September 16, 2020 · 8:55 pm

Contest: Win a CigarProp Smoke Inn Battle of the Bands Five Pack!

It’s been way too long since I’ve had a contest! Kevin at CigarProp is involved in Smoke Inn’s Battle of the Band‘s promotion, which involves six of my fellow cigar media friends who put together samplers which are for sale on Smoke

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Inn’s website. The object is for people to buy the samplers, and at the end of the promotion, which is Midnight Sunday, October 4th, 2020, the one who has sold the most, and I’m assuming it’s the number of samplers and not gross sales, although I’m not clear on that point, wins a championship belt. Of course, the big winner is Smoke Inn, but there’s braggin rights on the line here, and that’s what’s important to the

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competitors! Like I said, I know all of the competitors, and they all have great samplers, but as a self proclaimed cheap bastard, and Kevin is a close personal friend, I’ve found myself drawn to his five pack over the rest. The other draw was the inclusion of the Padron 1926 No. 35, and I’d never smoked the 1926 until I bought the “shorties for forty”, as he refers to it. The Cigar Prop Pack has been in the lead since the beginning, and as the newest cigar media member in the bunch, that’s a pretty big deal! The other guys in the competition have some large and well established followings!

 

Kevin and I got together and decided to do a littl

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e giveaway. Of course, the idea is to bring awareness to the sale, but two readers each win one of the Cigar Prop Battle of the Bands five packs! The packs include the following cigars: (1) Alec Bradley Black Market Esteli Punk Petit Corona, (1) Crowned Heads Juarez OBS, (1) DT&T Sobremesa Short Churchill, (1) Padron Anniversary 1926 Maduro No. 35, and (1) Drew Estate Papas Fritas. I think we can all agree that these are all great cigars, and I’ve smoked them all recently and can personally vouch for their quality. Additionally, anybody that buys a sampler from Smoke Inn and posts it anywhere online tagging Cigar Prop or Kevin Shahan in the post so he sees it, will get one of his Cigar Prop Minions dog tags for free. Anybody that buys or has bought two samplers, will get a dog tag and the Cigar Prop Travel XC 2.0 (both pictured above). By the way, Kevin claims that the “C” in the XC is for CigarCraig!  So leave a comment here to enter, not on Facebook or anywhere else, only co

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mments on this blog post will count. I’ll pick two winners on Sunday, September 20, 2020, and the winners will need to send me their contact information and proof that they are of legal age. 

 

Check out one of Kevin’s promotional videos:

https://youtu.be/RqN8BBKFv_I

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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September 13, 2020 · 10:24 am

Aladino Vintage Sellection and Fratello Sorello Cigars

First a note about my STFU!!! post of last week. This is directed to those who didn’t read it because of the spoiler factor (Will Cooper), please bookmark it and circle back to it after Saka reveals the details, or you’ve made your own judgements, whatever your personal criteria might be, as I think you’ll find some entertainment value in the piece regardless of my find

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ings on the sampler. At least I hope so! I always go for laughs first, at least it reads that way in my head! Thanks for those who did read and comment!

 

This week flew by, and I found myself grabbing cigars that I’d written about before, so yesterday I had to smoke a few new ones. I ran some errands in the morning then cut the grass, so I went for a short cigar, the 4½ x 48 Aladino Vintage Selection Rothschild.  I believe this is relatively new to the market, and I also believe that this has a relatively reasonable price point, just over $6. This cigar has a Habano wrapper and Corojo binder and fillers grown in Honduras by the Eiroas, and they were rolled 4 or 5 years ago, hence the “Vintage” moniker. Had this been priced higher due to the “Vintage” tag, I would have been a little bummed, but as it is, it was a really tasty cigar. Here’s what I mean by that: As I was smoking it I was thinking that this wasn’t really anything more special than the regular Aladino line, which is really good, mond you. I saw the “Vintage” sub-band and had a perception that it was going to be more expensive and therefore should be more special. When I saw the price, I thought, hey, this is a darned good smoke, full flavored, nice spice, like a well aged Camacho Corojo from 2002ish. Was that a negative thing to say about the cigar? I don’t think so, I think it’s a great cigar that’s priced right! 

 

When I bought the Macanudo Inspirado Greens a few weeks back, I also added on a Fratello Space Fresh Pack, which

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I honestly thought I had missed out on. I saw them listed, and for $20 even, I had to add one on, and I’m kinda kicking myself for not getting two. The Space Fresh Pack has the Fratello Classico, Fratello Bianco II, the Arlequin and the Sorella, all in 6″ x 50 formats. This was a bit of a test flight, if you will, for the Arlquin and Sorella, and they decided to release the Sorella in two sizes (newither being the 6″ x 50) in Europe. So I smoked the Sorella last night. Sorella features an Habano Ecuador wrapper, Indonesian Binder and Nicaragua and Dominican filler. There are very few Fratello cigars I don’t like, OK, there aren’t any really. There are obviously some I like over others, I love the Bianco Boxer most of all I think. I believe I understand why this cigar might appeal to the European palette, and this isn’t a slight on either the Europeans or the cigar. The cigar was a very good cigar, it was subtle, nuanced, without the pronounced flavors that the American palate is accustomed to. I think this is why it might have more appeal abroad than in the US. I’m excited to try the Arlequin now, and might have to get more packs. I bought them at one of the great sites who supports my site (Fox). 

 

I revisited the Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Maduro this week and have to say I still prefer the 20th Maduro and the 10th Habano. Weird, huh? Anyway, that’s all for today, until the next time,

 

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CigarCraig 

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September 11, 2020 · 12:01 am

News: Black Label Trading Co. Ships Super Deluxe

Here’s some Friday news from the folks at Black Label Trading Company. Sounds like another tasty cigar!

 

Black Label Trading Company is pleased to announce the shipment of Super Deluxe to select retailers. Super Deluxe is handcrafted in Esteli, Nicaragua at Fabrica Oveja Negra.This is the first official release of this cigar in the US market and will be extremely limited.

 

“Super Deluxe highlights everything I love about bold tobacco. The combination of Nicaraguan fillers and Mexican wrapper work together to create a rich, dark, earthy profile, with subtle spice and layers of complex flavors,” said James Brown, creator of Black Label Trading Co. and partner at Fabrica Oveja Negra.

 

SUPER DELUXE will be available at select retailers.

 

Country of Origin: Nicaragua

Wrapper: San Andrés Maduro

Binder: Ecuador Habano

Filler: Nicaragua

 

Petite Corona Box Press 4.5×48 (20 count) – MSRP $9.00

Robusto Box Press 5.25×52 (20 count) – MSRP $11.00

Lancero Box Press 7×42 (20 count) – MSRP $11.50

 


Black Label Trading Company is redefining the standards for cigar making. With a “less is more” philosophy, Black Label Trading Co. creates hand crafted premium cigars of the utmost quality in small batch, limited quantities. For more information please visit OvejaNegraCigars.com. Consumers may search by zip code for retailers nearest them.

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September 9, 2020 · 9:35 pm

Labor Day Cigars and a Macanudo Inspirado Green

Labor Day was my first paid holiday since January 1st of 2018! A combination of two streaks of unemployment and a year of working in retail for a company that didn’t believe in paid holidays (something I had trouble wrapping my head around!), I was quite excited about this small luxury! My wife wanted to get away and do something, anything, so we took a drive to Lewes,  Delaware, Parked the car at the ferry terminal, and rode the ferry over to Cape May and walked on the beach for a while. I took the opportunity to smoke one of the cigars in the Cigar Prop sampler in the Smoke Inn Battle of the Bands promo that’s going on. I selected the Alec Bradley Black Market Esteli Punk, a little 4¼” x 42 petite corona. This cigar has a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper, Nicaraguan and Honduran binders amd Nicaraguan fillers. I chose this due to time constraints and the fact that I wasn’t supposed to be actually smoking on the beach really, but the stretch of beach we were on was fairly empty and nobody said anything anyway. I don’t usually favor such small cigars, and it was before lunch, so I took it slow, which was a good thing, because this was a pretty potent little smoke! I really enjoyed it! It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, with a gentle breeze off the bay, and this cigar was just delicious. These are probably about $5 if you find them singley, and well worth it. A great choice by Kevin for his sampler.

 

On the drive home I lit up another cigar from the “shorties of forty” sampler, as Kevin refers to it, the Papas Fritas from Drew Estate. Obviously, this wasn’t my first go around with this cigar, and I normally wouldn’t opt for a mixed filler cigar while driving a stick shift car in traffic, but I h

ad confidence in this one. The Papas Fritas was made using the sorted bench cuts from the Liga Privadas. It certainly doesn’t smoke like a mixed fill cigar, no mess in the car! Of course, traffic sucked coming home, to be expected, so having a cigar was quite helpful. It occurs to me, I still haven’t smoked any of the Nasty Fritas, the newer shape. Anyway, the two hour drive took nearly three, but the little Papas Fritas took the edge off. I could have smoked and A sized cigar, but that might have hit the windshield. I gotta say, I’ve smoked three of the five cigars in the Cigar Prop sampler and they have all been winners. Great selection so far. 

 

When I got home I felt compelled to smoke another from the samper, and went with one I hadn’t tried before, the Crowned Heads Juarez OBS, the largest cigar in the sampler. This one is 4¾” x 54, seems longer compared to the rest, but it’s the s

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ame length as the Sobremesa Short Churchill, the fifth cigar in the sampler (the first one was the Padron 26th No. 35 Maduro). Kevin said that this is the cigar that people raved about in the sampler. I have to say, it was in my top five, but certainly not my favorite. This line is made at Tabacalera Pichardo in Estelí,, it has a natural San Andrés wrapper, Ecuador Sumatra binder and Nicaraguan fillers. I don’t know if it’s because it was my third cigar of the day, with the first two being fairly strong, or if it’s because it started off a little snug in the draw and took a while to open up, but it was just OK. I’ll certainly give

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this one a second chance, but it was reasonably blah to me. With the wrapper/binder combination it should have been interesting. I also admit to not taking a shine to a lot of the Crowned Heads portfolio, for some reason, there hasn’t been a lot that trips my trigger. I suppose I’m in the minority. 

 

Tonight I smoked a Macanudo Inspirado Green Toro, my second one. I’ve been looking forward to trying this cigar since I’ve heard about it. I’ve been hot and cold on the Inspirado line, oddly, I really like the Red and White, the Black and Orange are just OK. The Green has a  Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper, Indonesian binder, and fillers from Columbia and the DR. The Brazilian wrapper caught my attention, as well as the Columbian filler. The first one I smoked was nice, but I smoked it following a rather strong maduro (Southern Draw Jacobs Ladder), and I felt like I may not have given it a fair shake. I thought it was pretty mild. So I smoked on tonight on a fresh palate and it was quite a bit more flavorful! I enjoyed this cigar, more than the Inspirado Black, which, for me, is odd. It’s odd that I am not that fond of the Black actually, but the Green has some interesting and different flavors. There’s some spice and unique flavors I can’t put a finger on, except to say that I like them and it’s a cigar I’m happy that I bought a handful of. I actually bought these after shopping for something else and not finding what I was looking for. Next to the Inspirado Red, this is my second favorite Inspirado. The green band looks really nice on that dark wrapper too.

 

One of my pet peeves: The Black Market Esteli Punk size isn’t listed on the Alec Bradley webpage, nor is the Juarez line listed on the Crowned Heads site. I just think it’s weird. That’s all for today, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

 

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September 6, 2020 · 11:12 am

Saka’s Taste For U’rself !!! Sobremesa Brulee Cigar Sampler Recap

For those who haven’t been following this particular cigar industry soap opera, let me set the scene for you. First, as the card included in this five cigar sampler explains, these are five Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust Sobremesa Brulee toros. Soon after they came out there were allegations that they were sweet capped, much like a Baccarat, or many of the Acid cigars. This was flatly denied, and explained away as a natural sweetness in the Connecticut shade wrapp

er. I smoked an early version of the Brulee and never got the saccharine sweetness that I associate with a sweetened cap. If you go back to my very last podcast episode, Steve talks about the Brulee, I think it’s pretty interesting. So Steve was bored during the COVID pandemic, he decided to have some fun and put together this Brulee sampler and mess everyone with the whole sweet vs. not debate. I’ll post my findings below, but I have a few things to get off my chest first. I was questioned as to whether Steve was making me smoke these cigars, and I said that Steve doesn’t make me do anything, but

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I need to back off of that statement. After thinking about it, Saka is a master manipulator. A few examples: Steve and I have known one another for a long time, and Steve will tell people, unsolicited, that I am a cheap bastard (I have this on good authority). It’s true, of course, I admit it. That being said, when Steve releases a new cigar, I go out and buy a few. I know that if I see Steve, he’ll hand me a few, and if I were to asked him, he’d send me some, but I never ask for anything as a general policy. So he puts out $15-$20 cigars and, like a sucker, I go and buy a few because I want to smoke them, and partly because I don’t want Steve to think I’m a cheap bastard. Another way he manipulated me, in this case, is that when I buy a handful of cigars, I generally smoke a couple and set the rest aside for a while. Under normal circumstances, if I buy a fiver of cigars, especially dropping the coin I did on this fiver (I bought local, but with taxes and shipping it hit my wallet harder than my cheap ass prefers), I’d stretch out the purchase over the better part of a year, I bet. So, with a deadline posted, and an admittedly self imposed deadline for writing a blog post, I smoked the five cigars in four days. I rarely smoke the same cigar twice in a row, let alone five in a row. Can you see how I feel manipulated? It is a genius sales move, although I doubt the margins are great on Saka’s end (I’m sure Steve would whine about what a pain in the ass, money losing venture it was, but he’d be an idiot if this were the case, of course it has to have profit built in or he wouldn’t do it! Then again, there’s the three foot Sakaquatch statues, so maybe he does just do stupid shit  😆  ).  All that being said, spoiler alert, here’s my analysis of the five cigars:

 

All five cigars were the excellent Sobremesa Brulee 6″ x 52 Toro with an Ecuador Connecticut Shade Wrapper over a San Andrés binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This is, literally, meant to be your grandfather’s Connecticut shade cigar, a throwback to shade cigars from the ’80s and early ’90s. It’s got some body, it’s milder, but not mild, it’s great with a cup of coffee, like I’m enjoying the !!! right now as I write this. My process was to fellate (hat tip to Jon Carney for bringing this term into the cigar lexicon!) the head of each cigar to determine the presence of the sweetener used on the cap. Honestly, I could have cheated and put the cigars away after this, but that would have been gross, and I couldn’t have lived with myself. For the seven or eight readers who got this far, I soldiered on and smoked five great cigars back to back. I took that hit for you, faithful readers. Needless to say, I smoked them in order, I’m not an animal. The S – no sweet cap. The T – Sweet cap. The F – a slight hint of sweet, if this one is sweetened, then the T is the double sweet. The U and !!!, no sweet cap. So to me, three were straight up Brulee, maybe even four. I can only definitely say the T was sweetened, and I kinda liked it, to be honest, it was a nice change of pace, to the point where I was a little disappointed that none of the others ended up being sweetend.

 

One thing I did confirm is that there’s a reason I don’t smoke the same cigars back to back like this. No matter how great the cigar is, I really need the variety, and I’m looking forward to smoking something completely different later today, although it was a little bit liberating not having to make a choice. I look forward to Steve’s reveal to see how far off I was on my analysis.

 

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

 

CigarCraig (word count 887 😀)

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