Saturday, after posting about the recent Cohiba judgment in favor of General Cigar, I pulled a Cohiba Puro Dominicana out of the box of goodies my friend Jason sent me some time ago. Cohibas, Dominican or Cuban, have never been in my regular rotation. I’ve always enjoyed them, but they just don’t really have the “bang for the buck” that falls into my comfort zone. I smoked this particular cigar, which measured about 5½ x 50 and it was OK…good cigar, but not mind-blowing. With about 2 inches or so left it didn’t want to stay lit. I was a little bored with it anyway so I let it go out. Since I couldn’t find this listed in my 2008 Perelman’s Guide, I assumed that it was a sample from last years IPCPR show. I looked on line and was stunned to find that these retail for between $13 and $16 each! Well, there are a lot of cigars that cost a lot less that I enjoy a lot more, heck, one can get very nice Cuban cigars for half that or better (not that I advocate any illegal activities such as purchasing contraband cigars). I would almost be more inclined to pay that much for a Havana Cohiba…almost. I would like to try the Lancero one of these days, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get one.
Sunday after grilling some very interesting seafood sausages we found at Trader Joes, I lit up a Punch Gran Puro Rancho. The sausages were interesting, a casing stuffed with shrimp, scallops and white fish which I grilled until they were nice and hot with grill marks. We ate them on some Amorosos rolls, but we just weren’t sure how to condimentize them. I suppose tartar sauce would have worked. Anyway, this isn’t a grilling blog, it’s about cigars. The Gran Puro was a nice cigar, not overpowering and it worked well after the seafood sausage. It had the consistency I expect from a Punch. Burned and drew nicely. A very pleasant hour or so spent smoking while I walked to the convenience store to collect my lottery winnings ($7 in the Powerball! Woohoo!).
Tuesday brought the first really disappointing cigar I’ve had in a while. I was in the mood for a Maria Mancini, and grabbed a Robusto Larga. These are stored in the same humidor as the rest of the cigars I have been smoking, but this cigar seemed like it was over-humidified. It tasted fine, but the smoke took some effort to get to and just felt damp. It wasn’t plugged, nor did it have any wrapper flaws, it just seemed too wet. I stuck with it for a while, but did put it down sooner than I would normally. I shouldn’t be to upset that a $2 cigar wasn’t great, but I’ve had a lot of luck with this line. I have so little time in my day to enjoy a cigar that when I get a dud it hurts a little.
Blowing Off Steam
It seems that rants have become fashionable in the cigar blogosphere, so here’s mine: Foot bands. I don’t like ’em. They make the first part of the cigar taste funny….ok, kidding here, I do take them off before I light ’em, but that’s a pain as far as I’m concerned. If I have a cigar with a normal band I leave it on until I get to the point where it’s going to be in the way, unless it’s coming off by itself. Foot bands have to be removed, no ifs, ands or buts. Sorry Rocky, Sam, whoever else uses foot bands, if I’m cigar shopping I’ll probably pass unless it’s a single I really want to try. I wouldn’t buy a box of foot banded cigars as that would just drive me insane. Since I have to take the band off to light it, besides possibly damaging the foot of the cigar, I sometimes forget what it is I’m smoking! And how are my pretentious friends supposed to know that I’m smoking? Where’s the fun in that? So if you are coming out with a new cigar, skip the foot band, stick with the traditional placement. While your at it, don’t pattern the band after the Cuban Cohiba either, that’s just cliche and hokey.
That’s all I got for now,Time to go smoke a cigar.
CigarCraig
