Dark times have descended upon me, as a scourge of sinus and bronchial unrest has made enjoying a cigar impossible. I felt it coming on Wednesday, but Thursday the cold came on with a vengeance, and has made for a miserable few days. You see, I’ve taken Monday and Tuesday off so my wife and I can go to New York City for a couple days, mainly because we were invited to a 50th birthday party for our dear friend Mitchell, which is taking place in Brooklyn. My primary objective since contracting this abominable affliction is to eradicate it, so I can be in perfect form to enjoy amazing cigars at this soiree. It would be an insult to our host to be sick at his party. So, I’ve decided to forgo my daily cigar, not that I even remotely desired one, that’s how abysmal I’ve been feeling, which leaves me with a bit of a content vacuum. So I’ll just wing it!
I have one last video to share from the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival, and that’s a few minutes talking to my dear freind Omar de Frias from Fratello Cigars. I’ve featured Omar here before, I first met him at the 2013 IPCPR show where he made his debut and a big splash (more here). I had the good fortune of spending an afternoon with him at D & S Cigar Lounge in Lancaster, PA (also here) last March. Omar has a commanding presence, and has to be about the hardest working guy in the business since Rocky Patel. How he can hold down a day job, travel all over reping his cigars and stay married is a mystery Here’s the video for your enjoyment!
Of course, you can see all of my past video at my Youtube Channel if you are ever really bored. That’s it for today! I’ll have something cool for sure on Wednesday’s post! Until then,
Last time I offered a five pack from my humidors for the correct answer to our dog’s name significance. While it’s true that the SPCA named her after Macha, the goddess in Irish mythology, I decided that it had to have a Beatles tie in. We have cats named Max (Maxwell’s Silver Hammer) and Eleanor (Eleanor Rigby), so I knew there must be a connection, and there was, sort of. It’s a stretch, but in 1981 George Harrison financed a film starring Ringo Starr called “Caveman”, one of my favorite movies. One of the first peices of dialog in the movie is Ringo’s character, Atouk, encountering a dinosaur, and yelling “Macha!”. So, it’s obscure, but I was able to come up with a Beatles reference for the name Macha! I’m surprised (not really) that nobody came up with it. Here’s the first part of Caveman for your entertainment. Interesting to note that the movie is set in One Zillion B.C., October 9. October 9 is John Lennon’s birthday, and he was murdered the year before. This was an homage to him. I suppose since nobody got it right I’ll select a winner at Random, the number generator spit out the number 10, so Dan Colley needs to send me his address. Thanks for playing along, I’ll try to throw these little contests in from time to time.
http://youtu.be/pGepwTmhBtA
On to the cigars! Sunday I selected a Blanco Liga Exclusiva de Familia Connecticut Shade Salomon. David Blanco gave me this cigar at The Smokin Goose event a few weeks ago and it looked really special, so I had to smoke it. It’s a 6″ x 54 Salomon shaped cigar with a beautiful wrapper which is US Connecticut seeds grown in the Talanga Valley of Honduras. It lit quickly and easily, and burned perfectly. The cigar was silky smooth and creamy. It was a very enjoyable cigar, refined and delicious. I really like the Blanco 9, but for totally different reasons. This pretty perfecto is something special. Highly recommended.
Monday I went for another new cigar, the La Palina Black Label Robusto. This 5″x52 robusto has a dark Brazilian wrapper, with Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers made in the PDR factory in Dominican Republic. It recent;y came to my attention that the PDR factory is located either in the same complex, or very close to, Jochi Blanco’s factory where the Boutique Blends lines are made. These are both very hot factories in the DR. I expected a very good experience from the La Palina, and I received it. The Brazilian wrapper gives it a nice espresso like flavor, with a hint of sweetness. It hit the spot on my evening walk.
Tuesday I had to do some things at the new house after dinner, so when I got home I took my walk with a L’Atelier Maduro MAD44 which I bought back in August at Havana Manor in Longmont, Colorado. I was pretty sure the small size would come in handy one day, and this was the perfect time. It was perfect for a mile and a half walk listening to the Flyers game. This line has the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper with a Sancti Spiritus Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This is yet another refined smoke, with a sweet, strong coffee flavor. It burned perfectly for the entirety of it’s four inch length. It’s a great short smoke.
Tonight I came across a Placeres Reserva Estrellas from Kuuts Cigars in the humidor and decided it’s time had come. This cigar is made in Honduras, with a Nicaraguan wrapper and binder and Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers. This is the first of this line I’ve tried, and it’s a winner. It had a savory flavor, like a nice steak. It burned perfectly with a nice flat and even burn. Some say that a cone shaped ember is the sign of a perfect burn, I disagree. I love to tap off the ash and have a nice flat coal, it tells me that all the components are burning at the same rate, and it’s no small feat to make this happen. It’s a testament to the blender who manages to get leaves of varying thickness and oiliness to burn so well. I’ll be anxious to sample other cigars from Kuuts after having such a good experience with this one.
It’s October, hard to believe it’s autumn already and summer is gone. I’ve been all over the place in my cigar selections this week, only one minor theme this week, and that was sampling some of the new cigars from Roberto P. Duran. Last year I smoked a couple of the Azan line last year and was enthralled with the White, very high quality and unique flavor. I was excited when Gabriel Piñeres of Creativas, who is the PR firm for Azan/Roberto P Duran, sent me the new Roberto P. Duran cigars, along with the Azan Maduro Natural. The cigar I smoked was the Cacique Guama (6×60), which has a beautiful light brown Ecuador Criollo 99 wrapper, with Nicaraguan and Central American fillers. Cacique Guama was a Tainos Chief from Baracoa and great fighter against the Spanish occupation of their land, the line pays homage to Roberto Duran’s family and his family’s city of origin in Cuba. This cigar smoked very well, although some humidor time will benefit the samples I received. It’s apparent that quality materials were used, it’s a very smooth and flavorful smoke with a hint of strength. I thoroughly enjoyed it, this company is making some very nice cigars.
Monday I selected a cigar that came from the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival that I haven’t smoked before, but has been on the market for a while. The La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Torpedo appears to be a Tobacconists’ Association of America (TAA) exclusive shape, as I don’t see this shape listed in the regular production. This is listed as a strong cigar, as many in the LFD lines are, but I found it to be reasonably mild for some reason. It had a really nice flavor, and burned perfectly. I’m a reasonably recent convert to the LFDs, and I’ll be interested in trying other sizes in the Air Bender line, as I enjoyed the flavor, but maybe this size, ot this particular example, just wasn’t ideal for me. I generally like shaped cigars (actually, I don’t really discriminate), perhaps the chisel shape or a robusto will be a better fit for me.
Tuesday I took my evening walk with the Azan Maduro Natural Campaña. The Campaña size is a traditional Cuban vitola, the Bolivar Belicoso Fino, the Romeo y Julieta and Sancho Panza Belicosos fall onto this category. It’s 5½ x 52 with a tapered head. The Azan line began in Cuba in the 1920s by a Chinese immigrant,Kwan Ben Sen, who adopted the Cuban name Domingo Azan. Roberto Duran is descended from this family. As I said before, I loved the Azan White, and given my affinity for maduros I was excited to try this cigar.
The wrapper is a high priming Corojo grown in Ecuador, with Nicaraguan binder and fillers from Esteli, Jalapa and selected tobaccos from other Latin American regions. This cigar was a treat. It was solidly medium bodied and had very nice flavors of cocoa, coffee and earth. It burned well and should age well. This cigar exceeded my expectations.
Tonight, since it’s October first, I thought I’d smoke the Quesada Oktoberfest Krone, a 5″ x 43 corona. Now, I know I haven’t been a beer drinker for the better part of 25 years, but I do know that Oktoberfest is in September, but it still seemed appropriate. This cigar is blended to pair with Marzen style beers, I chose a root beer as usual. This is a strong Dominican cigar that’s loaded with flavor. The only other Quesada Oktoberfest cigar I’ve smoked was the Smoke Inn Microblend Dunkel, which was excellent. This corona was equallly excellent. It had bold flavors, burned perfectly, and my only complaint was that it was too small, I would have liked to have smoked it longer. Still, it was good for an hour or more, and look forward to smoking this line again.
Travis Lord, formerly of Famous Smoke Shop, Best Cigar Prices and PipesandCigars.com launched a new website called www.Cigar.Careers which is a Monster.com, if you will, for the cigar industry. You can submit a resume and look at available job postings.
In other news, Facebook has been abuzz with rumors of a major announcement today. Jonathan Drew posted his press release on his Facebook timeline tonight: “HERE IS MY PRESS RELEASE: “I’m back on Weight Watchers” – JD” Good luck to JD on his future endeavors.
After hearing the news last week of Sam Leccia joining General Cigar Co., and his lines being absorbed into the Foundry Tobacco division, and having spent some time with Michael Giannini at the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival, I decided to spend the first part of the week, at least, smoking some cigars from the Foundry line. I started out Sunday afternoon with a Compounds, Elements and Musings Titanium Torpedo that I bought a few months back on clearance at a local shop. I’m kicking myself for not buying more of them, as I found it to be a really enjoyable cigar. The blend is listed simply as Nicaraguan and “Smoke it”, so there’s not a lot of information about this cigar. I can almost guarantee that the wrapper is a Connecticut shade wrapper of some sort, my guess is Ecuadoran. This was a nice, smooth cigar, on the mild side, but loaded with creamy flavors. The construction was perfect, and it really was a nice, mellow, Sunday afternoon smoke. I don’t know how many of these are still in circulation, but these are not to be avoided!
I followed the Titanium with the first of a new Foundry series, The Worm Hole 1964 Blend. In the video below Michael tells us about the concept behind the cigars. The 1964, like the rest of the line, is a mystery as far as the blend goes. General Cigar Co. had an enormous library of tobacco, and Michael finds unique and rare tobaccos and makes the Foundry cigars. This was another milder cigar, but with a ton of flavor. Initially, I thought the size was the same as the Partagas Robusto, 5 ½ x 49, and I even measured with an aluminum ring gauge checker I have, but they list these at 5½ x 50. It’s still a great size, regardless oif the ring gauge. This was a nice smoke.
Monday I took a break from the Foundry line to smoke the joint venture between Michael Giannini and his mentor, Ernesto Perez Carillo, the Re+United. This was a limited edition made at EPC’s Tabacalera La Alianza S.A., around the corner from General Cigar’s factory in Santiago, DR. The wrapper is a high priming Ecuador Havana leaf from General’s library, the binder a Connecticut broadleaf from EPCs inventory, and a mix of fillers from both companies. This is a large cigar, 6½ x 54, and was difficult to find. I bought two from Serious Cigars in Texas last week. This was a stronger cigar, very different from the Foundry and Compounds, Elements and Musings cigars I smoked this week. I found it very interesting and satisfying, and look forward to smoking the other one I have after a nice long rest.
Tuesday I chose the present in the Worm Hole series, the 2014. You know me well enough by now to know that unless there’s a maduro in a series, I have to smoke them in order. It’s a CDO thing (which of course is OCD, in alphabetical order like it should be). This was another beautiful cigar, in the 5½ x 50 format, that burned perfectly. I like the copper colored band on this one, with out the band it would be very hard to differentiate between the three cigars. The wrapper is smooth and without blemish, and, once again ,the burn was very good. It may have had a bit more strength than the 1964, but was still on the milder side with a nice, clean flavor.
Tonight I went with the 2064. This is meant to represent the future, and is reported to contain Martian tobacco. Of course, this would involve time travel, which reminds me of a recent conversation I overheard and chimed in on. We were at the Fest for Beatles Fans back on August and while eating breakfast a couple next to us was speculating about going back in time and writing all of the Beatles’ songs and selling them to the Beatles and I suggested that maybe Paul McCartney had actually done that, I mean, if anyone could afford a time machine, it would be Sir Paul! Anyway, this cigar really smoked well. I also have some of these in the larger 6 x 52 size that I can’t wait to smoke. There is a common thread among the three of these cigars, they are all on the milder side, but are all packed with flavor and made with quality ingredients. Like the previous Foundry lines, the original line with the gears on the band and the War Of Currents line, this line has unique and interesting flavors that are different from other cigars in the marketplace. I look forward to smoking more and really concentrating on the flavors. My La Gloria Cubana humidor is now more than half filled with Foundry cigars!
Here’s the video with Michael Giannini, one of the most creative guys in the cigar industry.
When we were out in Colorado last month for the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival, we went to an event the night before at Havana Manor in Longmont, CO. with Pete Johnson and Janny Garcia. It turned out to be a cigar industry who’s who, and we ran into a bunch of friends. While there my buddy Storm Boen (Op: Cigars for Warriors) introduced us to Dean Parsons of Epic Cigars. Dean is a hockey player from Newfoundland (the Canadian province where they make the enormous dogs) who relocated to the Caribbean and got into the cigar business. Sounds like a logical progression, right? I decided to sample his wares this week, so I could slip in this video from the festival.
As if you’d expect anything else, I started out with the Epic Maduro Reserva 60×6. Brazillian Arapiraca wrappper with a Cameroon binder. Just now reading that I know why I was totally blown away by this cigar. I love that combination of wrapper and binder, you don’t see it every day. It had a very unique (and delicious) meaty flavor, like smoking a perfectly cooked steak. Just enough fat, pink in the middle, mouth watering! This is a flavor bomb of epic proportions, and certainly aptly named. This is a cigar I’ll be looking for as it really performed well in all departments, it was a hat trick, great flavor, burn and draw. It was a beautiful looking cigar too!
Friday I selected the Corojo Reserva 54×6. I appreciate the clever names Dean has given each vitola! This cigar has Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers like the Maduro, with a Corojo Ecuador wrapper over a Dominican Piloto Cubano binder. This was another great burning cigar with excellent flavor. It didn’t have the uniqueness I was hoping for, but it certainly was a solid, satisfying cigar in the medium to full flavors range. An interesting side note, Dean was telling us that he sent Altadis a cease and desist letter over the Montecristo Epic when it came out, and instead of the giant company crushing the little guy with litigation, they signed a coexistence agreement!
Yesterday I smoked the third cigar in the Epic line, the Habano. This was released at this years IPCPR show, and it has a n Ecuador Habano wrapper, a Cameroon binder and the Dominican/Nicaraguan fillers like the rest of the line. Once again, the construction on these was perfect. The burn never needed correction, and the draw, while a little snug, was acceptable. I thought it has a nice spicy and earthy flavor. Perhaps if I had smoked the maduro last, I would have enjoyed this and the Corojo more, but the Maduro set the bar high and similar flavors I was looking for in the Habano and Corojo weren’t there. I think the Epic lineup plays a full three periods, for sure.
I may smoke some goodies from Michael Giannini’s Foundry line this week, then next Saturday I’m going to attend The Smokin’ Goose, a multi-vender festival hosted by Goose’s Tobacco Outlet and Cafe. This is being held at the historic Sunny Brook Ballroom & Convention Center in Pottstown, PA. It’s only a few miles up the road and I’m looking forward to seeing this inaugural event succeed so close to home. So, until the next time,
