As a follow up to last week’s mention of some of the great cigar events coming up in the next few months, I left out a couple of good ones. The Western Pennsylvania Cigar Crawl is in May and by this writing is likely sold out. This is an old fashioned bus crawl run by Rob Heming of the Blowin’ Smoke Podcast. I’ve been on this crawl once in it’s 11 or so years of operation and it’s quite a bit of fun, if you think hanging out with a bunch of guys smoking cigars while you visit cigar shop after cigar shop and eat a lot of great food is fun, which it is. Another upcoming event is the 1st Annual CATS Cigar Festival. C.A.T.S. is the Cigar Aficionados Trades and Sales 
Facebook group, which is a very active group of cigar lovers that is closely affiliated with the Op:Cigars for Warriors group that puts cigars in the hands of out active duty soldiers. It’s a weekend long event starting Friday evening, May 24 and ending Sunday, May 26 in San Antonio, TX. Check their Facebook page for more information. More great events with great folks.
Wednesday evening I got off to a late start so I was looking for something on the smaller side. I had picked up a Room 101 OSOK Filero a few months back when Gary Griffith opened his Total Tobacco store in nearby Newtown Square, PA. It was pricey, but I knew it was a cigar I wanted to try. Under the paper wrapper, and beneath the tissue wrap was a beautiful little perfecto, measuring 4½ x 52. What a great little smoke. The smoke was thick and loaded with heavy flavors and really was what the doctor ordered to releive the stress of the day. I absolutely loved this cigar and it’s my second favorite Room 101 cigar now, after the San Andreas (anyone surprised?) Great smoke, get them while you can.
Thursday my wife and I went to the Flyers game and we stopped in the cigar bar again where I smoked a little Punch London Club maduro while we waited for everyone to get out of the parking lot. The little Punch is a go-to winder smoke for me along with it’s Hoyo de Monterrey sibling, the Sabroso. Friday I grabbed an Alec Bradley Family Blend VR1, a 5½ x 50 parejo with a fancy pigtail cap. This is a cigar that probably came from either the trade show or an Alec Bradley event where I bought some cigars. I enjoy quite a few of the Alec Bradley cigars, and this one was very good. I wish it had burned a little better for me, but cold weather smoking has it’s pitfalls, and one of those is that cigars don’t always burn like they should. Let’s face it, cigars are tropical critters, and they want to be smoked in warmer weather! Still a solid smoke with pleasing flavors.
Saturday evening my wife and I went out to the at Philadelphia Park for an evening of slot machines, and I whipped out a nice Murcialago Churchill. This is a favorite of mine, and this was the last one of a handful I bought at the 2011 Delaware Cigar Festival. Rich, meaty, loaded with the nice, dark flavors I love in cigar bearing my favorite wrapper leaf, all together now: San Andreas Maduro! I haven’t had one of these since they changed production yet, but I’m confident that Eric Espinosa will continue making these with the same flavor and consistency that I love, as other cigars from his La Zona factory in Esteli have been very nice. I’ll have to re-stock and see! We had a great time at the casino and didn’t leave broke, so it was a winning night.
Finally, this afternoon I took a nice walk with a Nestor Miranda Special Selection Connecticut robusto. This was a pretty 5½ x 54 cigar that while milder than I like, had some nice sweetness that kept me smoking it to a finger burning little nub. It burned perfectly and had a snug draw, but was perfectly relaxing and a fine way to end the weekend. Of course, Nestor is celebrating his 70th birthday this week, so if you see him, wish him a Happy Birthday!
Over the last week, and coming weeks, I have been transitioning CigarCraig.com to a new hosting provider, so there’s a possibility that there may be a few bumps in the road. I’ve been trying my hardest to make this as seamless as possible, but it’s hard to say what might happen with the domain gets transferred. I currently have CigarCraig.net up and running on the new host, and hope that there aren’t any interruptions. Please bear with me if there are, I’ll be driving myself crazy to get things restored to some kind of normalcy ASAP.
That’s it for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
