I received some beautiful cigars from a gentleman named Kenny New, who’s the president of QRI, an environmental consulting company in Louisiana. He’s gotten the bug, and decided to get into the cigar business, and has come up with two cigars, the Cajun and the Strata, and was kind enough to share a couple with me. The Cajun has an Ecuador wrapper which is Oscuro in color, with a binder from Esteli and fillers from Esteli and Jalapa. The Strata is a triple barber pole wrapped cigar withe Maduro, Habano and Connecticut, Esteli binder and fillers from Jalapa, Esteli and Condega. Both are made in Esteli in an undisclosed factory (I tried), and both are presented in a 6 x 54 toro. Both are priced at $10, and $180 for a bundle of 20, which can be mixed, and are available directly from Ken until he gets his Keneaux Hattuk Cigar Company webpage live. webpage
Of course, I smoked the Oscuro Cajun first, as is my way. Given the name, I expected more spice from this, but it wasn’t quite the spice-bomb I thought it would be. It was a terrific smoke. It starts off with a smooth, cocoa with a hint of spice, and the flavor builds throughout the smoke. The strength starts medium and builds too, but it never is a full on spicy cigar like the Cajun name might imply. That’s OK, though, it’s a Hershey’s Special Dark bar in a cigar, and I love that. As far as construction goes, it was about as perfect in burn and draw as a cigar could be, whoever is making these knows what they are doing. When asked, Kenny was direct in saying that the factory wished to remain anonymous until he got a larger following, so please buy a bunch of these, I want to know!
Last night I smoked the Strata, and I admit I’m as much a sucker for a barber pole as I am a maduro. I know that the spiral wrap doesn’t cause flavor changes or anything, but the three wrappers often lends an interesting mix of flavors that I think is really interesting. Such was the case with this cigar. It was smooth, with the creamy, nuttiness of the Connecticut, some of the spice of the Habano and some of the cocoa of the Maduro, combining into a nice melange, if you will, of flavor. It built up a little bit on intensity through the smoke from medium to medium-plus, and one it got mid way through where they band would have been it began to tell me it was quitting time. Saka and I had this discussion Sunday about Connecticut cigars turning bitter around the band, I noticed a little bit of this, and I wondered which was the base wrapper. Maybe I’ll go dissect the butt later and see if I can see, as if it really makes a difference. Bothe cigars have really neat bands with metallic green accenting Kennys Company logo, no expense was spared on the bands, nor the cigars, obviously, as both are of the highest quality, and all the tobaccos are aged at least 5 years. Nice work, I’m quite impressed!
Friday evening I went to the CigarCigars store in Phoenixville, PA where they were having a Micalef event. Back in 2017 when I was at the IPCPR show I saw their bit, elaborate booth and had never heard of this brand. I avoided it, not knowing what it was all about, and having a lot of other ground to cover. Recently a fairly local guy took over as a sales rep for the company, a guy who managed one of the CigarCigar stores for a long time, and had a long history in the cigar industry, and I actually knew from long ago in the old usenet newsgoup days. SO I figured I’d been hearing a lot about this brand it was a good time to go see Paul and see what Micallef cigars were about, or at the very least learn how to pronounce it (it’s a hard “C”). This Micallef guy is a millionaire who lives in Texas who decided he wanted to have his own cigars made, came across some guys with a Cuban pedigree going back to 
the 1930s. The long story is out there, brevity is my middle name (my parents had a weird sense of humor). I picked up a bunch of the Micallef cigars, and smoked the Grande Bold Ligero in the Gordo size. When one see the word “Ligero” on the band, one thinks “strong”, but this has two ligeros, but the origins of the ligeros they use balance out the strength and it’s not a strong cigar at all. Flavor wise it was good, but I was chatting and not really paying as much attention, but the one thing I noticed was the great burn. Besides being very cool to the touch around the burn line, the ember was very flat, and it always impresses me when all the tobaccos used burn at the same rate. I’ll be smoking others from this brand over the coming weeks.
That’s all for now. I have a new humidor I have been seasoning and need to fill, and decommission another one. I’ll be working on an article on that in the near future. It’s a beautiful day today and I have the day off, so hopefully I’ll get a cigar or two in. Until the next time,
CigarCraig
