Category Archives: Take a Cigar For a Walk

by | April 25, 2012 · 10:16 pm

A Ginger Beer Blind Tasting and a Nestor Miranda Cigar

Monday evening we decided to have a little blind tasting.  We gathered my 18 year old son, two of his friends, and my 22 year old son, and five premium ginger beers.  For the uninitiated, ginger beer (or brew in some cases) is akin to ginger ale, but generally stronger in flavor. I have long been a fan of a frosty long neck bottle of ginger brew with a nice, strong cigar.  We collected sixpacks of Gosling’s Stormy Ginger Beer (in cans) and  Saranac Ginger Beer in bottles, four packs of Reeds Extra Ginger Brew and Maine Root Ginger Brew and a lone bottle from a four pack of Appalachian Brewing Co. Ginger Beer.   My lovely wife passed out cups of each one at a time and we judged each on fizziness, sweetness, spice, finish and overall satisfaction.  We used a 5 point scale with 1 being worst and 5 being best.

 

 

Gosling’s Stormy Ginger Beer averaged 2.8 for fizziness, 3.4 for sweetness, 3.4 for spice, 3.0 for finish and 3.0 overall satisfaction.  Some of the comments were that it smelled gingery, was balanced, mild, sweey and spicy.  I enjoyed it as a step up from ginger ale and a refreshing beverage.  This one is a bargain at $2.99 for a six-pack of cans.  I’d be interested in trying this in bottles.

Maine Root Ginger Brew averaged 2.2 for fizziness, 3.0 for sweetness, 4.6 for spice, 4.2 for finish and 3.8 for overall satisfaction.  Some comments were that it has a floral aroma, was strong, complex aromatic, spicy on the back of the throat, a spicy MoFo, and a lasting aftertaste. Personally, this is my second favorite of the group, it’s ginger ale on steroids, with a very strong ginger bite. Pricey at over $5 per four-pack, but very tasty.

Appalachian Brewing Co. Ginger Beer averaged 3.6 for fizziness, 2.8 for sweetness, 2.8 for spice, 3.2 for finish and 3.0 for overall satisfaction.  Some of the comments were that it has a citrus aroma and flavor, not much spice, sweeter and not as spicy, and smells fruity, very fizzy.  I was rather surprised by the low sweetness rating, as this ginger beer is heavily honeyed, and is, to me, very sweet.  I think this one was in the neighborhood of $5 per four-pack as well and is nice if you like honey more than ginger.

Reeds Extra Ginger Brew averaged 3.0 for fizziness, 3.2 for sweetness, 3.0 for spice, 3.2 for finish and 2.9 for overall satisfaction. Comments were that it had a faint ginger smell, strong, aromatic with a fine finish, spiciest, very faint ginger smell, very nice and enjoyable.  This was my introduction to ginger brew going back twelve or so years. We probably should have gotten the regular ginger brew for this test, but I just love the Extra, and actually wanted to see if I could pick it out of a line up.  I did identify it immediately, I’m pleased to report. Great stuff and when you can find it under $5 a four-pack it’s even better!

Saranac Ginger Beer averaged 3.8 for fizziness, 4.0 for sweetness, 2.5 for spice. 3.4 for finish and 3.2 for overall satisfaction.  The comments were a citrusy smell, taste like cat litter (?) light spice, very sweet, fine fizz, light finish and smooth and sweet.  This is both the closest to a ginger ale of the bunch as well as one of the least expensive at around $4 for a six-pack.  I’m confused by the cat litter comment, as that’s not generally a complimentary comparison.

 

It looks like the Maine Root was the over-all winner, although I think we need to work on the rating system a little.  It certainly competes favorably with my favorite, Reed’s, and will be welcomed into my refrigerator.  We’ll work on a root beer tasting next as there are some excellent examples around.

 

Tuesday night I took a long walk with a 7″ x 54 Nestor Miranda Special Selection which was a gift from my buddy Barry Stein when he announced that he was going to work for Miami Cigar and Co.  I don’t see this size listed, so I don’t know the story behind it, but it sure was good!  It burned perfectly even though I was walking briskly and there was a bit of a breeze.  I walked over three miles and this cigar really kept me entertained.  At one point I tasted an exotic spice of some sort that I recognized, but couldn’t place.  It was a terrific choice, and I thank Barry for sharing it with me.  I’ll certainly be on the look out for more of these.  This was the first I’ve smoked and I really enjoyed it, even if it’s not a style of cigar I normally gravitate to.  Terrific smoke, and the Maine Root Ginger Brew was an excellent chaser for this cigar.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | April 22, 2012 · 10:36 am

An Emilio Draig K, a Diamondback, and a San Lotano

Thursday had turned into a stressful day, and when my wife suggested a walk into town, I knew I wanted a terrific cigar to take along.  So many choices, so I came across a pre-release sample of the new cigar from Emilio Cigars and Gary Griffith, the Draig K.  This dark, oily toro just looked like it was the cigar I was looking for. I had actually just about settled on a Liga Privada T52 when I was distracted by the Draig.  Made in the Placencia factory, the only details I recall are that it features some Colombian tobacco in the filler.  I love a maduro, and I loved this cigar.  It was exactly the rich, satisfying smoking experience I had hoped for.  There were a couple points where it stopped wanting to burn and needed a relight, and there was a small tunnel about 4 inches in, but the flavor and texture of the smoke kept me relighting it down to a ¾” nub.  Yummy cigar. Yet another cigar I’m going to have to get my hands on when they hit the streets!  Thank you, Gary, for the opportunity to sample this fine cigar.

 

Friday night finally rolled around and I was in an experimental mood, so I reached for the IPCPR show sample of the Diamondback robusto from Altadis.  First, from the department of cynicism, one can’t help but draw a comparison between this cigar and another 5″ x 54 shade wrapped cigar with “diamond” in it’s name.  Pre-conceived notions aside, this was a very nice cigar.  It was solidly constructed, burned even and cut cleanly.  If you like shade wrapped cigars, you may want to try these out, considering you can get them by the box for under $50.  Not a bad cigar at all. My only complaint was that the draw was a little tighter than I’d prefer, making me have to work a little harder than I’d like.

 

Saturday was another beautiful spring day.  Showers were in the forecast for later, so I hit the back deck with a San Lotano Maduro lancero.  I’ve very much enjoyed past San Lotano maduros, so expectations were high, as I love  lancero format as well.  This was a terrific cigar, although comparing it with its fatter brethren is a little unfair.  Certainly, smoking the lancero is a little different experience,  one cannot expect the same flavors as a toro or robusto due to the difference in the filler proportions.  Where I find the larger ring gauges in this line to be rich and creamy like smoking a chocolate bar, the lancero was more like bittersweet chocolate.  In no way do I mean to imply that this is a bad thing, as the lancero was a fantastic smoke.  I spent nearly 2 hours nursing every last bit of tasty smoke from it, awfully sad to put it down when it decided it’s time had come. I had picked this up several months ago when I visited Gary Griffith at his People’s Plaza Cigar-ette City store.

 

News

 

I’m sure most of you have already done this, but if you haven’t, please head over the the White House website and sign the petition that’s there.  Here’s a terrific video from Bill Spann outlining the importance of this fight to keep the FDA out of our humidors.

httpv://youtu.be/7bfqIFGu9WM

It looks like there should be no problem getting to 25,000 signatures, but I think we often over-estimate the number of internet cigar nuts out there.  If cigar smokers are a small subset of the general population, and PREMIUM cigar smokers represent a very small subset of those, then those of us who carry our passion for cigars onto the internet are a VERY small part.  It’s important to spread the word and get others on board with this.  It will not be a happy day if the FDA is allowed to regulate premium cigars!

 

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

CigarCraig

 

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by | April 4, 2012 · 7:03 pm

A Monte Pascoal, a New Room 101 Cigar and News from CAO

Monday evening I was in the mood for something interesting, so I grabbed a Monte Pascoal Belicoso. This Brazilian puro came to me from Wesley Genzel who is the US distributor for the brand, and a really cool guy. I first made his acquaintance at the 2010 IPCPR show where I found myself standing in the wrong registration line with him (I was in the wrong line, he was fine) . I was also privileged to be present at the Cigar Journal awards ceremony where Monte Pascoal was awarded the best cigar from Brazil. Now, most of us probably associate Brazilian tobacco with nice, dark maduro wrappers like one finds on the CAO Brazilia, or Toraño Exodus 1959 50 years, but the Monte Pascoal has what I would call a Natural wrapper. It doesn’t have the heavy flavors I associate with the maduro wrappers, of course, and is a really nice, smooth, well balanced cigar. It’s interesting to smoke different sizes of this line and see the differences presented in each vitola, the Minuto is decidedly stronger than the robusto or belicoso. It’s a very cool line, if you can get your hands on some, I’d recommend trying them.

 

Since I visited with Matt Booth last week, I didn’t want to waste any time trying out his soon to be released Room101 San Andreas. I have a real weakness for Mexican San Andreas wrapper, so it was all I could do to leave this in the humidor for a couple days. I had a short amount of time between dinner (General Tso’s Chicken, Beef and Broccoli) and the Flyers game, so I set out on my evening walk with this little puppy. The sample I received was the same size as the Papi Chulo, 4″ x 42. I’m actually guessing, I was too excited to smoke it so I forgot to measure it. I punched it, and got a blast of flavor on the cold draw. At this point I know I’m in for a treat. And a treat it was! This is a cigar one needs a beverage with, it’s one of a few cigars that makes me salivate, I bee-lined it to the root beer when I got home from my walk. I so enjoyed this little cigar, and too soon it was gone! I generally smoke a cigar to a finger-burning nub, but when I got to that point, it was still delicious. I had no choice but to impale the little bastard with a toothpick and suck the last little bits of goodness from it. I look forward to these being released, I believe the band on this, and I like the band, it clearly states it’s a pre-release sample, says it’s coming out mid-April. I heard someplace that the robusto is the real gem in this line.

 

News

 

I’m not one to re-print every press release that comes through my e-mail box, I feel compelled to share this one with you, as I think it’s really cool.

CAO SAYS JUDGMENT DAY IS COMING

Promotion Gives Fans a Chance to Choose New Blend

Richmond, VA—When their fans talk, the team at CAO listens. From now (April 3, 2012) through June 30, 2012, cigar smokers will have a chance to select an upcoming CAO blend, as part of the brand’s “Last Stick Standing” promotion.

CAO’s senior brand manager Ed McKenna explains, “Rick Rodriguez has been developing blends with our team in Nicaragua and has come up with three which we think are all great. So we’re calling on CAO fans to help us pick the blend that will ultimately be launched as a new CAO collection, to be released late this year, or in early 2013.”

A special three-pack tin called the Last Stick Standing is now available for free with the purchase of any six CAO cigars at participating cigar shops across the U.S. Each tin contains three distinct blends, aptly named C, A and O. The cigars all measure 5 1/2” x 54, which is what Rick Rodriguez considers to be the ideal size for allowing consumers to truly evaluate each blend.

A dedicated website (www.lss.caocigars.com) will serve as a virtual voting booth, allowing cigar smokers to rate each cigar on certain criteria, such as flavor, body, construction and overall experience.

For every rating submitted, consumers will be entered to win a box of the winning CAO blend before it’s available for purchase, or the grand prize, an all-expense paid trip for the winner and a guest to the CAO factory in Nicaragua. Sharing entries on the Last Stick Standing Facebook page will provide consumers with multiple entries to win.

Last Stick Standing, AKA “Judgment Day” events will be held at select tobacco shops across the country, with special event-exclusive offers featuring CAO OSA Sol “Lot T” (4 ½” x 50) and “Lot 46” (5 ¼” x 46 ) which will be released later this year as the first new additions to CAO OSA Sol since its debut last September. In addition, a handpicked group of preferred CAO retailers will host guided Last Stick Standing tastings by Rick Rodriguez who will share his insight on the three blends.

General cigar did something similar quite a while ago in the Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur line, where they sent samples and had consumers choose the favorite of the two. This resulted in what many of us always wanted, an Excalibur with a Cameroon wrapper, the 1066. I had the pleasure of participating in a similar exercise last fall when visiting General Cigar on the DR. We were given three cigars and asked for our input.  It’s always fun to smoke cigar blind, and to be able to have a voice in the selection of a new cigar is pretty cool.

 

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

CigarCraig

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by | March 7, 2012 · 8:43 pm

A La Gloria Cubana, a CAO and a Murcielago – Cigar Weather is Returning!

We left off on Sunday having had a nice Camacho Havana with my son and brother-in-law, and it seemed like a 2 cigar day, so I selected a La Gloria Cubana Artesanos de Tabaqueros Rothschild that I got last December when I went up to Famous Smoke Shop in Easton, PA to hang out with Michael Giannini.  This was the version that starts our with a delicious Connecticut shade wrapper, then transitions to the Ecuador Sumatra wrapper.  These are tasty little buggers, and I like them.  This is a size that I believe is only available at their events, and it’s a shame, because it’s a great size and fit the time I had available perfectly.  This unusual presentation really highlights the effect the wrapper has on the flavor of a cigar.  I normally wait to remove the band, but with this one I took it off before I started, since it’s located so close to the foot.  Expertly crafted, perfect burn, great smoke!

 

Monday evening I grabbed a few year old CAO Brazilia Gol.  A few years back my wife got me several samplers of CAO cigars, and this is about the last of them.  Really nice, dark, oily, sweet Brazilian wrapper surrounding tasty Nicaraguan fillers.  There’s a handful of CAO cigars that I have enjoyed over the years, and this is one of them.  Smoked this to a finger-burning nub.  This one pre-dated the acquisition of CAO by General, but I’m sure that the current offerings are just as tasty, something I will explore the next time I see these in the shop.

 

Today we had temperatures in the 60s, making for a fine evening to smoke a cigar without gloves, cold toes or shivering.  It was a very pleasant night for a walk with a nice, big cigar.  A few months back I won a beautiful Griffin’s humidor from a Facebook contest that I either forgot, or didn’t realize I had entered.  This is a lovely box, and I recently loaded it up for convenient upstairs storage, mostly with gifts, samples or singles purchases.  I had pretty much been smoking out of the coolerdors for the last bunch of years, which are kept in the basement.  I’m now fortunate enough to have two gorgeous desktop humidors, the first of which my wife had made for me for our tenth wedding anniversary, and it holds all those “special” cigars and doesn’t get opened very often.  I’m rather enjoying going to this new humidor to pick a cigar, and will keep rotating singles out of the coolers for daily smoking.  Tonight I selected a Murcielago Toro Grande that was basically a gift from my amigo Barry Stein on the DR trip last October.  I had given Barry a Hoyo de Monterrey when he was without a cigar, and he later responded with this cigar.  It’s among my favorite maduro cigars.  I can’t think of a San Andreas Maduro wrapped cigar I don’t enjoy, and this one has all the components that I enjoy, a little bit of strength, sweet where it needs to be sweet, with a fine balance.  Perfectly made, a great cigar.  I know this is one of Eddie Ortega‘s favorites, which is the reason I so look forward to trying his new Serie D line.  The Murcielago is a cigar well worth sampling.

 

In the News

Click to Enlarge

Just for fun, here’s another clipping from the archives of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  This article is from the June 28, 1835 edition.  It’s not easy to read, so click on the image to make it a little bigger.  If only this attitude continued today!

 

 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | March 4, 2012 · 3:13 pm

A.Fuente, an Emilio and a Sunday Morning Camacho Cigar with Family

Thursday evening I found myself on the phone with Verizon support.  I had been fighting with them about the upstairs TVs that we were initially promised would work without a box, only to find that we needed a special box.  Not that $4 a month is a lot for the box, but it  was the principle of it, and they figured out a way to give me a box for free so we could have more than one TV in the house again.  I had to call to get the box activated, and had been looking forward to an evening cigar. After several minutes listening to the planet’s worst hold music, I decided to grab a cigar and wait on the porch for them to pick up.  I grabbed an Arturo Fuente Hemingway Best Seller, put the phone on speaker and fired it up.  I’ve long been a fan of the Hemingway line, at least from the Signature down, as anything larger just doesn’t do it for me for some reason.  I would have preferred a Short Story, since I didn’t know how long I’d have, but I didn’t have any on hand.  The Best Seller is a great cigar.  I love the “Camerooniness” of the line, that wrapper really really is delicious on these.  It’s not too cheap of a cigar, but I had picked a few of these up last year with a Groupon for half off, so they weren’t too bad.  I got about half way through before the representative picked up and I went inside to get squared away, which did eventually happen.  I went back out and re-lit the cigar, but I didn’t get to smoke as much of it as I’d have liked.  Still, a terrific way to temper the frustration of having to deal with phone support.   I really think they want you to hang up, but I wasn’t giving them the satisfaction!

 

Friday evening’s walk called for a good smoke, so I grabbed an Emilio AF2 BMF and my elder son and I hit the bricks (concrete mostly, but actual bricks in a few places…it’s just an expression!).  I had picked a few of these up at my local shop a few months back.  Needless to say, this is a solid cigar, and sizable at 6″ x 58, truly a big MF!  I find this to be milder than the AF1, but loaded with flavor, a little sweet, and delicious.  I blame myself for this, but it’s a much better warm weather cigar than cold, but that’s my problem.  I wanted to smoke it, and the colder weather wasn’t going to deter me.  Still a solid smoke, highly recommended by me for whatever that’s worth!

 

I had picked up an odd cigar at my local shop, JM Cigars in Exton.  It was labeled with the shop owners name, and I was told that it was made by Rocky Patel (but I bought one anyway!).  This was a 6½” x 48 cigar, with what looked like a dark Habano wrapper.  Unfortunately, it burned a little crappy and was pretty ho-hum in flavor to me.  I don’t smoke a lot of RP cigars anyway, as they don’t really suit my palate for whatever reason.  Maybe I don’t smoke the right ones, maybe the breadth of his lines confuses me and is a pit of a turn off, I don’t know.  I still like to try peoples house or personal blends, and this experience won’t stop me from picking up the occasional oddball cigar when I see one.  I was told at the shop that this batch wasn’t as good as the first batch, but just because I didn’t care for it doesn’t mean that it isn’t someones favorite cigar, and for around $4 it was worth trying.

 

Sunday morning my wife, youngest son and I went out to breakfast with my brother-in-law, who was in town visiting.  My son, Christian, recently turned 18 and has been enjoying the occasional cigar, sometimes with me, sometimes with his friends.  As can be expected from someone in his demographic, he’s been digging the Acid line, trying a few here and there.  So Christian, my Bro-in-law Jeff and I stopped at JM Cigars for a post breakfast digestif.  Jeff had asked me to recommend an inexpensive daily smoke a while back and I told him to try the National Brand robustos from Camacho, which he loves (and he’s from New Jersey, so he gets a real good deal purchasing in PA because of the taxes).  I wanted something all three of us would appreciate so I grabbed a handful of Camacho Habana Monarcas.  I’ve loved this line for years, and haven’t had one in forever. Even though I typically don’t care for Criollo wrapped cigars, this one works really well, I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.  The cigar is light enough for the novice and has enough flavor and body for someone who has a cigar or two a day or a long-time cigar nut like myself.  It was nice to sit in the lounge and chat for a while. Myson and his uncle share the rock climbing gene, so they have a lot in common, and Jeff and I are roughly the same age and have known one another for 26 or so years, so the three of us, despite the disparity of ages, were able to have a nice, relaxing hour or so with a fine cigar and one-another’s company.  It also went a long way toward aiding in the digestion of an over-indulgent breakfast!

 

News

The annual Habanos Festival just ended, and I wasn’t there.  I did notice an interesting press release about the lots in the auction that is held every year. Looks like a nice box, but the price is a little steep for me!

Cohiba Cigar Humidor Sold for 475,500 USD, Equipped With Microprocessor-Controlled Adorini Humidifiers.

Humidor bought by Italian entrepreneur at 14th Habanos Festival in Cuba. The humidor comes with microprocessor controlled adorini humidifiers, 520 Cohiba cigars, and remote-controlled hydraulic system to open the humidor.

Why the heck you’d need to open your humidor from across the room is beyond me, but it sure sounds cool!  I guess you have to let those 520 Cohibas living inside get a breath of fresh air once in a while.

 

Anyway, that’s it for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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