Category Archives: Events

by Craig Vanderslice | November 15, 2020 · 10:04 am

All Saints Dedicación Cigars

Thursday evening I went to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA where they were having a cigar event revolving around the Masters. There was chipping and putting involved in a tournament with brackets and everything. The winner received a bottle of booze and a box of cigars. This was all sponsored by All Saints Cigars, and Mickey Pegg was there for the event. The cost of the event was $25 which included two cigars and food, but I decided instead to buy a bunch more cigars and pass on the food., I showed up two hours late anyway and had no intention of participating in the event really anyway, apart from smoking the featured cigars and meeting Mickey finally. It’s been months that we’ve been trying to connect. Of course, the several months that I was unemployed and had tons of time on my hands would have been ideal, but but there is this pandemic going on limiting contact and stores being open and all. Now that I am gainfully employed, my time is limited, and we still have the limitations of the pandemic. Fortunately, Cigar Mojo has a large outdoor area, and a large enough lounge and is responsible about occupancy and masks and cleanliness. I felt like it was a good opportunity to venture out. I bought a selection of All Saints Dedicación cigars, along with a couple other new cigars and went and met Mickey.

I smoked the 6” x 60 “Huge” while there. The Dedicación has a San Andrés wrapper, which does not appear to be fermented to a Maduro to me, and Nicaraguan binder and filler. I also bought some of the 6 1/2 x 52 Commandant and Mickey hooked me up with a 5 1/2 x 50 Berkey. the later of the two being box pressed. I’m not going to break each one down individually, the Huge was smoked at an event while I was talking and distracted, but it was a really nice smoke. I smoked the Commandant on Friday. It smoked well and had flavors similar to the Huge, which were earthy for the most part. I found the Berkey to be the best of the three. It had a spice and sweetness that the other two didn’t seem to have. I also felt like the larger two burned faster than I would like, I think the smoking time on the smaller Berkey was darned near the same as the larger two. If I recall, Mickey said that the 6” x 60 would be the outlier flavor wise, I suppose I’ll give them all some humidor time and revisit them at a future date. I certainly won’t hesitate to buy more of this brand though, either front mark, the Dedicación of Solamente, both are excellent. Both are made at Rocky Patel’s Nicaraguan factory, but they are blended by Mickey Pegg. I wrote about his backstory in my Solamente post on September 30.

Reader’s Poll!

Instead of me selecting a cigar of the year this year, I thought I’d do something different. Let’s have a CigarCraig’s 2020 Reader’s Poll! E-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the year. I’ll compile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. It’ll be fun!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as All Saints, cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigars, Dedicación, Readers Poll

by Craig Vanderslice | August 5, 2020 · 2:06 pm

Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing

Monday I attended Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing at the Brookside Country Club in Pottstown, PA. I’m not a golfer, but, geeze, I haven’t even been to a cigar shop in five months, let alone a cigar event (except for stoppin into Best Cigar Pub for lunch, I guess that counts). SO I tagged along with a foursome who was content to take my shots for me in the scramble format. I provided moral support, as well as some cigars along the way, and everyone seemed happy with the arrangement. In the end, I wasn’t a liability to the group, so it all worked out. The day started with lunch of Chicken sandwiches. I joined Tom the Altadis rep, who was there to support the Montecristo part of the event, for lunch, along with Ryan of Island Lifestyle Cigars/Frontier Cigars/Tommy Bahama Accessories. The 60 attendees of the Golf event received a Large Humidor bag containing a Montecristo Colibri cutter, a triple jet Montecristo Vertigo lighter (jumbo size! too big for the pocket, smaller than a table lighter, somewhere in between, a really nice lighter!), a Montecristo cap and two cigars. The cigars were pretty special, one being a Montecristo Pilotico Pepe Mendez No. 2, and a Montecristo Cincuenta No. 2, which is a very limited cigar, which was only sold in humidors of 100 cigars which retailed for $10,000 (if you took out the value of the humidor, each cigar would be $100, however, the humidors were made by Elie Bleu, which can easily account for $2500 of that price tag. It’s still a pricey cigar!).

Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing 5

Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing 1

Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing 2

I opted to start the day off with a Henry Clay Warhawk. I had picked this cigar up at a visit to Goose’s some time ago, and it is an Altadis product, so I figured it was OK. I am pretty picky when it comes to Connecticut shade wrapped cigars, and this is one I like quite a bit. I suppose it’s because it has some depth and body to go along with the creaminess. I hit the links with Ryan of Island Lifestyle Cigars, Matt, a former Reading Royals Hockey player and owner of a CBD company, and Charlie, who owns a local Awards company. As I said, I was along for the ride, fortunately the three of them were cool with me being dead weight. One of the advantages, it would turn out, was that if one of them wasn’t particularly pleased with a shot, they could take my shot and try to improve upon thiers. It was a best ball, scramble format, so I got to contribute in some small way by retrieving balls here and there, and I did provide some commentary and levity where I could. At one point I did provide a round of cigars which went over well, I figured I’d contribute in my own way! I think we ended up somewhere around 5 or 6 under par for the round, Charlie was a big hitter, and everyone seemed to make their individual contributions throughout the 18 holes. I smoked one of Ryan’s Island Lifestyle Connecticut Robustos along the way. I said I was picky about Connecticut cigars, and this one is damned good. It’s made by the Olivas in Nicaragua and was really nice, and it smoked for a much longer time than I figured a robusto would smoke too. I lit it it on the “back 9” (we started on 10, ended on 9 which was right next to the clubhouse!). A good time was had by all. There’s a vide I did on Facebook live on my persona page of the first hole (link here).

Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing 7

Dinner followed when all 15 foursomes got done, which was a Caesar salad followed by a nice prime rib with potatoes and green beans almondine. Prizes were awarded to the top two finishers, who were something silly like 10 or 12 under par, and if they were keeping score like we were, I suppose that’s entirely possible! We were there to have a good time, and mission accomplished, I’d say! Even though I didn’t touch a club, I enjoyed the day a great deal. The company was great, it was a beautiful day, and we smoked some great cigars. I finished the day with a Montecristo Espada Guard, as I figured I should smoke at least one Montecristo at a Montecristo sponsored event! I brought what I had along with my, and by that point in the day, my palate wasn’t in a position to appreciate either of the cigars included in the goodie bag. Goose definitely puts on a great event, the Brookside folks were accommodating and did a great job feeding everyone, and their staff was outstanding from where I sat. I’ve been to plenty of cigar events where the servers wore masks, but they usually are because they are trying to filter the smoke and smell, and hide their derision. This obviously wasn’t the case here, the servers were cheerful and happy to be there. I hope to attend the next one. I should know better than to drink red Gatorade though, anything red is a migraine trigger, along with the storm that came yesterday, it did me in!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Brookside, cigar, cigars, Golf, Goose's, Goose’s Montecristo Greater Philadelphia Golf Outing, Henry Clay, Island Lifestyle, Montecristo

by Craig Vanderslice | July 9, 2020 · 9:16 am

A Montecristo White Vintage Connecticut and an Upcoming Local Event

Yesterday an event was brought to my attention happening here in south-east Pennsylvania that sounds like a great time. Of course, cigar events these days are few and far between, so I’m going to get behind this one! If you’re a golfer and you’re in the south-eastern PA area (or willing to travel) and are looking for a great day of eating, smoking, golfing and all that goes with it, check out this event. I’ve been to many of Goose’s events and they are always top notch. You can’t beat the food, cigars and golf offered with this deal! You can download the registration form here. I’ll be watching this event very closely! There may even be special guests!

Since I had Montecristo on my mind, I selected a Montecristo cigar from my humidor yesterday. I had spent the morning running the chipper cleaning up a cedar tree that my son had taken down for us the previous evening. Mulching all those branches did me in, so I cleaned up and relaxed on the porch with a Montecristo White Vintage Connecticut Double Corona. First, it’s not really a double corona, it’s more of a toro, 6¼” x 50, which is fine with me. In all honesty, there aren’t a lot of Montecristos that float my boat, and the regular Montecristo White series really doesn’t do anything for me. That’s being generous, I actually just don’t like it, and I don’t say that about many cigars. The White Vintage Connecticut is a totally different story. The wrapper is a Vintage Connecticut Shade (Grown in U.S.A. in Montecristo Exclusive Farms, Exclusive to Altadis U.S.A.), the binder is Nicaraguan and the fillers are Dominican, Nicaraguan, and Peruvian. Perhaps its the U.S. wrapper that makes the difference, perhaps it’s the addition of the Peruvian in the filler, but this cigar is delicious to me. It’s buttery smooth, of course, and creamy, with plenty of body and a little strength, but not so much as to be off-putting, but enough to let you know you were smoking a cigar. This would be a wonderful cigar for the golf course. If I happen to attend this event (I may borrow my daughter’s clubs and pretend I golf! Is there some way I can fake it?) I’ll take one of these along. To recap, for me, if I’m choosing a Monte white, it’s going to be in the Vintage Connecticut line, for sure.

This Wednesday blog post is coming to you on Thursday, I got lazy and didn’t get it together yesterday. Every now and then I break with tradition. Stuff happens. E-mail subscribers won’t know the difference! That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, Golf, Goose's, Montecristo, Montecristo Lounge

by Craig Vanderslice | March 1, 2020 · 12:18 pm

Some Powstanie Cigars at Philadelphia Cigar & Tobacco Company Event

Friday afternoon I traveled to Northeast Philadelphia to the Philadelphia Cigar & Tobacco Company shop for the event they were having with Mikes Szczepankiewicz and Palmer. Mike Szczepankiewicz is one of the owners of Cigar Hustlers cigar shop in Deltona Florida, and the Powstanie cigar brand, which is made at the Nica Sueña factory in Esteli. Mike Palmer is Mike Szczepankiewicz’s co-host on the Cigar Hustler’s Podcast, which is in my regular podcast rotation. There’s two things that I’m really spoiled with, one is that I really like smoking cigars and knowing the people behind the brands, and the other is listening to podcasts where I know the people behind the voices. I’m very fortunate to have had opportunities to know a lot of the people who make cigars and present podcasts. There’s nothing special about me, anyone could have put themselves in the position to know these people, and I’m not particularly outgoing by nature. Anyway, when I know the people I’m listening to I feel like I’m listening to friends, more so than when I haven’t really met them. Oddly, when I do meet them, I feel like I know them already, which is awkward, because it’s not always reciprocal. Enough about that. I got the the Philadelphia Cigar & Tobacco Company early, because it seems to take a really long time to get there from my house. I can be in downtown Philly in 40 minutes on a good day, but it took over an hour to get to this location, 33 miles away. I had visited the shop several years ago, back when Bryan Scholle was doing the Studio Tabac rolling events for Oliva (June 2013). The setup of the store has changed since then, the checkout counter is in the humidor now, and the lounge is set up differently. I selected a Powstanie Broadleaf Belicoso and joined the gentlemen in the lounge, where much spirited ball-busting was ensuing amongst the indigenous population. It was entertaining. The Powstanie cigars are made at the Nica Sueña factory, where CroMagnons are made, and this cigar was just brilliant. I really enjoyed it very much. It was full-bodied and rich and right up my alley. I would have liked this in the toro, but the Belicoso was the only size they had. I went back and bought more later, along with some of the Warbear (Wojtek) which I smoked next. The Broadleaf Belicoso is 5½”x 54 with a Broadleaf Maduro wrapper and, I’m guessing, Nicaraguan binder and fillers? It was a fantastic smoke.

I introduced myself to Mike and Mike and chatted with them for a bit, then delved into the Powstanie Wojtek, or Warbear. I figured I wasn’t going to drive an hour to smoke one cigar and leave right after they arrived. I’m not going to comment too much on the flavor of this 5″x 50 perfecto, I’ll smoke another one another time on a clean palate and maybe give my impressions. It’s a barber pole wrapper consisting of Habano and San Andrés, so it’s pretty subtle, you have to look for the difference as there isn’t a lot of color contrast. It did really enjoy the cigar, although after smoking a full bodied Broadleaf cigar, there’s no really getting a good handle on any real flavors. Of course, the construction was perfect, when was the last time you had a poorly made cigar from Skip Martin’s factory? He’s got the whole ISO9001/Lean Manufacturing/Six Sigma thing going on in the factory down there, I imagine it to be quite impressive, hopefully one day I’ll get back down to Esteli for a visit. Anyway, I enjoyed meeting Mike and Mike (super nice dudes) and smoking the Powstanie cigars and hanging out at Philadelphia Cigar and Tobacco CO., but I wanted to get. home and watch the majority of the Flyers beating the Rangers (hopefully they do as well today on national television!).

Yesterday I was putting away the cigars I picked up at the previous evening’s event, which I need to stop buying, and I held out one of the Powstanie Habano Toros and took a bit of a walk with it. It’s been quite a while since I smoked the Habano, I recall picking up a few of these at BnB cigars a few years ago and enjoyed it, but not as much as this Toro. This cigar was impressive! I really enjoyed it, and I’m not sure if it was the size, the former was a Belicoso, I’d have to dig around, there may be one left someplace. The Toro is 6″ x 52, perfect size for me. It has a Habano wrapper, Indonesian binder with Dominican criollo, Estelí ligero and filler from Condega and Jalapa. This had a nice sweetness that I liked, and rich tobacco flavors throughout the smoke and was really a very nice cigar. I highly recommend this, and these are widely available, it seems, if not in your better brick and mortar shop, they are in the larger online shops (or Cigar Huslter’s web store). Very different from the other cigars from Nica Sueño, but equally as awesome. I had initially underestimated this cigar, or when I smoked it 3 years ago I was just coming off a cold. Powstanie is Polish for “rise or “uprising”, and I’m not going to go so far as to say they were so good that “it moved”, but they are really good cigars.

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, Cigar Hustler, cigars, Philadelphia Cigar and Tobacco Co., Powstanie

by Craig Vanderslice | February 2, 2020 · 12:16 pm

Tobacco Plus Expo 2020 Experience and Some Cigar Highlights

I’m back from Las Vegas and the Tobacco Plus Expo, and I had a very positive experience. This was a large expo, probably the size of the IPCPR ( now PCA) show, with tobacco only taking up 30%ish of the floor space. The nice thing about the way they had it set up was that they had it segregated, with red carpet surrounding the Tobacco part, and blue carpet around the Vape/Alternative part, which was larger. I’m working on a video walk through of both, but on the first couple exploratory forays into “the blue”, I found myself running back to the safety of the red carpet both times. I kept hearing Sean Connery’s voice from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade saying “we’re pilgrims in an unholy land”. It wasn’t that unholy, but it was weird seeing all the hemp, CBD and “glassware”. From a cigar purist standpoint, it was strange. Disposable e-cigs seemed to be a trend I didn’t know about, I’m not sure I like the environmental impact of them though, I’ll have to see how to dispose of them. Tossing in the trash doesn’t seem right. The Vape/Alt side was where all the flashy booths, models handing out literature and hype and excitement was. I felt like a fish out of water.

On the cigar side, it was more subdued. Many of the exhibitors were there for the first time, although there were several that had been there before and knew the ropes. Everyone I talked to had a positive experience, they made sales, opened new accounts, and seemed upbeat about the whole thing. Many had very little to do in the way of set-up they brought their samples and displays in themselves, put them in the displays and were ready to go. From my perspective, those of us in the media were provided with a room off the show floor to work or do interviews (where I interviewed Mr. Garofalo), were allowed early access to the show floor, and had no restrictions. I know the PCA was at this show, and I hope they learn some things from them. One retailer I talked to did his buying at the TPE, and isn’t going to the PCA show, whatever he didn’t get here he can get without going to the other show or he doesn’t need, and the expense was much less, and the timing is a lot better. As I thought might happen, several companies released low cost bundles at this show, where others had premium offerings. I was surprised that General Cigar’s booth was a table on a corner with a banner that it wasn’t until the third day that I actually found (and I was actively looking), with none of the brand ambassadors on hand, and Gurkha was easier to find, but was very un-busy. Altadis has a very small booth, but seemed to have good traffic, and Rafael Nodal was there for the first day (at least that’s the day I saw him). Drew Estate’s “booth” accounted for a large portion of the “red zone”, they had a very large area, and of course, Kretek/P&K/Ventura had a large booth, but they own the show. OF course, Tommy Chong was there. They had a series of parties opening night at the Sahara, I only attended the Villiger party, which had great food, and I spent time catching up with Aaron and Jiunn from DevelopingPalates.com and Will Cooper from Cigar-Coop.com, friends I hadn’t seen in a few years.

Interestingly, all of the cigars I smoked behaved well and tasted good. There’s a big difference between Vegas in January and Vegas in July. I checked cigars with the Humidimeter and they all checked out, with the exception of display cigars, one an exhibitor had me check was bone dry, 30%). I few surprises were the Alec Bradley bundle release, Caribbean Classic, a long filler cigar in the $3 range. Really a very tasty, well made cigar that certainly didn’t strike me as a cheap cigar! I was introduced to Nova Cigars, and I will be sampling their line over the coming weeks. They are on the opposite end of the spectrum, running from about $12 up into the $30s. I smoked their box pressed torpedo, the Sultan, which was pretty darned good too. Robert Holt presented the Cedrus in a Lancero for the show, and announced that all of his lanceros are moving from 7″ to 7½”. The Cedrus Lancero was exceptional, I’m just a little sad I didn’t schnorr one to smoke at home, but I’m sure one will find it’s way here eventually! It was a great experience, I met some new folks, I saw some old friends I hadn’t seen in a few years, and had a good time. Of course, what would a trip be without bringing home a souvenir head cold! I’m working on videos of walkthroughs of both sides of the show so you can get an idea of what it looked like.