Happy New Cigar Year! A Macanudo, an Emilio and a Gurkha

Welcome to 2012 on CigarCraig.com!  I can’t imagine that this year can be better than last year for me cigar-wise, but I’ll do my best to at least come close.  2011 saw trips to Nicaragua and The Dominican Republic, as well as a trip to the IPCPR show in Las Vegas.  I made a lot of new friends in the industry, including a bunch of fellow blogger types.  We culminated the year with a huge series of contests that broke all kinds of records here.  Thank you all for a great 2011!  Looking forward to seeing what the new year brings.

While I’ve had the week off this past week I’ve had a few occasions for a cigar, but I’ll just mention the notable ones.  Most of them were good, most of them I’d smoked before and don’t want to be repetitive.  I kinda wanted to take the week off from what passes as reviews around here after the rigors of posting 14 days in a row! Here’s a couple cigars that were notable, at least to me.  First I had a Macanudo 1968 Robusto on Christmas Day, with my brother-in-law, who is finding that he enjoys good cigars.  I set him up with a little travel humidor for Christmas and he seems to be getting a lot of use out of it.  The 1968 was from a box that I brought back form my General Cigar visit. I’ve smoked a bunch of these over the past few years and I’m still surprised by how strong they are.  The Macanudo name on the band always fools me.  It was a notable cigar as much for the company and occasion as anything else, but I do enjoy the 1968 line quite a bit.

Friday I paid a visit to my local shop, JM Cigars in Exton.  I met an old friend, Bruce, there for a smoke and to catch up. I had hope a few more friends would stop by, but was more than happy to while away the afternoon with Bruce and a Emilio AF2 BMF.  I picked up a couple of these 6″ x 58 monsters because I hadn’t had the AF2 in this size, and I really liked the AF1 in the same vitola. These were very reasonably priced and I thoroughly enjoyed this cigar for 1½ to almost 2 hours. Loads of flavor and well made.  I was really glad to see these in JM’s and wouldn’t have even thought to look if my wife hadn’t spied an empty box by the door on our last visit.

Saturday I took an uncustomary early walk so I selected a Gurkha Cellar Reserve Churchill, which came last month in a truly unexpected package from the manufacturer.  This cigar boasts 15 year aged tobaccos and is a stunning cigar.  I wonder why a 7″ x 54 feels so much more massive than a 6″ x 58 or 60? Does length play that much of a roll in our perception? Maybe….anyway, this was a nice enough cigar for a pre-lunch smoke, looking forward to seeing how some humidor time treats these, even though they have 15 years age on some of the leaf. I’m also not a huge Criollo wrapper fan, but this one was pretty good..  Not overpowering, enough flavor to maintain interest, and a perfect burn.  Many thanks to Oliver at Beach CIgar Group for thinking of me.

I had another Berger and Argenti Mooch Loll Maduro this week which was really tasty too!  I love this line.   Also, Santa brought me a new video camera and an IPod Touch which have already been used for some of the pictures on this page, and will simplify things for me here and there.

That about wraps it up for today. Enjoy the holiday, watch the Winter Classic tomorrow and I hope 2012 can be even better thank 2011 was!

CigarCraig