Category Archives: Events

by CigarCraig | March 2, 2014 · 7:53 am

Sampling Some Perdomo Cigars: 20th, Champagne Noir, Lot23 Maduro and Mojo

Thursday evening I went down to Cigar Mojo in King Of Prussia, PA to their Perdomo event. I have not smoked a lot of Perdomo cigars for whatever reason. I may have been turned off to them back in the late ’90s. I’m making a concerted effort to correct this oversight. Perdomo’s sales rep, Joe Winder, was on hand and the place was quite impressively packed for a Thursday evening. Since I’m largely unfamiliar with the line, except for the Lot 23 and a Champagne that I didn’t really care for much a while back, Joe ran through the line with me and a couple other customers. I selected the 20th Anniversary Maduro in the 6½x48 size (which is apparent;y a new size that was the brainchild of Nick Perdomo’s son) a couple Lot 23 Maduro Toros and a 20th Anniversary Sungrown. I lit up the 20th Anniversary Maduro and sat down with Vince, Graham and Steve from The Cigar Lounger Magazine to catch up, after having chatted with Chris (@theLazySmoker), who I seem to run into there more times than not! The 20th Anniversary was an awesome cigar. It was on the high side of medium bodied with good, rich cocoa flavor. I fell in love with this cigar and it made me wonder why I wasn’t sampling more from the Perdomo line. It’s always entertaining hanging out with The Cigar Lounger guys, since meeting them last year, and hanging out with them at the IPCPR show and a few other times, I think I can say they are friends. If you haven’t seen the magazine, check it out, it’s really slick. It’s available as an App for Android or iOS or you can read it on TheCigarLounger.com. I was to find out that they have decided to discontinue their radio show, which I was listening to in podcast form, so I guess I need to find something to fill the gap. After finishing the 20th, I lit up the Lot 23 Maduro Toro. I was half expecting this to be just something to smoke while hanging out. This is another really nice smoke, and the price wasn’t too hard on the wallet. it was a nice, rich, creamy smoke, and I liked it. It’s always fun going to an event at a local shop and hanging out with folks who enjoy a cigar, it’s even better when you hang out with folks who are as passionate about them as we are. Robyn from Villiger Cigars even stopped in. Cigar Mojo continues to impress me also. The space is beautiful, and Wade is an attentive host, and our local CRA ambassador, Alan Price, is a more than capable counter-man. Unfortunately, his son and business partner, Trae, was off with his wife expecting their first child (Congrats again on the birth of James Wade!). It’s always nice stopping in that shop.

Friday I dug out a Perdomo Champagne Noir Robusto for my evening walk. After a less than happy experience with the Connecticut Shade Champagne, I was hoping for the best. The Maduro Noir was much more to my liking. Sweet cocoa and coffee were the predominant flavors in this Nicaraguan Puro. I like the chubby 5″ x 54 size too. It was bitterly cold out, and I didn’t really mind too much because the cigar was so good. I’ve got another cigar around someplace that I thought was just a 10th Anniversary Maduro, without the “Champagne Nior” distinction. I’ll have to look for it in the humidors, I recall like it a great deal too. This cigar is another keeper!

Saturday evening I grabbed the Sungrown version of the Perdomo 20th Anniversary in the same chubby robusto size as the Champagne Noir. This is a really pretty cigar, and after enjoying the Maduro version so much I was quite hopeful that I’d have another positive experience. As I did with the previous three cigars, I gave this a V-cut and the draw was perfect. I can say that all four of these cigars were perfectly constructed, once I lit it, I rarely gave it another thought. I may have touched up one of the two I smoked at the lounge as I was talking more than I was smoking, but they all performed well. Kudos to the folks at Perdomo for making high quality cigars at a fair price. I enjoyed the hell out of the Sungrown, maybe not as much as the Maduro, but enjoyed it none the less. It had a really nice flavor, and I’ll be revisiting this in the future for sure, along with the previous three. Quite nice. Thanks to Joe Winder from Perdomo and Wade (Trae and Alan too!) at Cigar Mojo for making Perdomo believer out of me. As a side note, I stopped back in the shop Saturday to offer congrats again and spent a nice 45 minutes with an Illusione Rothschild and Alan, who’s off to Honduras today (travel safely!). That’s another great little smoke for a very reasonable price.

That’s it for today, until tomorrow,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Events, Review, Stores

Tagged as 20th, cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigars, Lot 23, Noir, Perdomo

by CigarCraig | December 8, 2013 · 9:48 am

Cigar Mojo Event, More Leaf by Oscar Cigars and the 12 Days of Spectacular Cigar Giveaways!

Photo courtesy of Chris Vuotto

Thursday evening I found myself back at Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA for their inaugural event with Drew Estate. Drew sales rep Chris Stone was there with my dear friend Pedro Gomez, the DE Factory Ambassador and Cigar Safari ring leader. Trae and Wade had a full house and a load of great Drew Estate and Joya de Nicaragua product on hand. My brother-in-law Jeff came along with me and we spent the evening schmoozing and making some new friends. We smoked some Nica Rusticas and some MUWAT Baitfishes that were great! Considering this event happened at the same time as he Big Smoke in NYC, it was a great crowd. I know there are a bunch of folks who would probably have been there if they weren’t in New York. I personally preferred the smaller crowd here to the mayhem that I imagine Big Smoke to be. Once again, if you are in the Philadelphia area, seek out Cigar Mojo. It’s a great new shop with a good selection and a really nice lounge. Are massage chairs and pedicures in their future? 🙂

I’ve been working my way through Island Jim Robinson’s Leaf by Oscar sampler and smoked the Habano Friday evening. This one has an Ecuador Habano wrapper over binder and filler from Honduras. This is a sweet smoke! I very much enjoyed the well balanced flavor of this cigar. As I said, it had a delicious sweetness and smoked very well. Saturday I went with the Sumatra wrapped version, which uses a Ecuador Sumatra wrapper over the same Honduran filler. This was also a really tasty smoke, but didn’t excite me quite as much as the Habano. It also burned well. So far, I have to put the Habano first on my list, followed by the Maduro, then the Sumatra, which is surprising, because I usually prefer Maduros, but a great Habano wrapper always makes my taste buds dance. I’ll try to get to the Connecticut later today. I’ll leave an update in the comments when I smoke it. I can see picking up the Habano again for sure and they are all good in their own ways. It’s almost a shame the hide the really pretty wrappers under the tobacco leaf outer wrapping. Thanks to George Rodriguez for passing these along for me to try! These are showing up all over the place, but are available on their site here. Now….what am I going to do with the tobacco leaves that these come packaged in?

Contest!

The next post you see here will be on Thursday, Dec 12, which will be Day One of this year’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways! It will be the first time in a long time that I’ve skipped a Wednesday post but I think you’ll all be OK with it considering what’s to follow. For those who are new to this, here’s how it works: for 12 consecutive days I get up really early and post that day’s contest, along with the previous day’s winner (except for day 1, that would be silly). Your responsibility is to leave a comment which is your entry. One comment only please, and I can tell if multiple comments come from the same place! Please feel free to share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or whatever, but only comments left on that day’s post are counted (unless otherwise noted). Once you’ve won, you’re done, but we start out on the first day with everyone eligible. I use the random number generator at Random.org to select the winner and all decisions are final. Please be aware that I take great pains to ensure accuracy! So good luck. This is my way of saying “thanks” to my loyal readers and promoting some great cigar companies. Please try to visit the links to the vendors in each day’s post too, I want them to know that they aren’t giving away hundreds of dollars worth of stuff for nothing! It’s the winner’s responsibility to contact me with their shipping information and I’ll do my best to get your present to you before Christmas! I’m looking forward to getting this going!

That’s it for today, until the next time (when things go CRAZY!),

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Events, Review, Stores

by CigarCraig | November 3, 2013 · 12:54 pm

Ora Vivo Armand Assante Cigar Dinner

Last night my wife, Jennifer, and I drove up to Matawan, New Jersey to attend a cigar dinner hosted by the Smoker’s Haven stores, Victor Vitale, Gary Macchione, with special guest Armand Assante. The dinner was held at Sterling Gardens, a banquet hall. Since smoking is forbidden indoors in New Jersey, they had set up tables outside on the patio in front of the building for smoking. Our $65 tickets covered a four course meal and two of the new Ora Vivo Armand Assante cigars, a 5 x 54 Robusto and a 7.5 x 58 Double Corona. I chose the Robusto for a pre-dinner smoke, which was spent talking to Victor about the cigars, as well as his Tortuga line. The 5×54 was a nice smoke. It’s on the milder side for a Nicaraguan puro, and the burn was perfect. I always marvel at a nice, flat ember on a cigar, it’s a testament to the blending and rolling art. It’s a sophisticated, complex blend that’s quite satisfying.

We sat down at our table with a non-smoking retired teacher with a screenplay he wanted to give to Armand, and three women. It turns out that two of these women were there because it was a cigar dinner primarily! We ended up making some new friends, I think. We had interesting conversations about all topics including cigars. We lucked out with excellent company. While we were enjoying the first course, which was a nice fruit plate with melon, pineapple, grapes and kiwi, Victor got up and talked about the Ora Vivo cigars, and answered cigar related questions from the crowd. He then introduced Armand Assante who shared his involvement and experience with the cigars. After a Caesar Salad, the main course was served. Jenn had the salmon, and I had beef and it was very good. Armand took questions about his career and films from the crowd after the main course was served. Several of us were chomping at the bit to get out to the smoking area for a cigar, this was, after all, a cigar dinner. I, much to my regret, missed the dessert, which was cheese cake. I love cheese cake.

I lit up the Double Corona which I’ve smoked before and didn’t regret missing the dessert quite as much. I think this larger size displays more sweet tobacco flavor than the smaller size I smoked earlier. It’s larger than I normally prefer, but it was a pleasant evening and I was among friendly and interesting company. The burn was also not as razor straight as the Robusto, but that hardly impacted the experience negatively. We ended up standing there outside until after 11 PM talking with Victor and Gary after everyone left. I admit that my biggest disappointment of the evening was that Armand didn’t hang around and have a cigar with us. My second disappointment was that they only took cash for box sales (Armand was autographing boxes. Not that I’m a sucker for celebrity autographs, but it would have been pretty cool, and the prices were decent for New Jersey). I know several people who would have bought a box if they had taken credit cards, and it’s very easy to do on modern phones these days. Other than that, it was a great evening out. We met some super people, smoked some tasty cigars and had a good time. It’s very fortunate that it was a relatively warm evening for early November in northern New Jersey. Thanks to the folks at Smoker’s Haven, Victor, Gary and Armand for the great evening.

We took a bunch of picture, none of which came out very well due to the lighting and lack of experience with a different camera. Fortunately Victor shared a few pictures with us. Click on one of the pictures for a slideshow. I’ll try to mooch more pictures and add them to the slide show.

That’s all for now. I think I may have to take a Tortuga for a walk this afternoon! Somewhere I came into possession of a yet to be released Tortuga 215 Reserva En Cedro in a rally nice classic corona gorda size. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Events, Review

Tagged as Boutique Brands, cigar, Cigar Dinner, cigars, Ora Vivo Armand Assante, Smoker's Haven, Tortuga, Victor Vitale

by CigarCraig | September 29, 2013 · 11:09 am

Stooges and Stogies©, A Toraño, and Undercrown and a Dignity Cigar

Three Stooges Cigar Band Magnet Last night we attended the very first Stooges and Stogies© event hosted by Chester County, PA author Jim Breslin. Jim had his friend Chris set up an outdoor screen and a projector (the old fashioned kind with reels and film!), set out a spread and had some kegs of microbrews on tap, and we watched Three Stooges shorts all night. I thought this was a great idea and took along some cigars to share. Of course, Stogies and Stooges go together, there were stogies present in several of the episodes we watched, which ranged from the early original Moe, Larry, Curly line up, wartime Moe, Larry, Shemp editions, to some later episodes featuring Moe, Larry and Joe Besser. Hilarity ensued. I lit up a Casa Toraño Maduro Lancero for the pre-screening meet and greet and it was perfect. The Lancero size needs to me smoked slowly, so it’s almost the perfect size for socializing. Of course, I really enjoy the flavor of this maduro, lots of chocolate and espresso and it couldn’t have burned better. I was almost tempted to light up another one when I came across an Undercrown Corona Viva in my case. This may be my number one repeat cigar, I’ve smoked a bunch of these over the past year and they never are a disappointment. They are terrific dark, rich cigars that suit my palate. I paired both cigars with a frosty bottle of Reeds Extra Ginger Brew and laughter.

Here are a few pictures from the event:

This was a great idea for an event, thank you to Jim and his wife for hosting it and inviting us to enjoy it along with you. Well done!

Rewinding a little, earlier in the week I took a walk with a nice Dignidad Del Hombre Orudam X Torpedo from Dignity Cigars. I first met Don Juan Gross at the 2011 IPCPR show. It’s funny the things that stick in your head, it was at the General Cigar reception at a nightclub called Lavo, I think, when I walked up to the bar to get a Coke and Don Juan introduced himself. I talked to him at his booth the next day, and have seen him at the shows for the last two years, but we never managed to get time for an interview (one of several regrets I have from this past year’s show). Don Juan makes some fine cigars in Costa Rica, and is based out of California. Super nice guy. Anyway, he laid this Torpedo on me in Vegas and I just got around to smoking it. It started off with a really nice sweetness and burned arrow straight. about half way through there was a flavor change, and I don’t often pick up on those. I’m sure they happen all the time, but I’m either not paying attention or don’t have the palate to discern them. Anyway, I picked up a distinct bitter flavor, not a bad flavor, it just amused me that it switched from sweet to bitter that quick. I think I have a couple more specimens from the Dignity line floating around, so I’ll be looking forward to revisiting it. I know I have an enormous Diadema measuring 9 ¼” x 55 from his SMOKE OF ART series that he gave me last year that I just haven’t found the time to smoke. If you run across the Dignity line, give it a try, and if you have a chance to meet Don Juan Gross, take advantage of it, he’s a super nice guy.

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, Dignidad Del Hombre, Dignity, drew estate, Three Stoooges, Toraño, undercrown

by CigarCraig | September 8, 2013 · 12:18 pm

Azan White and Burgundy from Roberto Duran and a Drew Estate Event

While at the IPCPR show last month I managed to end up with samples of the Azan line of cigars from Roberto Duran. The booth was busy the times I came across it, but a friend gave me some samples, and I think there was someone around the booth handing them out. These were highly recommended and I was looking forward to smoking them, but I really didn’t know much about them. It turns out that Azan is an old Cuban trademark that has been out of production for so long nobody remembers it! Interestingly, the brand was created in Cuba by Chinese immigrants back in the 1920s. So, after hearing from Gabriel Piñeres of Creativas, the PR firm that handles Azan, as well as Toraño Family cigars, I figured it would be prudent to smoke some of these up.

I started with the White Premium Line Campana. This is a traditional belicoso size at 5½ x 52 with a tapered head. It was a very nice looking cigar, the Corojo wrapper was flawless and was smooth and symmetrical. It’s burn was perfect, just the way I like it with a straight, flat burn. It was a very enjoyable cigar to smoke both in the aesthetics as well as the flavor. The flavor was clean, smooth, with a nice spice and great, rich body. I really enjoyed smoking this cigar and will be on the lookout for more. I have a robusto remaining which may not last long. This was a hidden gem and thanks to my friend Joe and whoever else handed me samples!

I figured the logical thing to do the following evening was to smoke the Azan Burgundy line robusto. This cigar is a little more rustic in appearance than the White line. According to the website they use a lower grade of Corojo wrapper on this, and the appearance is a little lumpier. The flavor was nice. It shared a certain sweetness I came across in it’s classier sibling, and the burn and draw were just as good. This is certainly a nice alternative to the White, which I can assume carries a higher price tag. Laziness on my part leads to this assumption as I haven’t yet had the chance to shop these yet. I can conclude that Roberto Duran is doing things right. He’s reviving a historic brand with quality cigars that are smoking well. I look forward to smoking more of both of these.

Saturday brought yet another trip up to Hamburg, PA to the Cigars International store. My friend Bacon Jams Bruce and I went up for the Drew Estate Event. We smoked some fine cigars, including my favorites, the Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta #13 Lancero and an Undercrown Corona Viva. I used some gift cards I received for my birthday to pick up the Xikar MTX multi tool/cigar scissors. Thanks guys, you know who you are. This tool will requite some practice, but I’ve hear and seen really good things about it. My concern is that it’s too small and I’m worried about losing it. Perhaps I’ll put it on a lanyard and wear it around my neck! Anyway, the Drew Estate event was well attended, but it didn’t look like the silent auction items were getting a lot of bid action. There was another custom carved humidor but Jessi Flores, the director of Subculture Studios that was a work of art. The auction was again supporting TECHO. This isn’t a criticism, but an observation, but I really think a store like CI is a place people go looking for bargains, not necessarily the well heeled clientele that you find at some upscale shops. I hope they raised a lot of money for this worthwhile charity. Also there were the Operation: Cigars for Warriors folks, and the local Drew Estate Rep, Chris Stone, donated 10″ of his hair to Locks Of Love. Well done, once again, to the generous cigar community. I admit, my reason for going in the first place was to see the Drew Estate crew, and say hello to Jonathan Drew, who hobbled in around 6:30. We had a nice little visit on my way out the door. My apologies to the line of guys waiting to meet him. He’s a good friend and a heck of a nice guy. There were also the usual Drew Estate ambassadors and fans present, always nice to see that cast of characters.