper. It wowed me from the get go with everything I love in a maduro cigar. Overall a really enjoyable experiences, I will have to get my hands on more of these and add them to my list of favorites! Yum.
Friday night was rainy. I took the dog for a quick walk sans cigar as I’ve found the combination of dog, umbrella and cigar to be way too much to handle in the rain (and I’m guessing it would be no easier without the rain). I put the dog in the house and set up in the garage with a Dunhill Aged Reserva Especial 2003 which I received as a sample from the folks at General Cigar Company. This cigar is a Robusto Grande, measuring 5½” x 54 and is wrapped in a stunning U.S. Connecticut Shade wrapper. Clearly this is a cigar better suited to a walnut paneled parlor in front of a roaring fire than a garage on a rainy night, but my walnut paneled parlor was in the shop :-). This is a milder cigar with loads of bright flavors that kept me interested for the nearly an hour and a half it took me to smoke it. I’m looking forward to smoking another one of these, but with a $15 price tag it probably won’t be on my personal buy list, just too rich for my blood. Delicious smoke though.
Saturday was a very nice day after a rainy, foggy start. I took the dog on a nice long walk with a Gurkha 125th Anniversary Toro. This came in a sampler from the IPCPR show which was presented in a very cool package which is reminiscent of the sort of thing fine silverware 
settings might me stored in. Very cool presentation for trade show samples, but what else would one expect from Gurkha? Along with the 125th is a Ghost, a Seduction, a Cellar Reserve and a Royal Challenge, all in a 6″ x 
54ish chunky toro shape. Admittedly, I’ve been intimidated by the Gurkha line in the past due to the vast number of lines and my inability to every be able to keep them straight. I do love the Seduction, and I’ve sampled a few more that have made me want to explore the line further. The 125th is a solid cigar. The construction was darned near perfect, I love watching a well made cigar burn and this was beautiful. It was medium bodied and seemed to me like the kind of cigar that a lot of people would be able to enjoy. It was a very enjoyable 2 hour smoke, or a 3 mile walk with a 45 minute “warm down” on the patio. I still have a selection of Gurkha cigars that I haven’t tried yet. I’ll get to them when the weather warms up as they all seem to be in that toro or larger size. I smoked the Ghost a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, but was a little dissapointed, I guess I was expecting something different. I’ll smoke it again under better circumstances.
That’s about all I have for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
the wrapper wanted to stop burning. I don’t know if that’s because the store is kept a little too humid or what (the whole enormous space is kept humidified). Nobody else seemed to have a problem with their cigars and Walt mentioned having issues with that size. I haven’t myself in the past and it’s unusual to get a poorly made cigar from Drew Estate, but it really didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment. At one point we phoned in an order to the Red Robin and they delivered it to our comfy leather chairs. It was a great day and I even got to save some shipping by hand delivering Corey’s Day 11 prize. It was a great way to spend an afternoon, especially chain smoking Undercrowns. Glad I got that in before getting sick!
I’ve held you hostage long enough, it’s time to announce the winner of the Gurkha Goodies! Thanks again to Oliver at 
