by | November 5, 2019 · 8:00 am

News: Herrera Esteli Norteño Edicion Limitada Released to Drew Diplomat Retailers

I’m a bigger fan of the Norteño than I am of the rest of the Herrera Esteli line, so I’m always excited about this edicion limitada. Don’t get me wrong, I like Willie’s work, I’ve known him a long time. I actually met him and Sean Williams at the same time at the 2011 IPCPR show when Willie was blending Sean’s El Primer Mundo cigars at El Titan de Bronze.  I felt short that day, and I’m six feet tall. Anyway, check out the poop on this year’s Norteño EL.

Drew Estate Announces the Limited Release of the Herrera Esteli Norteño Edicion Limitada

Drew Estate announces today the limited release of the Herrera Esteli Norteño Edicion Limitada Churchill to Drew Diplomat retailers nationwide. Originally released in 2015, this limited edition is a favorite among cigar connoisseurs and retailers alike.

 

The Herrera Esteli Norteño Edicion Limitada showcases extensively aged tobaccos from the Estelí and Jalapa growing regions of Nicaragua, coupled with a spicy Honduran binder and a rich, bold Mexican San Andrés maduro wrapper. Packaged in 15 count boxes, this 7 x 48 box pressed Churchill features a unique Norteño blend allowing for a smoother and complex smoke.

 

From La Gran Fabrica in Esteli, Drew Estate Master Blender Willy Herrera notes, “The Norteño Edicion Limitada is a killer stick bro, at all of my events consumers come up and ask when it is coming back. I am happy to say this limited release will satisfy some of the demand, but they better grab them quick before they disappear.”

 

The Herrera Esteli Norteño Edicion Limitada Churchill is available in 15 count boxes with an MSRP of $217.96. 

 

ABOUT DREW ESTATE

Founded in New York City in 1996, Drew Estate has become one of the fastest growing tobacco companies in the world. Under their mantra “The Rebirth of Cigars”, Drew Estate has led the “Boutique Cigar” movement by innovating new elements to the tobacco industry with their unique tobaccos and blending styles that attract new and traditional cigar enthusiasts. In their Gran Fabrica Drew Estate, the Nicaraguan headquarters, Drew Estate produces a variety of brands such as ACID, Herrera Estelí, Herrera Estelí Norteño, Isla del Sol, Kentucky Fired Cured, Liga Privada, MUWAT, Larutan by Drew Estate, Nica Rustica, Pappy Van Winkle Barrel Fermented Cigars, Tabak Especial, Undercrown, Florida Sun Grown, and Java by Drew Estate.

 

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by | November 3, 2019 · 10:45 am

CAO Orellana and Fratello Navetta Inverso Cigars

Welcome to the first day of Standard Time, if you live in an area that messes with the clocks, which is most places I guess. I despise this time of year, shorter days, dark early, getting cold. It’s always a downer for me and it’s harder for me to keep a positive attitude this year! I’m still better off than I was a year and a half ago, head-wise, and I have plenty of cigars. On a positive note, Halloween was this week, and it’a always been one of my favorite cigar nites. When my kids were little I’d take a cigar along trick or treating with them, now that I stay at home I sit on the front porch with a cigar handing out treats. I always put the cigar down when the kids come to the door, and nobody ever complains. If the neighbors haven’t seen me walking the streets with a cigar in my mouth the other 364 days of the year, I can’t help them, ya know?  Lot’s of other houses to go to if they don’t like it. Anyway, I smoked a RoMaCraft CroMagnon Cranium for the entire two hours of trick or treating, and it was outstanding. 

 

I felt like I needed to give the CAO Orellana a try again after giving them some rest time. The first one I smoked was unimpressive, and I felt like I should have been impressed. This is the fourth cigar in the Amazon Basin trilogy, which I guess isn’t a trilogy anymore. I wasn’t really impressed with the original Amazon Basin, which everyone raved about,  however, the Fuma em Corda and Anaconda I thought were exceptional cigars. This Orelana, which is named after Francisco de Orelana the first European to navigate the Amazon river (is he the guy we have to blame for ruining brick and mortar retail? 😁) has a Brazilian Cubra wrapper. I’ve enjoyed plenty of cigars with that wrapper before, mot recently the Vicarias Red Label. The 6″ x 52 toro also has a Nicaraguan binder and Brazilain Bragança, Columbian and Dominican fillers. I found this to be a good cigar, but fairly pedestrian and routine in flavor, nothing really interesting. I suppose it hit me much like the Amazon Basin did, I just didn’t see the big deal, it’s another good cigar. I’ll tell you one thing I really didn’t like about it, and I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve been rather fortunate in my long cigar smoking career to have not burned a lot of clothes, this cigar can burn a hole in your shirt. I got down the the “band” which is cords of tobacco, and started to smell an “off” room note, then I realized that a piece of the tobacco cord had dropped on my sweatshirt and was burning a hole in it. it pisses my off a little, actually, but it could have been much worse, as it’s an easily replaceable sweatshirt. Come to think of it, the only other time this happened was a closed foot on a CAO Flathead Sparkplug!  I’m seeing a trend here! I gotta have a talk with Ricky Rodriguez about this…So I guess the score on the Amazon series for me is a tie, 2-2, proving that not every cigar is for everyone. 

 

I go through this all the time, during the day I’ll think of a cigar I want to smoke, then by the time it comes around to smoking it, I’ve forgotten what it was I was thinking about smoking. This happened yesterday, I really should make a note someplace. Of course, every time after I’ve lit whatever cigar I settled on, I remember the cigar I thought of earlier and it’s too late at that point. Not that I would call it settling, but as I was rummaging around yesterday, trying to remember what cigar I had thought of earlier, I came across a Fratello Navetta Inverso Robusto and figured it would be a great cigar to smoke. I had smoked a Toscano Garibaldi last week from a pack I bough in Rome last year, I forgot about it until I saw an announcement that that line was going to be imported to the US, now they weren’t going to be special any more! It was a really good smoke, and I think I paid 8 Euros for the 5-pack or something. That really has nothing to do with the Fratello except that Fratello and Navetta are Italian words and it reminded me of that. The Navetta Inverso has a Habano Nicaraguan wrapper, Ecuador binder and Dominican and Nicaragua filler, compared with the Navetta, which has an Ecuadorian Oscuro Wrapper, a Dominican Binder
and Nicaragua Filler. Like most Fratello cigars, it’s made at the Joya de Nicaragua factory (the Oro is made by La Aurora in the DR). I love the flavor of this cigar, it’s solidly medium to me, with hints of sweet tobacco here and there. It was hard to put down, literally and figuratively. Fratello Cigars recently hired Robert Hernandez as the new Regional Sales Manager based in Florida and Georgia. I received a press release about this, but news about personnel moves and inside baseball sort of stuff isn’t the kind of cigar news I like to post here as a stand-alone news piece. I just don’t feel like my readers are that interested in that, I’ll let Halfwheel, the Industry’s Blog, handle that.  Anyway, always hard to go wrong with any Fratello cigar, and even better in the Boxer size, in my opinion! I really need to get a Boxer sampler one day!  

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | October 30, 2019 · 11:04 am

The New Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA

Yesterday I dropped by the new location of Cigar Mojo, the cigar shop and lounge in King of Prussia, PA.  They opened the first shop back in 2013, and I posted about it here. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, they’ve had their challenges over the years, but Ive been to some great events, and it’s turned into one of the premier lounges in the area. To those not familiar with the area, the name King of Prussia sounds like an odd name for a town,  but it’s adjacent to Valley Forge, which holds a significant place in American History, and the Prussian troops played a large part in the Continental Army’s success, hence the area being named after their king. Of course, none of that has anything to do with Cigar Mojo, except that I’m sure some tobacco was smoked at the King of Prussia Inn in the 1700s, as tobacco was one of the things that funded the war. Anyway, The Cigar Mojo guys had enjoyed success in their beautiful lounge,  but decided to move a half mile down the road into a vacant bank building and create a bigger and better Mojo. This new location is nestled between an Aldi super market and a Duluth Trading Company store, and has plenty of parking (where as the old location was nestled between a Wawa and a cemetery, and had limited parking). I have only included exterior photos today, as they had just received their occupancy permit and were in the process of moving in, so, while functional, the inside was in a bit of disarray. Trae, one of the owners, was busily stocking the large and centrally located humidor with their generous stock. The store has three lounges, a public lounge to the left of the humidor, the members lounge to the right, and an outdoor lounge in the rear of the building. All of them have plenty of seating, and TVs, even the outdoor area. There is a dominos room and also a kitchen I’m told. As I said, the large humidor is in the center, when you walk in the door, it’s in front of you, and you move through the vestibule to the left to enter the retail space. I look forward to seeing it when it’s all cleaned up and organized, it was understandably a mess as they had to hurry to vacate the old location.

 

As always, you can go to any cigar shop anywhere and strike up a great conversation with a total stranger. Sure, I’ve been to Mojo plenty of times, and there were several people who came in and out who I knew, but you can just sit and talk to someone new and have mutual friends and interests and have a great time. Trae was kind enough to find me a box of RoMaCraft Baka in the 4″ x 52 Bantu size and open it up and sell me some singles, one of which I smoked in the public lounge. I had gone in thinking I was just going to smoke a particular cigar, then, as I saw the chaos in the humidor, and the tons of cigars there, I forgot what it was I was thinking of. So I grabbed a couple Cromagnons, and, half jokingly, asked Trae where the Bakas were.  He said they had them, and dove into a pile and found a box. I really enjoyed this cigar! It’s not as powerful as other cigars in the RoMa line, it’s got a sophistication, along with the nutty “Camerooniness”. The size was deceiving too, as it easily burned for an hour. This is a winner, although I doubt anyone would be surprised. 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | October 27, 2019 · 11:31 am

An Afternoon at Famous Smoke Shop and Their Dunbarton 80th Anniversary Cigar

I’ve bee

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n beset with a head cold all week, adding insult to injury, of course. I did have a productive phone interview with a recruiter which could lead to something hopefully, so it wasn’t a wasted week.  Having a cold like this messes with the taste buds, so after a few days of not even considering having a cigar, I broke th

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e ice with something familiar to see where I stood. I grabbed a Nica Rustica El Brujito, which is a favorite. I know this cigar very well, so if my palate is skewed, I’ll know it smoking this cigar, and it was. It was still good, but tasted different. So I knew not to try anything new for a while, or at least to temper any expectations based on this information. This is important for you to know moving forward. 

 

Yesterday I took a drive up to Easton, PA to Famous Smoke Shop where Steve Saka was hosting the launch of his contribution to their 80th Anniversary, the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust Famous Smoke Shop 80th Anniversary Edition. Steve had a blending seminar which was attended by 35 or 40 people, who had tobacco ad chavettas and actually rolled and tasted tobaccos with Steve’s instruction. I didn’t attend this event, but those who did raved about it and appeared to have enjoyed it and perhaps were a little overwhelmed! I’ve known Steve long enough to know that he can throw a LOT of information at you quickly, and that the 2 or 3 hour seminar could easily have been 8 if he’d have been allowed. Saka’s a shy guy, but if you can get him out of his shell, you can’t shut him up. I kid. I probably should have gotten a ticket and attended, but I didn’t, so I’

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m going on what I heard from others. To test my questionable palate, I lit up an Umbagog on my drive up, still a little off, but the Umbagog was still delicious.  I got there while the blending session was going on, and hung out with folks in the shop, including familiar faces such as Ali, our local EPC rep. Eventually the event ended and Dave Lafferty emerged and began selling the new Famous Smoke Shop Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust 80th Anniversary Edition cigars. I did purchase said cigars, and eventually lit one up. This is an interesting cigar in the DTT line up. It’s box pressed, made at NACSA with a sun grown Nicaraguan H2000 wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers. They only made 250 boxes of these, and there will be some available for sale on Famous’ website tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday, but don’t wait on account of me, look Monday). 

 

 

Full disclaimer (for the third time, in case you haven’t been paying attention), this cold has my palate screwed up, so my tasting notes on the DTT Famous 80th aren’t what they should be, but really, folks, when are they all that detailed?  I talked to Steve about the wrapper, which looked like a dark chocolate maduro in Famous’ press pictures. Good enough to eat, really, like a Godiva chocolate cigar. It turns out it’s not a maduro, but a H2000 wrapper. 20 years ago when this hybrid came out, it was bred to be disease resistant, but it was also flame retardant! Several brands of cigars were hyped up and basically destroyed because when they hit the market they wouldn’t burn. Tasted great, but you had to relight them ten or fifteen times. I think the lighter fuel industry had a stake in the development of the hybrid. After a while, the tobacco processors figured out how to handle this new leaf in the pre-industry processing, and now it burns right, and tastes great too. So Steve used it on this cigar. It started out on the mellow side for me, although some mentioned it was spicy. I did get a distinct cinnamon flavor on one draw about an inch in, but that was a one and done. For the fourth time, I’m working with a compromised palate here! Considering this was a c

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igar fresh from the box, which had been in unknown humidification conditions, it burned well, and drew perfectly. This is made in the same factory as my beloved Umbagog (and Mi Querida), by the way. The later half of the cigar was a build up in body, and strength, although I never found it to be more than medium strength. My second proviso is that I was smoking this very slowly too, as I was socializing. Overall, I really liked the cigar and look forward to smoking it on a healthy palate. I know Steve wouldn’t put his name on a cigar he wasn’t 100% satisfied with, especially if it was for something as important as a company’s 80th anniversary. It’s always great to see Steve, Cindy and Dave when they are around. 

 

That’s all for today. Once it clears up, I guess I’ll get back to trying to see if my palate is still out of whack. I suppose as long as my sinuses are still goofy, my tasters will still be off. Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

   

 

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by | October 25, 2019 · 1:08 pm

News: Villiger Cigars Announces Cuellar Black Forrest

I was secretly hoping this was the Trill blend renamed, but the Trill had a Habano wrapper…I could still get my wish one day…Trill was a great cigar with a bad name. This one sounds tasty. The Cuellar Kreme Connecticut was a good smoke, as are many from Tabacalera La Palma.

 

VILLIGER CIGARS TO UNVIEL THE VILLIGER CUELLAR BLACK FOREST

 

Villiger Cigars proudly announces the release of the Villiger Cuellar Black Forest. The Villiger Cuellar Black Forest will serve as a line extension, to the very popular Villiger Cuellar Connecticut Krēmē. The Villiger Cuellar Black Forest is a Dominican made cigar, which will feature a dark, rich, oily, and flavorful maduro wrapper. This, inspired by the mystical Black Forest, located on the Southern side of Germany, close to the border of Switzerland where the Villiger headquarters resides.

 

Villiger Chairman of the Board Mr. Heinrich Villiger grew up close to the Black Forest, which is the birthplace of many legends, fairytales, and haunted happenings, that most are very familiar with today. The Black Forest name is due to a hundred mile stretch of large pine trees, which block the sunlight from reaching the forest ground. This combined with constant fog create an eerie ambiance, unnerving enough to have given birth to legends of werewolves, haunted monasteries, castles, and ancient Celtic cemeteries. German based authors, the Brothers Grimm based many of their dark fables on the Black Forest. The packaging of the Villiger Cuellar Black Forest visually communicates the aura of the Black Forest. It is carried out through the dark, and rich maduro wrapper of this cigar, manufactured by Master Blender Jochy Blanco at Tabacalera La Palma in the Dominican Republic.

 

The Villiger Cuellar Black Forest features Dominican fillers and binder housed inside a gorgeously oily maduro wrapper. Mr. Henrich Villiger together with Jochy Blanco feel that the Black Forest boasts deeply rich flavors, with a distinct sweet finish which sets it apart from other blends. The Villiger Cuellar Black Forest is a medium to full-bodied, full-flavored cigar.

 

Heinrich Villiger said:” We very much look forward to releasing the Villiger Cuellar Black Forest, as it marries Caribbean artisan tobacco craftmanship with German/Swiss folklore, culture, and mysticism. Both our passion for tobacco and the Villiger culture are represented in this cigar.”

The Villiger Cuellar Black Forest is expressed in four sizes. MRSP is $7.80 to $8.40.

 

Robusto        5 x 48  

Toro Gordo  6 x 54

Churchill       7 x 50

Torpedo       6.25 x 52

 

ABOUT VILLIGER SONS LIMITED:

Villiger Sons Limited was established in 1888 by Jean Villiger in the small town of Pfeffikon, Switzerland, where Villiger remains headquartered to this day. The company manufactures and sells more than 1.5 billion cigars annually, world-wide. Today, under the leadership of Heinrich Villiger, the company prides itself in its commitment to quality, in all their products made in many countries around the globe.

 

Follow Villager Cigars on social @VilligerCigar #TheOriginalClassic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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