Monthly Archives: December 2020

by | December 30, 2020 · 9:15 pm

Two Cigars from Cigar Bundles Of Miami and My Top Ten Cigars I Didn’t Smoke in 2020

buy fluoxetine online https://cmmpsurgerycenter.com/images/layout6/png/fluoxetine.html no prescription pharmacy

I’m a sucker for a couple of things, pretty cigars and a good deal. I ran across both of these things last week and smoked a few cigars from Cigar Bundles of Miami, a small concern in Miami. Given the name of the company, this make perfect sense. I’m unsure who makes the cigars for them, I thought I had an idea, but I asked and my theory was debunked. Another thing I have a weakness for is a good candella, and I’ve found that I good candella seems to be made better when presented in combination with another wrapper. So the Negra Candela Maduro caught my eye, and a five-pack for $19.99 was too good to pass up. This is a Toro, I didn’t measure, but it seems a little longer than 6″ and maybe 52 ring gauge. This is a candela cigar with Maduro overlays, in a nice design. It looks like there’s a strip of Connecticut shade or Habano in the middle as an accent. It’s a beautiful cigar. It’s Nicaraguan from Jalapa with the maduro strips being San Andrés. It was a rich tasting cigar with the clean, refreshing taste of the candela, along with the cocoa and spice of the Nicaraguan and mexican tobacco. It was well made and burned perfectly and was a very enjoyable cigar.

 

The other cigar I picked up was the Miami Triple Wrap. I wasn’t expecting the Torpedo, but that’s what arrived, and I’m OK with that. It’s a 6 1/8″x 52 torpedo with Ecuadorian Connecticut, Habano and San Andrés maduro wrapper and Nicaraguan Binder and Filler. It has an attractive lattice pattern, can’t be easy or inexpensive to make, but was the same price as the Negra Candela Maduro (this is an introductory price, they are usually twice that. Still reasonable for a well made, artistic cigar).  This was a smooth, creamy cigar, with a pleasing flavor. It had some leather and nuts in the profile, and was a perfectly good cigar. I’d happily smoke it over many more expensive cigars, although of the two, I think the Negra Candela Maduro had bolder, more unique flavors that appealed to me more.  Both are beautiful cigars and a hell of a deal. I may have to get some more of the Negra Candela Maduro while they are still at the low price! I appreciate being able to easily communicate with the owner, and they have a Cigar Prop Sampler that is really neat! 

 

I said in a recent appearance on the Kaplowitz Media Podcast that I wasn’t going to do a list, and I really don’t believe in them too much as a rule. So my list is different, and I’m going

buy hydroxychloroquine online https://cmmpsurgerycenter.com/images/layout6/png/hydroxychloroquine.html no prescription pharmacy

to preface it with an important statement: this is not a mooch! I’ll get around to them! If I don’t get around to them, oh well! So here is my top ten cigars I didn’t smoke in 2020! 

  1. HVC Hotcackes
  2. The Diesel Whiskey Row Sherry Cask Holiday Edition
  3. Fratello  Pennsylvanian (I’ll get to this one, brand new!)
  4. Anything from Stallone Cigars
  5. Perla del Mar Habano
  6. Fuente Rare Pink (another really new one)
  7. BLTC Santa Muerte
  8. Red Meat Lovers Meat Box
  9. Placencia Alma anything (I’m way behind on this one)
  10. Southern Draw Jacobs Ladder Brimstone Un Presidente/Firethorn Augusta (toss up)

Like I said, not at all a mooch, I’ll catch up with them eventually. This was a stupid year, I smoked a lot of “inventory” and didn’t do a lot of acquiring of new cigars. I’m hoping to get to the TPE in May, and I hope things work out so I can get to visit cigar stores more in the coming months. 

 

That’s all for today, Happy New Year to everyone! Until next year, 

 

CigarCraig

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Editorial, Review

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | December 27, 2020 · 10:06 am

Holiday Weekend Cigars and the Big Contest Winner!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday, it was another quiet one around here. We prepared a nice feast and delivered some food to Mom and our daughter’s family, remaining socially distant. I tend to smoke some good stuff around the holidays, and more times than not, my version of “good stuff” is classics. In t

his case I smoked an Ashton VSG Belicoso #1 on Christmas Eve. I’ve been nursing a box of these for a few years and they are extremely delicious. Every time I smoke one I am reminded of how much I like them and could smoke them all the time. I guess it’s why it’s a treat. Earlier in the day I had a Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve Robusto which was a generous gift from a  Secret Santa that I took part in this year. That’s another great cigar made by Drew Estate. I almost liken it to a highly refined Kentucky Fire Cured, as it does share some commonalities.

 

Christmas Day brought a little Davidoff  702 Series 2000 Corona between doing some cooking and waiting to leave on the aforementioned rounds. Another tasty cigar that had been in the humidor for some time. This is a 5 1/16” x 42 medium bodied cigar that was smooth and creamy. Oddly, Davidoff’s website lists smoking times for each vitola, and they list this one at 25 minutes. Perhaps th

ey are going by Zino Davidoff’s habit of only smoking half the cigar, because I smoked this for about an hour, and all of the smoking time they list are easily 30 minutes or so short. Later in the day I went with about Fuente favorite, the Arturo Fuente Añejo No. 50. This is another box I am rather miserly with. Originally the Añejo was born when a fire destroyed (or a hurricane?) the curing barns where the Opus X wrappers were curing, ruining the crop, and they put Broadleaf wrappers on Opus bunches. I gotta tell ya, I’ll take an Añejo over an Opus any day of the week. It’s a delicious cigar, especially for desert. It’s sweet chocolate cake. Like the VSG, it’s tough to keep my hands out of the box. Last night I wrapped things up with a new classic, and a cigar that easily keeps up with the other great cigars I smoked this weekend, a Sobremesa Short Churchill. While it doesn’t have the Pedigree of the Fuentes or Davidoff, it certainly has the construction and flavor to compete. It was absolutely delicious and too short. It was a great cigar weekend, but aren’t they all!

 

Contest!

OK, Since you’ve probably already scrolled here, I’ll get to the point! Last week I had a giveaway for a whole bunch of great swag and cigars! Stuff from Montecristo, Drew Estate, Villiger and Foundation Cigar Co, and the Humidors of CigarCraig! I’ve consulted the Random Number Generator (Google has

one now, I don’t have to go to Random.org anymore), and between my randomization of the entries, and using the random number generator, it’s the digital equivalent of mixing slips of paper in a fishbowl. The selection process came up with Joseph as the winner! Please email me with your contact info and proof that you’re old enough. I hate to chase people and I tried to make it easy to email! I’ll see if I can come up with something else in the coming weeks! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig 

 

 

Share

7 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | December 20, 2020 · 10:46 am

CigarCraig’s 2020 Holiday Giveaway!

OK, I know it’s not the CigarCraig’s 12 Days of Giveaways, it’s been 5 years since that whole thing ended. We had a good run, but when the FDA scared all the cigar companies off of giving cigars away, it complicated things. I knew that trying to do twelve days of swag giveaways wouldn’t fly, and adding cigars out of my own humidor would break me (shipping already puts a hurting on me!). So it went the way of the Dodo. Fortunately, I find myself with some goodies accumulated over the year, so I put together one great present to close out the year! First, let me get something off my chest. Yesterday I smoked a Deadwood Leather Rose, which I really enjoy. It irks me when people call this cigar, and the other cigars in the Deadwood series, “infused”, or dare I say it, “flavored”. They are not. Sure they have a sweet cap, there are several traditional cigars that have a sweet cap. I don’t count the sweet cap as flavored. I really wish the folks at Drew Estate would be more vocal about this. I’d love to be able to reference a link on their site that states boldly “this (and the Larutan, for that matter) is NOT an infused cigar”. It uses non-traditional tobaccos, Syrian, Perique, Latakia, tobaccos more traditionally used in pipe tobaccos. I hate seeing social media posts that start something like “I don’t usually smoke flavored cigars, but I smoked a Sweet Jane…”and I feel compelled to say “you still didn’t! I feel like Drew Estate should help me out a little here! Heck, I’ve seen people argue with Vaughn Boyd (who owned Deadwood) for crying out loud! OK, enough of my ranting, I really enjoy the Leather Rose, and her sisters, and the Natural/Larutans too, although I don’t smoke many for some reason. They have a lot of flavor, and I like that.

 

Let’s get to the Giveaway!  We have a lot of stuff s buckle up. Back in August I went to a Golf tournament Sponsored by Goose’s Montecristo Lounge, and Goose was very generous and supplied me with some Montecristo swag which included a Montecristo cap, a really nice Montecristo table lighter and a cutter in a humidor bag. I am adding a Montecristo Espada from my humidor, and I might find something else when I get to rooting around. Speaking of Drew Estate, since they canceled the Barn Smokers this year, they very kindly sent out they Barnsmoker swag. I’ll be honest, I was on the fence about giving up the backpack, it’s really nice, but I have a ton of backpacks, and I talked myself into giving this one up (my wife talked me into it as well). There’s another lighter and cutter (here’s a secret, this lighter you can get away with stashing in your luggage when you fly!), a bottle opener and a cigar stand. I put together a samper of Drew Estate and Joya de Nicaragua cigars from my humidor to go with it. Next there’s a nice Villiger ceramic ashtray, to which I’ve added some Villiger cigars (again, from my humidor, unsmoked!), and finally, a Foundation cutter (I forgot to add a Foundation cigar to try it on, one will be added!).  So that’s an OK present, right? A little something for everyone, goodies for you, a hefty USPS bill for me! (I might do UPS since USPS has been sketchy as of late). Many thanks to my friends who generously provided these goodies! You know the rules! Leave a comment on this post to enter. No comments on Facebook, twitter or anywhere but this blog post will count. You must be of legal age in your jurisdiction to win (and prove it), and if you are selected as the winner, you need to e-mail me your information, please don’t make me track you down! I like to think the folks who win my contest are regular readers and, therefore, will see that they won! I’ll pick a winner next Sunday, December 27, 2020. Let’s see a ton of entries! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, whatever you like to celebrate.

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

Share

43 Comments

Filed under Contest

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | December 16, 2020 · 9:23 pm

La Aurora ADN Dominicano Churchill Cigar

We are in the midst of our first major snow event of 2020 today. All last winter when I was jobless and didn’t have a

nywhere to go  and had all the time in the world to shovel snow, not a flake. Now I have a job, and I have to get up early and go dig the car out. Fortunately, I only have a three mile commute, and I’ll probably have th

e place to myself for a few hours, but that suits me fine. Oh well, it beats not having a job! When I got home tonight after a harrowing 15 minute drive, I went with a favorite cigar, a Don Juan Calavera Maduro. I was pleased to see that Mark Weissenberger, a broker in the mid-atlantic area, and formerly of Rocky Patel, has picked up the Danli Honduras Tobacco line and they are starting to appear in more local stores. If you’ve been reading for the last year and a halfish, you know I’m a huge fan of the whole line.

 

I have been interested in smoking the La Aurora ADN Dominicano since it came out, and I saw them in the local shop last week and picked one up. It also should be common knowledge that I have a long standing affinity for the La Aurora brand. This goes back to the first box of cigars I bought back in 1996, and I bought it largely because my daughter’s name is Aurora, and she might still have the box, and I might still have one of those Bristol Especiales in the humidor someplace. It’s pretty old. The ADN (DNA in English), uses tobacco cured with the Andullo method, which involves tying the tobacco in ropes and wrapping it in palm leaves and pressing. There’s a detailed explanation here. This is a method that’s been used in the DR for many years. The cigar I picked up was a Churchill, 7″ x 47, which is a great size. I love a traditional Churchill. As much as I have an affinity for La Aurora, I’m about 50/50 on liking the cigars, some I like, some not so much. This one I really liked. It has a nice sweet flavor, along with some earthiness. It burned really well, and was quite enjoyable! This was one of the better La Aurora cigars I can remember smoking. 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Review

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | December 13, 2020 · 10:07 am

Dissident Bloc and Black Label Trading Co. Morphine Cigars

I had a busy week at work. A little background: In August I started a job as a warehouse manager for a company that delivers durable medical equipment directly to veterans. This was a new location for the company, which contracts with the Veterans Administration. The warehouse was just a big empty space, which the VAs (we work with three of them, whose inventories need to be kept separated), so everything was s

buy super cialis online https://alinagarbuz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/png/super-cialis.html no prescription pharmacy

tacked on the floor. I asked for pallet racks when I started, and the GM took it under consideration. After a few months, the VAs piled in the inventory, and I quickly ran out of room. I am a staff of one, by the way. So a few weeks ago I, once again, made an argument for pallet racks, which included three written estimates for local companies to

buy priligy online https://alinagarbuz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/png/priligy.html no prescription pharmacy

come in and install what I wanted. The GM ended up getting a great deal on a warehouse full of used racking, and sending me a load last week. So I spent the week moving stuff around and putting up ten foot high by 12 foot long pallet racks (some of it by myself). Now I have a warehouse that actually looks like a warehouse, is functional and efficient, not a pile of pallets that I have to move to get to things, and gets clogged every time I get another truck load of new stuff in. It made me a happy boy. This explains why I kinda phoned in my Wednesday post.  At 57 years old, putting up pallet rack all week, as well as doing all the other stuff I usually do during the day, whipped me. So I went out and bought myself a few new (to me) cigars to smoke.

 

I never claimed to be a hand model.

Oddly, or maybe not, my local shop didn’t have anything new to speak of. So I looked for cigars I hadn’t smoked yet. It’s getting harder to find those. They had some Black Label Trading Company selections, and since I had just posted about the new Morphine release, I grabbed a Morphine Lancero, along with a Dissident Bloc 7 x 43. I got home and decided to take the dogs for a walk with the Dissident. Since my son moved home with his dog, a young mixed breed with a dachshund head, cute dog, Macha has been refusing to take walks for the most part. I think the younger dog wears her out playing during the day. I was quickly reminded how great Macha is on leash! This little dog is all over the place, I’m constantly untangling leashes, getting pulled in opposite directions…nightmare. All the while juggling this really nice Dissident Bloc 7 x 43 BP.  The cigar is made at Oveja Negra, is box pressed with and Ecuador maduro wrapper, Ecuador binder and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. I rather wisel let this cigar go out about halfway through the walk when I went to relight it for the third time, so as to finish it in the peace of the porch without distraction. It had some earthy coffee notes, but, for the most part, was a really good tasting, medium bodied cigar. I loved the size, it was easy to deal with given my handful of dogs, and when I got to sit and relax, it smoked well and elt right. Like any smaller ring cigar, it needs to be smoked slower so as not to overheat and turn hot and bitter.

 

Like I said, I also picked up a Morphine. I usually buy cigars in twos, but I’m being budget conscious this time of year, and the shop where I got these is two miles from home, and they had plenty. I knew If I needed more I could get more in a hurry if need be. I’m going to assume tha

buy keflex online http://malpracticeexperts.com/new_layout/images/gif/keflex.html no prescription pharmacy

t this Black Label Trading Company Morphine Lancero is from the 2019 release. I am guessing this because The 2020 release was just announced, and Steve at the shop said he didn’t have anything new. This was a 7″ x 38 lancero with a San Andrés wrapper, Nicaraguan Habano binder and Nicaraguan filler. Again, small ring gauges need to be smoked slowly. Wrapper to binder ratio affecting flavor is a myth, it’s the heat from smoking faster that make

buy singulair online http://malpracticeexperts.com/new_layout/images/gif/singulair.html no prescription pharmacy

s it seem like it has a stronger or sharper flavor. Slow down when smoking smaller ring cigars. If you don’t believe me, ask Saka, he’s the one who I learned it from, argue with him (I dare ya). This Morphine Lancero is right in my wheelhouse. It’s a espresso with spice, although I did have to relight it a few times. Perhaps I smoked it too slowly. It was rich with some sweet earthiness and I dug it. Is it ironic to use “earthiness” and “dug” in the same sentence? I will probably have to stop in the Frazer CigarCigars shop and snag a few more of these to toss in the L

buy wellbutrin online https://alinagarbuz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/png/wellbutrin.html no prescription pharmacy

ancero tray for future consumption, and I’ll keep an eye out for the new ones. Do any of those knowledgeable in the ways of BLTC know if they put the year on these annual releases? 

 

You should notice that CigarCraig.com is now a “secure” site. No transactions take place, nor do I ever collect any personal information, but, for everyone’s peace of mind (and Google’s search algorithms I guess), I got rid of the whole “not secure” business in the address bar, and the lock should be there.  That’s all for today, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

Share

Comments Off on Dissident Bloc and Black Label Trading Co. Morphine Cigars

Filed under Review

Tagged as , , , , , ,