Araposa and Providencia Speakeasy Cigars and Some Random Thoughts

Friday I posted the press release from Black Label Trading Company about the exclusive cigar that they were doing for Fox Cigars in Arizona. What should appear at my door on Saturday but a surprise box from Fox with a bundle of these cigars! I’ll be honest, I was planning to order some from them as soon as they became available anyway! Of course, Fox Cigars is an advertising partner here, but I still buy cigars from them, they are on my preferred vender list, they do a great job. I usually let cigars rest, but these came in a sealed bag with a Boveda, and I checked one with my trusty Humidimeter and it was 62% at the foot, right where I like to see a cigar, so I figured what the heck, I’m itching to smoke one of these! This is a 5½” x 54 box pressed barber pole cigar, with San Andrés and Ecuador Corojo wrappers, Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan fillers. For a “right off the truck” experience, this cigar burned perfectly, like a cigar that had been in my humidor for years. What a great cigar! The press release mentions “flavors of black cherry, anise and bitter cocoa”, I’ll give you the dark chocolate, and maybe a dark fruit, but I missed the anise, I’ll keep an eye out for that the next time.  If you’re a fan of Black Label Trading Co., keep an eye on Fox Cigars and snag some of these. James Brown is going to be at Son’s Cigars in my neighborhood on October 6th, I plan to get up there that night. By the way, “raposa” is Spanish for fox, Araposa must be a dialectal variation or something? 

A few weeks ago I smoked through a sampler of Providencia cigars, and had an issue with the Speakeasy, so I ordered another one from Underground Cigars, which is their main ecommerce partner. I was ordering some of the Essential, which I took a liking to, and added one on. Knowing that the first experience I had was an anomaly, as I had never had a Providencia cigar that wasn’t perfect in every way in construction, I needed to give it a second shot. Stuff happens. Of course, this one was perfect. This cigar is a long corona, I didn’t measure it, nor is there any information listed on the website, but it’s 6″ x probably 44 ring? it’s a nice size cigar. Close to a lonsdale, really. Again, I don’t know what the makeup of the cigar is, but it has a dark, oily wrapper, I do know it’s made at the Flor de San Luis factory in Esteli. It’s a fairly full bodied cigar, with rech, espresso flavors.  I had a sense with the fist sample I smoked that it was a good tasting cigar, which is what made me spend the money to smoke it again, and I was right, it was well worth it. I dug it. I may fire up one of the Essentials later if I can rebound from the Flu and Shingles vaccines I had yesterday that have left me feeling like crap today. 

I wanted to talk about something I read about yesterday that touched a nerve. Ministry of Cigars, which was a news/blog site based in Singapore was shut down. The site focused more on the International cigar scene, didn’t sell cigars, was a blog site like my own, or Halfwheel or Cigar-Coop, or a bunch of other sites. Apparently the owner actually had the Singapore authorities actually at his door, taking him in to whatever official offices deal with such things, and he could face fines for advertising cigars. He had to take down his site, of course. Naturally, in the US of A we say, “oh, that can’t happen to us, freedom of the press and all”, but watch it…we let things like this new oppressive tax go through, and this same sort of thing might be next. It may well be illegal for us to have ads on our sites, our content may be considered advertising, plain packaging, etc. Call your representatives, tell them you vote and you oppose this and it will put people out of business. At the very least go HERE and send an email. 

That’s all for today, until the next time, 

CigarCraig