Monte Pascoal Cigars, Meterics Humidity Meter and the Gurkha Contest Winner

I was a fan of the Monte Pascoal cigars from Brazil for a long time. I became acquainted with the brand at the 2015 IPCPR show when I met the US distributor at the time, Wes, in line to register. The brand was represented in the first couple years of our Christmas contests. The brand now has a new US distributor in Multiverse Cigars after being absent from the market for a while. Probably the only vitola in the range  that I haven’t smoked over the years was the Double Corona, 7 5/8″ x 49, a classic size. This cigar starts out almost annoyingly mild. I recall that the Monte Pascoal line was blended so that the larger vitolas were milder, and the small minuto was a powerhouse. Once it got to the halfway point the flavor really kicked in and was smooth, sweet and tasty. Except for a little bit of an uneven burn in the first half, which I touched up, it burned perfectly with an open draw akin to a properly drawing Havana cigar. It’s been a while since I’ve smoked any of the old Monte Pascoal Brazilian puros, but I would defiantly agree that the DC is the mildest of the bunch, but when that flavor kicks in at the halfway mark, it’s fantastic.  I’m still a fan of this line.

We all know that monitoring humidity levels in our various storage containers is pretty important. I haven’t yet made the transition to Boveda packs in all my humidors, and it’s nearly impossible to find two hygrometers to agree with one another. I have a bunch, there’s a couple analog dial types that were included with humidors, I have a Caliber VI and a Caliber 4R from Western Digital/Cigar Oasis and so far they are the most accurate I’ve had.  I bought a bunch of cheapie digitals that are all over the place…kinda like the analog models.  I accepted an invitation to try out a hand-held unit from Meterics.com, the Benetech GM1362 Humidity and Temperature Meter so I could decide which  hygrometers to believe.  My cigars are smoking fine, but the geek in me likes to keep track and make sure none of my prized stogies dry out or get over humidified. This meter is simple, press the power button and it’s ready to go. I place it in the humidor for a few minutes and it settles on a reading. The tricky part was getting it  to change from  Centigrade to Fahrenheit, because the only English instructions are on the packaging, the rest of the included instructions are in Chinese. This unit is easy enough to use that the language of the instructions is of no consequence, and there are English instructions on the website. So, all my humidors check out, and the cool thing about this is I can take it with me to cigar stores and check their humidors out. It’s got a back-lit display for use in the dark as well. This unit is around $30, if you have multiple humidors it’s much cheaper than putting a decent hygrometer in each box, and it’s great for spot checking because it’s quick and easy. Of course, if one used Boveda packs, technically one wouldn’t have to worry about hygrometers, would one? I’ll get around to that one of these days in at least one humidor.

Contest

I always do this, bore you with some stuff when you’re just here to see who won the Gurkha goodies. As usual, I consulted with the random number generator at Random.org, we had 72 entries, and it spit out the number 22. Hang on while I go count comments…

OK, I got Frank Germaine!  I know you wanted to leave your address in the comments, but please e-mail it to me anyway! Many thanks to the folks at Gurkha for providing the goodies, and happy birthday to Carlos Llaca Toraño there at Gurkha!

That’s all for tonight!  Lots going on this week, so stay tuned for Sunday’s post for the details! Until then,

CigarCraig