Author Archives: CigarCraig

by CigarCraig | January 24, 2019 · 4:37 pm

News: Fratello Cigars and Drapers Announce Partnership

Proving once again what I’ve often said, Omar is one of the nicest darned guys in the cigar industry!

FRATELLO CIGARS AND W.CURTIS DRAPER ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP TO HELP FURLOUGHED GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

Omar de Frias announced today that Fratello Cigars, in partnership with W. Curtis Draper Tobacconist, will be offering relief to federal employees in the DC area. Over 800,000 federal workers are going without pay as the government shutdown enters the record books as the longest in history.

“Having been furloughed myself back in 2013 while working at NASA, I can tell you the uncertainty and the worry was real for me and my family”. – Said Frias.

“Being in Washington, DC we see stress of furloughed government employees and we want to help them in their time of need. Smoking a cigar is a fantastic way to relax and we would like to offer all furloughed government employees a discount on Fratello cigars in their time of need.” Said Anderson.

Omar de Frias has decided to extend this partnership to all of his accounts in DC, Maryland and Virginia to offer a bit of relief to all furloughed government employees.

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by CigarCraig | January 23, 2019 · 9:22 am

News: Emilio Cigars Merges with Black Label Trading Company

I heard an interview with James Brown a few weeks ago where he hinted at something coming down the pike with Emilio Cigars. It will be interesting to see what James does with the AF1 and 2, and will Boutiques Unified just call themselves Black Label Trading Company? The Grimalkin they made recently was amazing, I still need to try the Maduro version!

Black Label Trading Company (BLTC) will take over the branding and marketing of Emilio Cigars. As part of the merger, all cigar production will move to BLTC’s own factory, Fabrica Oveja Negra in Esteli, Nicaragua. The Cavatina, LJZ, Papa Joe and Grimalkin cigar lines are already produced at Fabrica Oveja Negra. Scott Zucca, owner of Emilio Cigars, will remain involved and continue distribution for both BLTC and Emilio Cigars through his distribution company L.J. Zucca Inc., a family owned company which has been distributing tobacco and other products since 1947.

James Brown, owner of BLTC and Oveja Negrastated, “I’m very excited to take the Emilio brand to the next level. I believe this merger is the natural progression of things as we have been working closely with Scott Zucca over the past few years to expand the Emilio portfolio. We have big plans for the brand and I think it will fit well with our customer base. AF1 and AF2 will be releasing from Oveja Negra in the spring with Suave to follow. The Emilio portfolio gives me a lot of new blends to work with and as a cigar maker this is what keeps me inspired.”

Emilio Cigars are available for purchase through Boutiques Unified. For more information contact info@OvejaNegraCigars.com.

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by CigarCraig | January 20, 2019 · 11:21 am

La Aurora, Camacho and Ventura Cigars

The latter half of my week was a little goofy with a couple of late work days, and an odd weekend off. Now we have weird weather on top of that with a threatened winter storm, which turned into rain, and now it’s going to go from an unseasonably balmy 40s down to the single digits in a matter of hours today. If I don’t have a migraine today sometime I’ll be surprised! Anyway, this has all conspired to throw my rhythm off a bit. Thursday evening I came home and repaired to the back porch smoking lounge a bit later than normal with a sentimental favorite, a La Aurora Corojo 1962 Robusto. I use the term “sentimental favorite” for La Aurora in general, not this cigar specifically, as a box of Bristol Especiales was my first big premium cigar purchase in 1996. I think they were under $40, it looks like they have gone up by about $100 since then. My daughter might still have the box, I know she has several La Aurora boxes being that her name is Aurora. That might be what motivated me to buy that first box and what maintains my attachment to the brand. When my granddaughters were born my celebratory smokes of choice were the La Aurora Puro Vintage 2003s. There are a lot of cigars in La Aurora’s portfolio that don’t particularly line up with my preferences, but smoking one always brings a smile to my face anyway. The Corojo, is one of the cigars that I like enough, this one was packed a little tight near the head and had a snug draw. Still a tasty cigar and I like everything in this series, the Connecticut, Cameroon and this Corojo. I suspect there will always be a selection of La Aurora cigars in my humidor. One of my secrets is, if we are at a family function and I have a chance to smoke a cigar, and I think my daughter may poo-poo the idea, I smoke a La Aurora, then she can’t be upset with me! Don’t tell anyone!

Saturday I unsuccessfully struggled with a plumbing issue, then took a walk before the alleged winter storm which didn’t happen with a Camacho Triple Maduro 6×60. It’s been years since I had a Camacho Triple Maduro, I think the last time was when Camacho had a promotion with three cigars banded A, B and C, with a story line to go along with it and I can’t remember the details, nor can I find anything I wrote about it, so it may have been pre-2009. I’ll really have to dig through the archives, which are filed in a bankers box in a warehouse in the desert in Nevada, several aisles away from where the Ark of the Covenant is stored. I’ve said too much. Anyway, I remember the robusto being pretty strong, but the gordo seemed to temper the strength and I thought it was pretty smooth and medium for me. It was a very tasty cigar, loads of espresso, low on the sweetness scale, oddly enough, but much to my liking. Brother Kevin, of CigarProp fame, commented that the Triple Maduro made his throat hurt, which made me think he was doing something wrong. BTW, check out Kevin’s latest video interview with Steve Saka, it’s outstanding and your’s truly gets a nice mention, TY!. I guess the point of all this is that I still like the Camacho cigars in the Davidoff era, but is it unreasonable to think that a company like Davidoff would not be able to make quality cigars? They’ve continued to make good smokes, with eye-catching packaging, and kept the prices fair. I’ll still smoke them!

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I gave a way almost all of my Ventura cigars in a contest, but I still had a couple here and there, and I found a Case Study CS/02 from the 2016 IPCPR in the humidor that was about the size cigar I was looking for, so I figured it was a good time to light it up. This one is in their “Master Editions” line, which I believe is regular production, while they have a limited edition line with is more along the lines of a “we found this batch in a aging room, put our bands on them, and once they are gone, they are gone” model. I smoking this cigar and felt like there was a familiarity about it. It had a really nice flavor, a milk chocolate-brown Habano wrapper with a sweetness to go along with it. It was very “clean”, well-balanced, and lacked any aggression, just a nice, well-mannered, luxurious sweet smoke. A little research turned up that this cigar is made at La Aurora. It indeed has an Ecuador Habano Wrapper, a Sumatra binder from Brazil, and an undisclosed filler blend. It was tasty, it was smooth, if I ever see these around, I might pick some up, but I haven’t seen these in stores locally. All I every see from Ventura are Archetype, it seems, I don’t even see the Psyko Sevens in my local shop, which sucks because I’d buy the maduos from them all the time!

To recap: three days, only smoked cigars on two of those days, but smoked three enjoyable cigars. Check out CigarProp’s Youtube Channel. If you haven’t already, check out The Retrohale Podcast, They’ve been kind enough to promote my site for a while, and I’ve provided them some content, have fallen behind on that (as well as my own podcast). I’m going to be a guest on their show this week, so we’ll see how that goes. Finally, I’m proud to welcome J.C. Newman to the sponsor family! Click the banner on the right and enter the contest! That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Camacho, Case Study, cigar, cigars, Corojo, La Aurora, Triple Maduro, Ventura

by CigarCraig | January 16, 2019 · 8:46 pm

Xurvivor Americano and Galano Primero Cigars

Xurvivor Cigars is based in Ybor City in Florida and has been an advertiser here on CigarCraig.com for a couple of years, and I’ve featured their cigars before, but I came across a few in the humidor and figured a redux was in order. Ybor City had come up in conversation recently, and it had slipped my mind that Xurvivor was making cigars there. The Xurivor Americano 2018 has a Maduro wrapper from Nicaragua, with a binder from Ecuador, and a Nicaragua & Dominican filler blend. It’s available in one size, a 6″ x 52 toro. Their website store appears to be under construction, but I recall these being in the $10 range. I found this to be on the medium to full-bodied side, with a nice, balanced flavor, on the savory side, with very little sweetness. The construction was excellent, it burned perfectly. It was a nice companion on a cold winter evening.

Before Xurvivor Cigars was Xurvivor Cigars, they were called Galano Cigars, and were also made in Ybor City, but in the end of 2017 they underwent a complete rebranding to become Xurvivor. Tonight I smoked a Galano Primero from early 2017. This was a limited release, and had a hefty price tag, I think they ran around $25ish, it considering they only made 2500 of these and they were made in the US, I suppose that’s justifiable. This cigar is a 6 1/2″ x 52 with a pigtail cap, and a Pennsylvania Broadleaf wrapper, which, as I noted when I wrote about his almost two years ago, is fairly rustic and not particularly pretty. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and PA Broadleaf is a personal favorite wrapper variety. Like the Americano, construction was perfect, the burn and draw were exactly what one expects of a cigar of this price (to be honest, it’s what I expect of any cigar, but I’m often disappointed). The cigar has some strength, and the flavor has some savory and sour notes, in a good way, like the Americano, but there’s a sweet spice too.

Keep an eye on the website for when the store comes on-line, perhaps Joshua Candamo, the president of the company, will chime in with an update. That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Americano, cigar, cigars, Galano, Primero, Xurvivor

by CigarCraig | January 13, 2019 · 8:59 am

GTO Cigars, Pendrey Guillen Cigars and a Green Hornet

I had the opportunity this week to smoke some new-to-me cigars courtesy of Kevin of CigarProp.com. Kevin and I have been friends for several years and have been known to exchange cigars from time to time. It can bee a challenge to find cigars I haven’t tried, or at least some people think so, really there are a lot I haven’t had the chance to smoke. Kevin manage to find a bunch that I hadn’t tried. One of them was the GTO Mandinga, a 6″ x 60 from the Dominican Republic. I’ve heard about GTO Cigars, Oscar Rodriquez is an emergency room physician and owns the brand, which is distributed in the southeast of the US. I don’t see these in this neck of the woods. The Mandinga has a Domincan Maduro wrapper, Dominican binder and triple ligero fillers of un-defined origin (presumably also Dominican). This is definitely a cigar I’d happily smoke again. It had the flavors and perfect burn and draw characteristics that I like in a cigar. It wasn’t overly strong for being listed as triple ligero, it had the espresso flavors I like with some sweetness. It was perfect for the cold winter night. I had heard about this line on the Smooth Draws radio show, smoking it did bring to mind the late Gary Laden, who passed away last year. I had spent time with Gary at the 2017 IPCPR show and have fond memories.

Another line that I hadn’t heard of which Kevin sent a sampler was the Pendrey Guillen Cigars line from Honduras. Of the five cigars in the sampler, I smoked two this week. I reached out to Carlos Pendrey, who shared some of the details of the line with me. They have four lines, the COMANDO(camos), COMBAT(dark), Serpentinas(barbel poles) and CANDELA (green), in Robusto 5″ x 50, Toro 6″ x 52, and GORDO: 60×7 or 60×6. The Comando was the fist one I smoked, which has a Maduro/Connecticut Base wrapper, with fillers from Jalapa, Indonesia and La Entrada. This line has a Camo wrapper treatment, with strips of candela ,maduro and Connecticut leaf applied. I’ve smoked cigars like this before and one would think that, like a barber-pole wrap, the flavors would meld together, but there actually is some interplay of flavors from the various wrapper appliqués throughout the smoking of the cigar. This was a nice, medium smoke with a nice flavor, with variations to keep it interesting. There was mostly maduro sweetness, with the occasional grassiness of the Connecticut and crisp chlorophyll refreshing flavor of the candela here and there. I liked it.

The next one I tried was the Combat, a dark maduro cigar. I should mention that both samples were the 6″ x 52 toro vitola, which is my preferred size. This is listed as a Double Ligero, with components from Jalapa, Indonesia, La Entrada and Esteli. This cigar looked great, it had a very oily sheen on the dark wrapper. It had the rich flavors I had hoped for, more bitterness than sweetness, which is OK, I like black coffee, and every maduro doesn’t have to be sweet. The wrapper didn’t burn as well as I’d have liked, and when I removed the band it had what I can only describe as a reverse tan line, the wrapper was darker where the band had been, when I hadn’t thought was possible. Looking at the brand’s Facebook page (they don’t seen to have a website yet), they offer their cigars in hand carved boxes as well as standard boxes, as well as samplers, and the pricing that Carlos shared with me seemed to be quite fair. They seem to ship directly from Honduras, and may be distributing in the US. I still have a few more to sample, I think I’ll save the Candela and Connecticut offerings for warmer weather as I worry that they won’t hold up to the cold.

Finally, I had picked up a couple Black Works Studios Killer Bee Green Hornets a couple of weeks ago since I’ve been behind in sampling the Black Works line. The shops near me have started carrying them so figured I’d grab a couple here and there to try to catch up. The Killer Bee Green Hornet is a 5″ x 48 Robusto with an Ecuador Maduro wrapper accented with a candela covered foot and several little candela stripes on the head. The binder and Filler are Nicaraguan and it’s made at Fabrica Oveja Negra in Esteli. On cigars with a covered foot I forgo the toasting ritual, not wanting to waste the extra flavor the maker intended you to get from the wrapper material there on the foot. In this case, it’s a contrast of candela on a maduro cigar, an interesting counterpoint of the herbal, grassy flavor with the rich, sweetness of the maduro. This was an enjoyable cigar, although the draw seemed to increase in resistance along the duration of the smoke, which was odd. I might have given it a second cut, but I was too lazy to try that. I enjoyed the flavor and will continue experimenting with the brand as I have found enjoyment in everything I’ve smoked from that factory.