A Couple of Cigars: a La Libertad and a Cain F

A few months ago I received some cigars from Villiger-Stokkebye, a couple of their newest offerings, and a 4 pack of their current brands. Since the only Villiger cigars I’ve smoked in the past have been the little machine made Exports (which, by the way, are excellent little cigars!), I figured I’d start with the older lines and work my way up to the newest.  So, since there were 2 of the La Libertad Robustos, I snagged one and fired it up the other night.  Let me briefly explain my thought processes in the winter when it comes to smoking samples.  I’ve come to realize that winter time outdoor smoking is NOT the best time to fairly and accurately judge several aspects of a premium cigar.  That’s largely why I’ll smoke old favorites over the winter, or items that I have more than one of on hand.  I like to give cigars, especially those generously provided to me, a fair chance (not that my opinion means anything really).  If this La Libertad had given me problems, I’d have a back-up to try again under better conditions.  In this case, I get a bonus, because the cigar was very nice, burned about perfectly, and had a very nice flavor.  Kudos on the construction of this, it has to be difficult to make a cigar out of what the website says is “mainly Ligero tobaccos from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua” and have it burn so dead even.  Interesting that the Habano seed wrapper and Nicaraguan seed binder are both grown in Peru, you don’t see that every day. Nice cigar, good flavors and perfect burn. I’d be interested to hear from Tad Smith, who was the reader who won the Day 2 prize in my 12 Days of Spectacular Giveaways back in December.  I’d like to know if he’s smoked this cigar and what he thought.

Friday night rolled around and I wasn’t taking any chances.  I’m not  sure how many times a Cain F 550 was in my hand and I put it back  in favor of something perhaps less scary.  Yeah, the Cains still intimidate me.  With the exception of the Daytona (which, incidentally, can be mistaken for a Cain F in low light, not-really-paying-attention conditions), I’ve had my tuckus kicked by more than one Cain cigar, Habano, Maduro, F….I don’t discriminate.  I’ve come to make sure that Cain examples spend a minimum of 6 months in “time-out” in my humidor, seems to mitigate the head spins and nausea…but, I digress.  So I grabbed this Cain F, with is 5¾ x 50, but feels more corona gorda-ish to me.  Exceptional cigar.  Great construction, once again, the slow-burning ligero somehow is blended to burn perfectly with the rest of the blend, amazing.   Bold, decadent flavor, perfectly balanced.  Brilliant cigar. I can hardly wait for the perfect occasion to smoke the lancero that Mike Staiber gifted me back when he hooked me up with the excellent Oliva prize package  for Day 6 in my December give-aways.

Thanks to Anne at Villiger-Stokkebye and Mike at Oliva for the gifts and for their support!  I love cigars, but the most amazing thing is all of the wonderful people I’ve had the opportunity to meet over the past  16 years of on-line cigar discussion.  Please get over to the Cigar Rights of America site and write to your elected officials so we can keep all of these fine people, as well as your shop owners, internet retailers, distributors in jobs, as well as all of the fine folks in the Caribbean and Central America who rely upon the cigar industry to feed their families.  The FDA must not be permitted to regulate premium cigars.

 That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig