Author Archives: CigarCraig

On this day, in 1838, the electrical telegraph first debuted, setting in motion what would one day bring you the technology to read my nonsense about smoking rolled up leaves! I don’t imagine they were using Morse code to discuss where to get the best deals on cigars, whether the cigars their relatives brought back from vacation for them in the glass top box were genuine Havanas or not, or whether to remove the cello for storage back then. How times have changed. Anyway, I smoked a few of Gran Habano’s new Blue in Green toros, er…Gran Robustos…the 6″ x 54 vitola in the line.  I’m grateful that they sent my favorite size, although any size would be OK, as they only make this in a 7″ x 48 Churchill and a 5″ x 52 Robusto. The cigar is presented in a cedar sleeve, and has a Connecticut wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The documentation says Connecticut, not Ecuador Connecticut (twice!). I wanted to write about this earlier, but it seemed like every time I pulled this out to smoke it, I saw one of my colleagues in the blogosphere  was also featuring it on their sites.  To be honest, I enjoyed the first one I smoked so much I felt compelled to smoke another one and write something about it. This is one of those Connecticut shade cigars that tastes like a nice sugar cookie! It has some of those subtle spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and a little woodiness. It’s a really well made, nice tasting shade cigar, not overly mild, medium bodied with a lot of flavor.  I like the Gran Habano Blue in Green a lot, I’m not quite sure what the significance of the name of the cigar is, but it’s a good cigar, and I like it a lot.

I would have posted this as a stand-alone news post yesterday, but I didn’t have time, as I had to work and then go to a company holiday party right after work. It’s some news from my friends at J.C. Newman down in Tampa, who you’ll be seeing more from on these pages in the coming months.

Yesterday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) reintroduced legislation in the United States Senate that would exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation.  Joining Senator Rubio in co-sponsoring this bipartisan bill were Senators Corey Gardner (R-CO), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Joni Ernst (R-IA).  This legislation was just the ninth bill filed in the Senate in the new 116th Congress.

This morning, Fox 13 News visited J.C. Newman Cigar Company’s historic cigar factory in Tampa, Florida to discuss Senator Rubio’s legislation.  Reporter Josh Cascio interviewed Eric and Bobby Newman, third-generation owners of J.C. Newman, a 124-year-old family business.  A video of their interview is online.  In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided to apply the same massive and costly regulations designed for cigarettes to handcrafted, premium cigars, like J.C. Newman.  According to the FDA’s own estimates, regulation is expected to put up to 50% of the cigar industry out of business.“Senator Rubio’s bipartisan bill would exempt our premium cigars from regulation,” said Bobby Newman. “It would allow us to continue our family business without this tremendous albatross over our heads.”

In announcing his 2019 legislative priorities, Senator Rubio stated, “I will also continue the fight for small, traditional cigar manufacturers, a quintessential Florida industry, that are on the verge of being snuffed out by egregious federal overreach.”

Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-FL) and Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) are in the process of refiling this legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  In the prior Congress, this legislation had 149 co-sponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate.

“We are tremendously grateful to Senator Rubio, Congresswoman Castor, and Congressman Posey for their leadership in helping to save Florida’s historic premium cigar industry,” said Eric Newman.  “We are hopeful that our leaders in Washington will provide relief from these excessive regulations.”

Last summer when I was at BnB Cigars in Chestnut Hill visiting Vince there one night, he handed me a couple cigars that had just come in called Emilio M5, an Ecuador Connecticut and a Maduro, unbanded, simply called C5 and M5. Apparently these were exclusive to BnB and Underground in Texas, and had been made at Oveja Negra (Black Label Trading Co.) originally as a project for another small company who happens to be an old friend who has made some favorite cigars, so it was a little disappointing to hear that this project didn’t work out for whatever reason, and they were being sold off, basically, under the Emilio name. Oveja Negra makes great cigars, and Emilio certainly needs a boost.  It looks like these may still be available in multiple sizes, so they must have made a bunch. It took me about 6 months to get aground to trying these for whatever reason, and I might get to the shade C5 today or this week. The M5 is a 5½ x 48 Robusto-ish size with a kind of a nipple cap, a very unique shape. Also unique is the flavor, it doesn’t really have the sweet maduro flavor one expects, but more the brown bread kind of flavor, and it’s very interesting. It’s a savory smoke, with a hint of some spice, and the burn and draw were spot-on.  I really enjoyed this, it was certainly on a par with what I expect in terms of quality from that factory. I do feel bad that things didn’t work out with the original arrangement though, it would have done well.

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

CigarCraig