Meeting George Hamilton, a New Travel Humidor and Some Big Sky Cigars

Yesterday we took a ride south to Maryland and went to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention pretty much with one goal. George Hamilton was there signing autographs. Since he has a bit of history in the cigar world, and on CigarCraig.com, I wanted to finally meet him.

I had visited his cigar bar, Hamilton’s, in the New York, New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and smoked his H.Upmann cigars in 1998, long before I had the opportunity to interview him (September of 2010, with the audio released in podcast form in May of 2018),  He’s a longtime cigar smoker. When I talked to him in 2010 I realized how much he actually knew about cigars.

I made up a pack of some of my favorite cigars, a Fuente Don Carlos No. 2, a Diamond Crown Maximus, a Cohiba Red Dot and a Sobremesa Short Churchill (largely due to an anecdote Steve Saka recently shared about George asking him his thoughts on his cigar at an RTDA show in the ’90s). George was very excited by the gift, and said he was going to share them with his son who was in the Peace Corps. Also, we had a copy of his book, “Don’t Mind if I Do” which we had him sign while we were there. All in all, it was a very nice interaction, although he didn’t remember our conversation we had, not that I expected him to, heck, it was 13 years ago, and he’s a big movie star! I’d have fallen over if he had remembered. I would have loved to have been able to sit down and have a cigar with him. I imagine he’d have some great stories from his long Hollywood career! 

While we were wandering through to Nostalgia Convention marketplace, and I was commenting on just how much ridiculous “stuff” there was, I saw an item that looked like it could be useful in our world, and bought it for $20.  Some of you might say, Craig, you idiot, that’s a watch case, and I’d say, sheesh, who needs a military grade, crush proof, waterproof box for a couple watches?  Hey, I have watches, I have a nice Seiko (an anniversary gift from an old job), and a few Timexes, all with dead batteries (except the Timex I got for my 15th birthday that works perfectly if I wind it up, they really do take a licking!), and I guess if you spend thousands on a watch you want to protect your investment.  On the other hand, some might make the same statement about needing a case like this for cigars, and I have a half a dozen or so travel humidors of various sizes.  I digress, this caught my eye because of the geek factor, it was white with a Captain America shield on it! It’s branded to go with Invicta’s line of Marvel watches, which, if I were wearing something other than a very expensive Fitbit that I get calls and texts on and provides me with various biometric feedback, which my 45 year old Timex does not, I might be into.  I ordered some acoustic foam panels to cut to fit, but in the interim, the trays from my 20 year old Pelican travel humidor fit nicely.  This thing will hold a crapload of cigars, easily 30, and, I’ll probably set it up as an overflow desktop humidor, because it looks frickin cool!  Sure, you can go to Harbor Freight and get a nice case cheap, but it won’t look this good at the next herf, where you’ll either be revered or ridiculed. You can find them on Ebay!

I smoked some cigars this week from Big Sky Cigar Co., they generously sent me a bunch, thanks to their west coast regional, Kap, for the referral!  More to come, but I got to two of them this week that I wanted to talk about.  I started with the Big Sky Blackfoot. This is a 6″ x 54 toro with a San Andrés wrapper and Dominican binder and fillers. Big Sky works with Chico Rivas in the DR, a name I’ve been hearing a lot lately. This cigar didn’t taste at all like I expected it would, it had more of that dark fruit sort of taste, less of the coffee and earth I would have thought.  This is a the fourth and last in the series of cigars based on rivers in Montana, and was just released at the PCA show in July. It was a neat cigar, certainly something different.  Thumbs up.

Next I smoked the Bighorn 2.0, another San Andrés wrapped cigar, this time over Nicaraguan binder and filler.  This one seems to be made in Esteli, at the TACASA factory, which, if memory serves, is the factory that makes, or made, Ortega cigars most recently.  This cigar was much more along the line of what I expect from a San Andrés wrapped cigar. Loads of dark roast coffee and rich soil.  It had a nice construction and was thoroughly enjoyable.  I have several more cigars in the Big Sky line to sample, and am looking forward to them. This is a small brand that seems to have some legs. 

That’s all for today, until the next time, 

CigarCraig