Macanudo, Leccia, Tortuga and Montecristo Cigars

Sunday was supposed to be much warmer, in the 50s, but I don’t think it got out of the 40s. I still managed to get two cigar walks in. I started with a Macanudo. I know what you’re thinking, but this was the Estate Reserve no. III robusto from the 2013 IPCPR show. The Estate Reserve uses Dominican tobacco for the binder and filler, which is aged eight to ten years, and a proprietary wrapper leaf grown by a private grower in the Connecticut river valley. The cigar is silky smooth and loaded with clean, nutty flavor. I was struck by how slow this cigar burned. I smoked it well over 90 minutes, and it was even and never required any extra attention. I would almost go as far as saying it’s worth the hefty price tag, but I have trouble justifying any cigar that exceeds the $10 price point. I’m a cheap SOB.

I followed it after dinner with a Leccia White Robusto from last year. The big difference between this and the same sized Macanudo was the burn time. I barely got an hour from this rubusto. Granted, they were stored in different humidors but the difference was startling. It still was a tasty smoke. The African wrapper gives a nice flavor, and the Pennsylvania seco in the filler gives an interesting pop, even if it’s only the faintest hint. It’s a very tasty cigar and I hope it doesn’t change with the change of ownership. I prefer this over the Black, as I am not the fan of the fire cured tobacco that others are, but I like the Luchador even more, and that would have been my choice, but I only have two left. I’ve only smoked this in the robusto, I’ll have to try another size one of these days to see how it stacks up. Sam makes great cigars, I look forward to see what he does with the tobaccos available to him now at General.

Monday I smoked another Tortuga Coyote Negro No. 500, the cedar wrapped belicoso with the Brazilian Mata Fina Maduro wrapper. I had heard a lot from Victor over the last week or so, he appeared on The Cigar Authority (again!) and I understand he made an appearance on the local Cigar Time show that the guys at Cigar Cigars (a Southeast PA chain of 10 stores, one of which is two miles from home). which plays on a local cable access channel. It’s a pretty bad show, but it’s about cigars, so it gets points for that. Anyway, the Coyote Negro is a really tasty cigar that I’ve talked about a lot so I won’t spend much time on it except to say that if you can find anything from the Tortuga line buy it and smoke it, you won’t be sorry. This coming from one of the few Tortuga Appointed Cigar Blogs. 🙂

Tuesday I selected a Montecristo Monte Conde, a 5 1/2 x 48 corona gorda (for want of a better size name) that came from my trip last year to the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival. I don’t give Altadis quite enough exposure so I figured it was about time. This cigar burned well and the Ecuador Habano wrapper gave a nice flavor to to mostly Dominican cigar. There’s a Nicaraguan Corojo leaf used as half of the double binder. It started pretty mild, and built to a solid medium. I like the size, and it was a nice smoke. it had a cute little pigtail cap too. I will try to get to some other Altadis cigars as I come across them in the humidors. When the cabinet arrives I’m sure I’ll find some as I move cigars in, along with some other forgotten goodies.