Busy day ahead, so I’m going to give a quick rundown on a new and exciting cigar I smoked this week and re-run a piece I wrote for Prime Living Magazine back in 2016 which doesn’t appear to be on their website any longer. I haven’t been asked to write a Cigar Notes column for them for quite a while, and I think that’s because they 
haven’t published an issue in quite a while! It’s a shame, that was a fun gig, and I’m proud to have contributed articles to 21 issues of that magazine. How many other bloggers can say that? Anyway, A couple of weeks back when I hung out with Steve Saka at Famous Smoke Shop I got a sample of his new creation, the Sobremesa Brulee. This is his entry into the Connecticut shade market. Steve goes into great detail in the CigarCraig Podcast episode, so please give that a listen, but his intention was to make a Connecticut shade cigar that was like the cigars he remembered from the 80s and 90s. I smoked the Brulee this week and I was thoroughly impressed (shocker!). It just might have been my father’s Connecticut! It has an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, so in that way it differs from the Connecticut shade cigars of 30 years ago, but it was smooth with a nutty/grassy flavor, but still had the richness one expects a cigar with the Sobremesa name to have. This is going to be a hit, I nubbed it, despite Steve’s concerns about the nubability, and, yes, it did start to turn a little beyond the band as he said, but it was a flavorful and satisfying cigar that I will add to my selection when it becomes available.
This is the text of my submission for the Nov/Dec 2016 Issue of Prime Living Magazine’s Cigar Notes feature:
“Puros Sin Compromiso, cigars without compromise, is the philosophy behind Steve Saka’s family company, New Hampshire based Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust”
I first met Steve Saka, the master blender and catador de puros (cigar taster) of Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust, in 1997 in front of Cleopatra’s Barge in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Steve had yet to work in the cigar industry at that point, but was the predecessor of we now know as a cigar blogger by co-founding an online magazine and information source, CigarNexus, along with a prolific amount of postings on a Usenet cigar group. He later contributed articles to Cigar Magazine, took an executive position with retailer JR Cigars, and eventually became the president of Drew Estate Cigar company, where he was responsible for the introduction of the Liga Privada line of cigars. After his retirement from Drew Estate in 2013, he launched Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust, and released Sobremesa in 2015 to critical acclaim. If you ever have the chance to sit and talk tobacco with Steve, set aside several hours, he is a wealth of information on all things tobacco. Sobremesa is an idiom used among the Latin culture to describe the leisurely time spent tableside after you have finished dining, but before you rise.
The Sobremesa line is manufactured at the Joya de Nicaragua factory in Esteli, Nicaragua, in eleven sizes, the newest of which is the Sobremesa Elegante en Cedro, a cedar wrapped Churchill sized cigar. The original blend was tweaked to make for a little stronger cigar, but it retains the elegance and sophistication found in the original shapes. The cedar sleeve lends a little more woody flavor, with some pepper spices and a thick, creamy smoke. Allow a good two hours to fully savor this outstanding cigar, and reflect upon the time and expertise required to create a cigar of this calibre. The Sobremesa Elegante en Cedro is an exceptional cigar which is easily on a par with the best cigars in the world.
Sobremesa Elegante en Cedros
7.00 x 50 Parejo
Wrapper: Ecuador Habano
Binder: Mexico
Filler: Nicaragua and USA
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
