HVC Black Friday 2020 Cigar

Sunday I took a little ride out to Havertown, PA to visit my favorite daughter, I am allowed to say that because I only have one daughter. She also has my favorite granddaughters, and I like to see them from time to time. Ironically, they live very close to the Wooden Indian, so I stopped by with the intention of picking up a few new to me cigars to smoke. The Wooden Indian is still operating under COVID restrictions, not government mandated, but out of concern for safety of employees and patrons. As Dave Mayer, the owner, will point out, the humidor provides a nice environment for a virus to live, so he doesn’t want people wandering in and out. Their lounge is open to their members, with a separate entrance, but the store is closed to the public. I pulled up and called. I had an idea what I was looking for, but they didn’t have the first couple selections I asked for yet, and I goofed when I asked for the All Saints, I wanted the Dedicación, and asked for the Solamente, which I had already smoked. Not that I was too disappointed, the Solamente is a great smoke, and I didn’t mind having a few more in the humidor. It’s a problem I plan to correct tomorrow night. Anyway, Deanna, who was working in the shop, ran through some of the new arrivals for me and mentioned the HVC Black Friday which was one I had wanted to try, so I picked up a few of those. Deanna took great care of me over the phone. She was very knowledgeable, and delivered my cigars to the door to me quickly. In the future, I’ll go on their website and make my shopping list.

I haven’t smoked anything from HVC yet, and I remember seeing HVC at the TPE show, but, for whatever reason, I failed to meet Lorenzo. It seems to me that his area was busy whenever I wandered by. I’ve been hearing a lot about the brand, and I’ve been hearing a lot about the Black Friday. To my surprise, the HVC Black Friday has been an ongoing limited edition, going back to 2015! I’ve been somehow missing out on this brand. This years cigar is a corona gorda, 5 5/8″ x 46, an excellent size. From what I can tell it has a Habano wrapper, double binder consisting of Corojo and Criollo and Nicaraguan fillers from Jalapa, including Ligero from Aganorsa’s farm. This is a strong cigar! It starts off with a load of pepper, and smoothes out a little but not much. It has some sweetness, be remains a powerhouse throughout. I really enjoyed this cigar! I didn’t really look at the price, but some post sale research shows these in the $7.50 range, which is quite a deal. United Cigar is offering a Black Friday Firecracker, which sounds really interesting, but I don’t know if a stronger version is really necessary! I’ll try to get my hands on some, as I like sampling the Firecrackers, but I can imagine it’ll live up to the Firecracker name. I couldn’t wait until the day after Thanksgiving to smoke the Black Friday, and I’m not sure if the other one I have will make it another couple weeks! Great cigar, and now I need to find some more HVC cigars to sample.