G.A.R., Liga Privada, Veritas, a Contest Winner and Another Macanudo Contest!

This nice looking G.A.R. Opium STK toro was handed to my by my old friend Frank Seltzer at the Drew Estate blogger party at this years IPCPR show. He gave it to me without any comment at all, and I’m sure he has no affiliation with Gran Habano. I started removing bands (three of them in all, the foot band had to go first!) and lit this puppy up. To start out, it’s a nice looking cigar, 6” x 50, which oddly felt larger than 50, but I measured it and it certainly was a 50 ring gauge. It smoked very well, and while I didn’t taste poppy seeds or any other interesting flavors, it was a nice, solid, tobacco flavored cigar. It’s a good cigar although not one I think I’d go out of my way to find. I need to try more cigars from George Rico and Gran Habano.

Friday I celebrated the end of another week with a Liga Privada No.9 Parejo. I’ve been sitting on this particular one for about 2 years, and, wow, what a wonderful cigar. Perfectly made, perfect balance of flavor and strength. I actually purchased this at an event at the Wooden Indian (the old store) where we first met Marvin Samel. Just a super cigar that I smoked to within a half inch of it’s life.  I still have one of the first Liga Privada No.9 cigars with a plain band from 2007.  Mike Staiber, formerly of Drew Estate, presently of Oliva, gifted me this cigar at an event a while back.  I’ll probably let it get to five years old or so before I fire it up, just to see how well it aged.  It’s all I can do to keep my hands off the meager supply I have, they are so good.

Saturday I took a walk with a Veritas MMXI 6” x 60 Maduro, which I got at the Delaware Cigar Festival. This was about the blackest maduro I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll be honest, my first thought is that it was dyed, and the contrast between the fillers and wrapper was quite stunning. Whatever the process involved, I enjoyed the cigar quite a bit, it needed a couple touch-ups but burned nicely. I’m told that these are made by Blue Mountain Cigars in Esteli, and the maduro cigars pictured on their website look just as black. Like I said, I enjoyed the heck out of the cigar. This is the cousin of the Veritas DEA 7¼” x 58 Solomon Connecticut cigar that is accompanying the Rosie Napravnik bobblehead that some lucky reader is going to win.

 Contest!

Thank you to everyone who entered.  It’s been a little amusing to me to see how many visits I had this week from people searching the phrase “Rosie Napravnik Bobblhead”, or something similar.    Thanks go to Delaware Park for unwittingly providing part of the prize, and Veritas Cigars for allowing me the opportunity to purchase the other part of the prize!  So, as usual, I assigned each entrant a number based the time of their entry. Swede214,  please send me your contact information so I can send you your prize!

Another Contest!

I still have some Macanudo Millionaire 4-packs to give away, and I better do it quick since the deadline for entry is September 30, 2011.  So I’ll hold my October contest a little early.  Leave a comment on this post to enter, I’ll select a winner next Sunday, October 2.  Don’t forget to visit MacanudoMillionaire.com to enter to win the trip to Vegas and a chance at a million bucks!

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

CigarCraig