Flor de Gonzalez, Gurkha and Opus, Countdown to the 2014 12SDoCG

This will be my last post before kicking off the fourth annual CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways!  This year may just be the best yet! I have an absurd amount of cigars in the  2014 12SDoCG coolerdor!  Stay tuned for the big kick off on Thursday, December 11 (yes, a day earlier than I originally announced).  Tell your friends and neighbors, subscribe to the e-mail list, keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook!  Don’t miss the chance to win some goodies from our generous sponsors, listed here in no particular order: Drew Estate, Joya de Nicaragua, General Cigar Co., Miami Cigar and Co., Arandoza Cigars, Nomad Cigars, Smoke Inn, 2 Guys Smokeshop, Gurkha Cigars and Tortuga Cigars. Thanks to all these great friends for their contributions and support!  For those of you who don’t know or remember, the rules are simple!  Leave a comment on  the day’s blog post to enter. After day one, I’ll announce the winner of the previous day’s giveaway, and the current day’s present. It makes my life  easier if the winner e-mails me with their address, instead of me having to track them down, but no need to send your address proactively!  Once you’ve won, you’re done! All decisions are final, you’d be surprised at how difficult is can be to count through thousands of comments to find the winner! OK, hundreds, but in the pre-dawn hours it’s tough! I will throw a new twist in asking a question each day about that days sponsor, let’s try to give these brands a little useful feedback for their troubles.  So that’s the deal, have fun with it!

I have managed to smoke a couple cigar over the last few days, starting with a Flor de Gonzalez 90 Miles Reserva Selecta in a pigtailed 5 ¾”x 48 size they call Natural Robusto.  It’s a very comfortable size for me, almost a corona gorda, but a few ring gauges fatter. This cigar has been in the humidor since the 2013 IPCPR show.  It’s a nice, medium bodied cigar with a refined, well aged sweet tobacco flavor.  I have long been a fan of the Flor de Gonzalez offerings, and this is probably my second favorite in the range, second to the San Andrés wrapped 1980, but it’s hard to go wrong with anything from the 90 Miles line-up.

Friday my wife and I trekked up to New York City to go to the 34th Annual John Lennon Tribute at SymphonySpace on the upper west side. This tribute featured Debbie Harry, David Johanson, Marshall Crenshaw, Kate Pierson and Ben E. King, among others. It was a great show with the performers singing John Lennon ad Beatles songs.  We would have liked to meet up with any cigar friends who were still in town from the Big Smoke Thursday night, but we got in a little late and ended up walking down Broadway, smoking a Gurkha Seduction Robusto.  This cigar is one of the last few from a box I got in 2011.  These have been a favorite of mine, as they aren’t too mild or too strong, the flavor is sweet and spicy and they just do it for me.  I think I have two left, time to keep an eye out for more, I guess!

Saturday was an ugly, rainy day, spent working on more home renovation projects.  By the end of the day I just wanted an hour or so of relaxation, so I picked out a special cigar that has been hanging out in my humidors for at least ten years, a Fuente Fuente Opus X Fuente Fuente.  This is a classic, in one of the original sizes released back in 1995.  The Fuente Fuente is 5 5/8″ x 46, a corona gorda and one of my favorite sizes. I am always hesitant to smoke a cigar like this, I’m afraid of being disappointed, I suppose. This cigar was excellent. The years in the humidor really smoothed it out to a nice, medium bodied cigar with nice flavors.  It burned with the grace that a well aged cigar burns with, no draw or burn issues at all, just about right.  I didn’t find it to be overly complex, but I rarely do. I’d like to get a couple more of these someday, one to smoke fresh, and another to forget in the humidor for a while and compare notes.  It’s amazing that these cigars, after being on the market for nearly 20 years, still sell for ridiculous prices (I remember seeing them in a shop in Vegas in the late ’90s for $110 each, I tried to sell them one of mine!), but Holt’s is right down the road and they sell them for MSRP. It’s not a cigar I’d spend more than a little over MSRP on, but it’s a classic, and worth smoking now and then.

That’s it for now. Don’t forget to check in Thursday for the 12SDoCG!  Until the next time,

CigarCraig