Fourth of July Cigars: J.C. Newman American, a Firecracker and a Havana

The Fourth of July seemed like a great time to smoke the J.C. Newman American that was generously gifted to me by a friend of mine and reader Adam Stevens. Check out Adam’s Wife, Jamie’s cigar reviews over at Cigar Talk Radio, she does a nice job. I really need to figure out a way to get together with those two before they more out of PA soon. Anyway, this has been a tough cigar for me to get my hands on, so I was thrilled when Adam included it in a Secret Santa package last year (I think?, right?). This is a cool project that Drew Newman, the fourth generation Newman in the business, spearheaded. Another aside, I first encountered Drew in the 90’s on the alt.smokers.cigars Usenet group when he was a 16 year old and caught all kinds of crap for being a kid posting on a cigar forum. Of course, he started the Cigar Family forum on their own website, which might have been the first major web forum dedicated to cigars shortly after. Anyway, the cigar is all US made components, made in the US. The wrapper is Florida Sungrown, the binder is Connecticut Broadleaf, and the fillers are “Pennsylvania Type 41, grown by Mennonite family farmers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Connecticut Havana, grown John Foster in South Windsor, Connecticut“. I used to live within ten miles from those Mennonite farms in Lancaster county, by the way. All of the packaging is made in the USA too, by the way. The cigar smoked perfectly, I lit it up late in the morning while relaxing on the porch. The wrapper has a dry, mottled appearance, it’s not pretty. It is, however, a tasty cigar. It has some sweetness and earthiness and is very unique. Certainly a cigar that should be tried, and most likely enjoyed, I know I enjoyed it. Thanks again to Adam for sharing this with me!

After lunch did something, which must have been an errand that wasn’t memorable because I can’t remember what it was, or I was waiting for something to happen, so I smoked a Mi Querida Firecracker. The Firecracker line of cigars by United Cigar Group, which is Dave Garofalo of  2 Guy’s Cigars distribution company, is a stroke of genius. Of course, this is why it’s so frequently plagiarized, but not only is the format cool, but it’s a sure sale every year, and the social media impact seems to be fairly high. I’m sucked in, I feel like I need to pick up at least few of the cigars to sample every year. It’s a little funny how the sales go through, isn’t it? You get super-cool, niche brands like CroMagnon and Mi Querida that sell out 500 boxes in a day and everyone is amazed, then Perdomo comes along, a seemingly, or at least comparatively, pedestrian, brand sells 1000 boxes in a few hours. I wonder if another brand could touch Perdomo’s numbers? Not that there’s a quality difference, the Perdomo Firecraker is great, I dig it, but I kinda like the Mi Querida more (and the CroMagnon, although my sample size is smaller). The Fratello Firecracker is amazing as well, as is the Kristoff (I’ve only had one LFD and enjoyed it). To my knowledge, the Mi Querida was the only Firecracker to spin off into it’s own sub-brand, the Triqi Traca, which is pretty cool. I love the Mi Querida blend anyway, so the Firecracker was a no-brainer and really quite good, and smoked for an hour, amazing for such a little cigar. 

It’s been an annual tradition of mine for a long time on the Fourth of July to smoke a Havana cigar. 20+ years ago it was a matter of smoking one of the best in my humidor, along with a bit of civil disobedience, which is kind of what the day represents, right? Anyway, it’s not longer that big a deal, I have lots of better cigars in my humidor, but it’s a tradition, right? It seems to have turned in to an exercise in how to have a bad cigar experience. Last night I decided to liberate a cigar from the depths of the humidor, one that had spent well over a decade resting. I don’t recall where this particular Cuaba Salomón came from, or when, I just know it’s been around a long time. I smoked a bunch of the little Cuaba Divinos (same size and shape as a Short Story basically) years ago and never really cared for them. they had a distinctly Winston cigarette flavor to them, and it wasn’t what I was looking for in a cigar. So I ignored this big cigar for a long time, wouldn’t 7″ of cigar taste worse than 4″? As one might guess, taste wasn’t a problem. Actually, the flavor wasn’t bad, when I could get some smoke through. Have you ever had those cigars that you pull though and get nothing, but blow through and smoke pours out? Infuriating, isn’t it? WTF causes this? I have to figure there’s a fold in the filler that acts like some kind of valve. I know, a poker should fix this, it’s never right. Fool that I am, ever the optimist, I thought maybe it would burn past the problem. Nope, messed around with it for an hour or so and got to about two inches left before it started kind of working like a cigar should. What I should have done what put it down and gotten something else, but I’m too stubborn. So I’m sitting here this morning enjoying the crap out of a Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta No. 4 Robusto with my coffee (one of the old ones before it was part of the Joya series). It’s a cigar that’s been a favorite for a decade, and never is a disappointment. 

On with the day, I hope nobody lost any fingers yesterday. The fireworks around here were nuts, poor Macha spent the evening under her end table, she’s not a fan. That’s all for today, until the next time, 

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