Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Gran Reserva and La Palina El Diaro

Nothing new in the last couple days I’m afraid. I’m stuck finding myself wanting to smoke Drew Estate and General Cigar products. It was all I could do Friday not to dig into the box of La Gloria Cubana Coleccion Reserva Presidentes, but I did veer into the cigars that fall under Drew Estate’s distribution, I grabbed a Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Gran Reserva Belicoso. This cigar has been calling to me since it came home from the IPCPR show with me. JdN Antaño 1970 has been a favorite of mine for well over a decade, and the Dark Corojo is especially delicious. This year they released the Gran Reserva that is a more refined version of the Antaño using tobaccos aged over five years. What ends up happening, to me at least, was all the great rich Nicaraguan flavor of the original powerhouse 1970, in a not-quite-so powerhouse refined package. The Gran Reserva has a Nicaraguan Corojo Oscuro wrapper where the original Antaño 1970 has a Nicaraguan Habano Criollo wrapper, other than that and the age of the tobaccos used, the blend is the same. When people ask those silly questions like “if you could on;y smoke one brand” I’d probably have to go with Joya de Nicaragua for their variety and the fact that there’s a select few of their offerings I don’t like! Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Gran Reserva is another winner for me.

I tried forcing myself to select from this past IPCPR’s samples last night, they are all in their own humidor for the most part. I ended up coming out with not a very new cigar at all. La Palina had a dizzying array of blends at the show this year, and the one I ended up grabbing was the El Diario toro. The El Diario line was the second line La Palina produced, the first being the very expensive Family Series that was made in the Bahamas (later moved to El Titan de Bronze in Miami). El Diario was made at the Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras (Alec Bradley most notably, but they also made cigars for Illusione and Viaje, I believe), and it might still be produced there, it’s hard for me to keep the line straight as they have cigars made at several factories. El Diario remains a solid cigar, with a little hint of sourdough and a bit of sweetness along with a pretty savory overall flavor. It was a very enjoyable cigar to smoke while watching the first period of the Flyers home opener on the porch with the iPad. I love watching hockey, but if it comes to skipping a cigar to watch on the big screen or watching on the iPad with a cigar I’ll look at the small screen every time! It was a great game with a great cigar!

My wife has searches set up for “cigar” in the auction site Invaluable.com and had come across an original oil on canvas Acid painting by Jessi Flores circa 2005. I shared the link in case anyone was interested, but when the auction went off yesterday the bidding was slow, so my wife managed to win it for a very good price. Shipping will cost a little, and there was another random painting with it, but quite happy to own an original.

Sadly, that’s all I have for today! Until the next time,

CigarCraig