by | July 7, 2019 · 9:53 am

A Couple of Shop Visit, a Couple of Cigars and a Contest Winner!

Happy Sunday! I suppose it’s the end of a holiday weekend for a lot of people, I had Thursday off, and stopped into the CigarCigars shop in the King of Prussia Mall and picked up a couple cigars, one of which I smoked later to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Sure, I have plenty of natural Padron 1964 Anniversary Exclusivos, but I hadn’t had a Maduro in quite some time, so I picked one up. My wife spied a Foundry Compounds, Elements and Musings Uranium box with two cigars left in it, so I bought them and got the box. I’m pretty sure I’ve smoked Uranium before, although I don’t smoke many 7″ x 70s. The artwork is cool and I’ll rig a light in the box and it’ll be a nice shelf piece. Gotta give Mike Giannini credit for creative design!  So my wife got a ring from Tiffany, and I got some cigars, it was a good day. The Exclusivo was exceptional, of course. I remember smoking my first one probably 20 years ago and they haven’t changed. 

 

Friday evening I took a ride up to Suburban Cigar Lounge in Mount Penn, PA, which is near Reading. This is a really nice lounge run by Gary, over top of what is, by all reports, a very nice restaurant, which, if I’m not mistaken, his wife runs. I went to meet up with Boston Jimmie, of Stogie Press fame, who took his sweet time showing up. If you advertise that you’re going to be someplace from 7-10, showing up at 8:30 is not acceptable, I don’t care how things are done in Florida.  😜Anyway, Gary has a nice lounge with a friendly clientele, and his humidor has a modest but diverse selection from which I purchased some Alec Bradley Magic Toast Gordos, and RoMaCraft Aquitaine Mode 5s, and lit up a Magic Toast.  I love this Magic Toast, it’s my kinda smoke. The dark, oily Honduran wrapper is beautiful, and the flavor is equally dark and lush. I smoked a Mode 5 next, and while I prefer the CroMagnon, the Aquitaine is damn tasty. This is a great example of how the wrapper can completely change the flavor of a cigar, as the wrapper is the only difference between the CroMagnon and Aquitaine lines. Jimmie finally showed up and hung out for a while. I hadn’t seen him since the 2017 IPCPR show, so it was nice seeing him again. Suburban Cigar Lounge is a great place to hang out of you find yourself in the area. I’m sorry I didn’t let long time reader Corey know I was going!

 

Last night I smoked the 2Guys Smokeshop exclusive Pistoff Kristoff Firecracker. Every year they do a special Firecracker release, last year it was the Mi Querida, prior to that it was the Fratello. I’ve managed to smoke a bunch of them, except for the original ones. It’s a small format, 3½ x 50, in a stronger blend. This was the second Pistoff Firecracker I smoked and I thought it was very good. I’m OK with the Pistoff blend to begin with, so I figured I’d be OK with this, and if I wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be a large time commitment. I do, generally, get an hour out of the Firecrackers, smoking them slowly. Because of the closed foot, a trademark of Kristoff, and usually a Firecracker trait, it starts with a blast of wrapper flavor, and some concern that the draw will be tight, once the wrapper burns, this one opens up to a perfect draw and has a good, bold flavor. It was strong, but well balanced. It looks like these are sold out, as is the case with most of the limited Firecrackers, but often the have second runs, and I would recommend these and others if you like small, strong ciga

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rs. They have all been exceptional in my opinion. 

 

Contest

It’s time to se

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lect a winner in last weeks contest.  To recap, I am giving away some great, in my opinion, Don Juan Calavera cigars from Danli Honduras Tabaco (from my own humidor, to protect the innocent), a Herics Cigar Tape, and a Cigar Prop and Light Bleed Tool from CigarProp.com. It’s possible some other goodies could fall into the box while I’m packing it up.  There were 42 entries, and according to the random number generator, the winner is Bob Langmaid! I seems like Bob wins everything all the time, but I could only find one instance of him winning one of my contests, and that was almost 4 years ago. I’d rather have someone who hasn’t won before win, but Bob’s name came up, and he’s been fanatically religious about entering my contests for many years, so fair is fair!  Please send me your address Bob! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | July 5, 2019 · 12:05 am

Accessory Review: Govee Bluetooth Mini Thermometer & Hygrometer

 

Last year I reviewed a couple of wireless hygrometers from Govee that I really like, they are still going strong today and are in daily use in my humidors. You can see the posts here for the Bluetooth model and here for the WiFi model. I’ve been so pleased with the Govee products that when I needed a new door bell for my house I bought a Govee wireless doorbell and it’s wor

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king quite well. Recently they have come out with a new item which I think address some of the things I thought were overkill with the full size model, a Govee Mini Thermometer and Hygrometer. This version eliminates the LCD screen and is just the sensor in a small case. It seamlessly adds in to the smartphone app and has all of the same features as the larger Bluetooth and WiFi versions, temperature and humidity readings with adjustable high and low alarms, data tracking, everything but the display. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the technical details right from the manufacturer:

  • App Control via Bluetooth: Monitor temp/humidity data on Govee Home App (free downloading from App Store/Google Play) via Bluetooth. Up to 328ft connecting distance (no obstacles) enables you to monitor temp and humidity remotely.
  • Higher Accurate Monitor: Built-in Swiss-made SHT30 sensor, it offers higher precision monitoring than other bra
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    nds. Temp is accurate to ±0.36℉ and humidity is ±2%RH. (Calibration is supported)

  • Data Storage & Export: 20 days on-board and unlimited in-App storage. The temperature sensor uploads data to App when it connects to APP via Bluetooth. Alert will be sent to App when data is beyond preset range. Besides, export data in CSV format for free.
  • Mini Size: Smaller size than other brands. Space-saving and portable. A hanging hole is designed for various placement as you want. The battery lifespan is about 365 days.
  • What’s in Box: 1 x Govee Thermometer and Hygrometer, 1 x Hanging String, 1 x User Manual. Offer 30-day money-back guarantee for any reason and 365-day warranty for quality-related issues.
I bought this from Amazon a couple of weeks ago and received it promptly. All of Govee‘s products are sold through Amazon, and through July 16th (2019) this and the WiFi unit are featured on their Prime Day sale at 60% 0ff (follow the links sprinkles liberally throughout this post) I highly recommend these products especially at these deep discount prices! Anyway, as soon as I received the sensor I pulled the tab covering the battery and it connected to the app and I named it and it started reading temperature and humidity right away. It spent its first few days next to its WiFi sibling, so it’s at least as accurate as that one is, and, judging by the way the cigars smoke, it’s just fine. I like the fact that it doesn’t take up much space, and in a desktop humidor it doesn’t really need a display. I need a hygrometer to give me the data when the humidor is closed, which this one does nicely, a regular digital hygrometer is already moving in the wrong direction as soon as the lid is opened, so you never really know. I think this is a really cool solution, and at the Amazon Prime Days price, it’s a steal! Heck, I ordered another one.
Thanks to Leo at Govee for giving me the opportunity to use Govee products in my humidors and make me into a customer! That’s all for today, until the next time, 
CigarCraig
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by | June 30, 2019 · 7:10 am

CigarCraig Contest! Don Juan Calavera Cigars, Cigar Prop and Cigar Tape, and a Rant

Since IPCPR is in full swing (scroll down for the rant), and I have a full physical inventory at work tonight that has been taking up a lot of my time this week, I figure it would be a great time to have a contest. I also was anxious to share some of these Don Juan Calaveras cigars, and I always like sharing my buddy Kevin’s Cigar Props and Lighter Bleed Tools. Now, the Cigar Prop and Lighter Bleed Tool are Cigar Prop’s legacy products!  Kevin has been expanding his product offerings with some really unique and different materials lately, but I’m old school and love the traditional materials. Read on for the contest details:

 

Included (for now, you never know what else I might add), are two each of the Don Juan Calavera in Sumatra and Maduro from Danli Handuras Tabacos. You can read my thoughts on these cigars here. They have recently added an English translation to their website, and Their cigars run $175 a box of 20 and can be bought directly from them by contacting them through their website or Facebook page. So you can check to see if they are definitely 6″x52, I’m including a Herics Cigar Tape measuring tape to use to measure cigars. I reviewed this handy item here.  Of course, you’ll want to Give Your Cigars the Props they Deserve© with an original Cigar Prop from CigarProp.com, and you’ll also want to treat your butane lighters right by using the CigarProp Lighter Bleed Tool every time you fill your lighter. I use the Bleed tool all the time, it’s preferable to jamming some foreign object like a screwdriver into the fill valve of your expensive lighter and risking damage to it and ruining your lighter as it’s purpose built to do the job. I can’t fathom not using one of these. I think Kevin would have sent me more stuff to give away if I’d have asked him, maybe for the next giveaway 😉, but I had these here and I don’t like to ask.  So, leave a comment on this post for a chance to win, and I’ll select a winner at random next Sunday, July 7, 2019. Muchos Gracias to Danli Honduras Tabacos, Cigar Prop, and Herics for the goodies in this contest! 

 

A Little Rant

I have to do a little IPCPR rant.  I relinquished my IPCPR Media membership several years ago for a couple of reasons. I was a member in good standing for five years, which means I paid my dues, which were the same as the dues would be if I owned a retail store. A retail store owner received more benefits for that membership, and the trade show admission is always positioned as free with your membership. Given that there are no real benefits of membership to the media other than trade show admission, this translates to me as an expensive trade show ticket. Travel expenses, time off work, I spent a lot of years busting my ass running around for very little return on investment, and quite a bit of frustration from the organization I was spending time, money and effort trying to promote. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself to some extent, and love spending time with a great many friends I’ve met in the cigar industry, but it wore me down so I no longer felt the desire to spend my vacations covering the IPCPR show. I still receive e-mails from the IPCPR, and the day before the show started I receive an e-mail addressed to “Our Valued Media Members” asking that we (the media) make appointments and limit interviews and try to do interviews outside of the show hours. Basically they are saying that the retail members are there to do business with the manufacturer/distributor members, so we don’t want the media members getting in the way of that. OK, now, if the IPCPR were issuing press passes to the media for free entry to the show (like many other trade organizations), I wouldn’t have a problem with this request, a day before the show is stupid, we’re supposed to make appointments now?. The time for that was months ago, when, by the way, those of us who have done this before had already made our appointments. They are now asking paying members to not do the only business that they are able to do on the show floor. There is zero chance to do interviews after the show floor closes with any but a few cigar people. After a long day on the show floor, the exhibitors just want to go to their rooms and decompress, clean up and get ready for the long night ahead, and maybe get some rest for the long next day. They aren’t looking forward to a group of camera wielding cigar media people swarming the exits ready to pounce TMZ style because they are discouraged from doing the business that they are paying to do on the show floor. I know a few manufacturers who look forward to the show specifically to connect with the media. It’s just one more blatant slap in the face of media by the IPCPR, who hasn’t wanted them there from the get go, and only tolerated those who ponied up the cash, as long as they toed the line. I was a proud member for several years, and fought with them for a lot of privileges, but none of it was worth the aggravation, it seems. It might be just as valuable for me to go to Vegas while the show is underway and hang out at the Circle Bar in the Venetian after show hours, or go to the Tobacco Plus Expo next year.  I guess that wasn’t that little of a rant…

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | June 27, 2019 · 6:25 pm

News: Drew Estate Shows Acid 20 at IPCPR Show

I’m not a big Acid fan, but you have to admit reaching the 20 year milestone in the cigar industry is a big deal. If you figured the Acid thing was a fad that wasn’t going to last, you might have been mistaken. Check out the details on the Acid 20:
Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of ACID Cigars with ACID 20

Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of ACID Cigars with ACID 20

Drew Estate celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the ACID Cigar brand, with the national release of ACID 20, a box pressed, chromed out, double decade masterpiece. The celebratory ACID 20 will be displayed in Drew Estate’s Booth at the IPCPR Convention and Tradeshow, held June 29-July 2, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

From the Wynwood Safehouse, Jonathan Drew President and Founder of Drew Estate exclaims, “The ACID Cigar brand was born under the Manhattan bridge, on the Brooklyn side of course, with a raw & honest vision of boundless freedom. Urban culture and massive style supercharged the ACID brand, shaking the foundation of the traditional cigar empires across the globe. ACID’s impact was much more than just disruptive, as it essentially cracked the mainframe of the sleepy status quo. Over twenty years, we transformed from a scrappy little crew on Jay Street, Brooklyn to an organized, viral network of distinguished Diplomats rocking every street in America. ACID is everywhere, like savoir faire, percolating and reconnoitering.”

Today, ACID has become a vital, must have brand within all facets of the cigar industry. To celebrate this milestone, we proudly bring you the ACID 20, a box pressed robusto and our best ACID release since Kuba Kuba. ACID 20 is wrapped in a lush, toothy Mexican San Andres capa, with ultra-premium Indonesian binder and filler leaves from Nicaragua. Finally, it’s blessed with an infusion that is truly unique, and worthy of the double decade title. The smoking experience will hit every region of your palate and your soul, a true masterpiece.

From Drew Estate Headquarters in Miami, Fabien Ziegler Director of Consumer Engagement adds, “I have had the pleasure of working for Drew Estate for 19 years and watching consumers fall in love with ACID one cigar at a time. With the release of ACID 20, I have to say this is by far our greatest creation. The experiential impact of this cigar is without equal.”

The ACID 20 is a 5 x 52 box pressed robusto, packaged in chrome boxes of 20 with an MSRP of $230.40 and will be shipping in September.

For full coverage of ACID 20 and all of Drew Estate’s IPCPR national releases check out our 2019 #DEIPCPR promotion at www.drewestate.com/IPCPR. If you are attending IPCPR stop by for a smoke at the Drew Estate Booth (Booth #3213), and a crafted ACID cocktail under the Water Tower.

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 attracting 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 | · 7:10 am

News: Ventura Cigars Announces Cuban CigarFactory Blends

Is this one of the last news items before the IPCPR show? I kinda doubt it, but here it is, none the less. This is an interesting project with Ventura and Manuel Quesada and Benji Menendez. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both of these gentlemen, rue legends in the cigar game. 

 

INSPIRED BY THE OLD WORLD, CREATED FOR THE NEW
VENTURA CIGAR COMPANY TO LAUNCH 2 BLENDS CREATED BY MASTERS FOR CUBAN CIGAR FACTORY BRAND.

“Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?” (Benjamin Franklin)

Benjamin “Benji” Menendez and Manuel “Manolo” Quesada: two of the greatest of all time. Cigar industry pioneers, builders, blenders, visionaries, creators, and friends. True legends of the business, Menendez and Quesada are teaming up for the first time in an exciting new passion project from Michael Giannini and Ventura Cigar Company (VCC). Led by their longtime friend, Giannini, Menendez and Quesada have each collaborated on a namesake blend for Cuban Cigar Factory. A celebration of tradition and talent, this collaboration for Ventura Cigar Company’s Cuban Cigar Factory is bringing the importance of Old-World Cuban expat expertise to the palates of the present and generations to come.

Behind the Blends
Benji Menendez enjoyed an early beginning in the Cuban tobacco business at his father’s factory. Forced to leave his home and livelihood when Castro came to power, Menendez had to start completely over. However, as a seeker of opportunity and a purveyor of fine tobacco, he soon established a new foothold, becoming a mastermind behind cigars and factories in nearly every cigar-making country. His career has been legendary, working in 8 different countries to produce some of the best cigars to hit the
market. “I still think about the cigar factory every day of my life,” says Benji Menendez.

The Benji Menendez for Cuban Cigar Factory: available in a Robusto, Toro, and Belicoso, a rich, silky smooth blend featuring a Dominican binder, Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers, and a Connecticut Ecuadorian wrapper.

Manolo Quesada is a fourth-generation master from a lineage of tobacco growers, brokers, and blenders that stretch back over a century. His career began in pre-Castro Cuba, where he first developed a taste for the intricacies of tobacco at his father’s company. Also forced to leave Cuba by Castro’s rise to power, Quesada went to the Dominican Republic, where he founded MATASA in 1972, from the humble beginnings of a chair, a phone, three rollers, and $100. Over the decades, MATASA has flourished under Quesada’s intuitive, expert eye for quality and flavor, making his knowledge for the past and present a natural fit for the Cuban Cigar Factory project.

The Manolo Quesada for Cuban Cigar Factory: available in a Robusto, Toro, and Belicoso, a rich and savory blend featuring an Ecuadorian binder, Dominican fillers, and a Habano Ecuador wrapper.

“I feel like I’m a Rick Rubin of the cigar industry,” says Michael Giannini, General Manager at Ventura Cigar. “I’m bringing people together- people who I admire, my great friends who laid the foundation of the cigar industry, and people of the next generation. The creators and the consumers. Everyone has something to offer. We have a duty to engage this talent, not to let these great minds and their priceless knowledge fade away. They’re now our mentors, an inspiration to us all, and they’re still here. They’re still on the court, so let’s play ball. Let’s show everyone what we can do.”

 

Both Cuban Cigar Factory cigars are created at the MATASA factory in the Dominican Republic, in
collaboration with Ventura Cigar Company. They are set to debut at IPCPR 2019, and are planned for a
late summer ship date. The Benji Menendez and Manolo Quesada blends will each be available as
follows:

Robusto: 5″x50, $12.99 each or $259.98 for a box of 20
Toro: 6″x50, $13.99 each or $279.98 for a box of 20
Belicoso: 6.25″x52, $14.49 each, or $289.98 for a box of 20

For more information about Cuban Cigar Factory, or any other cigars in the Ventura Cigar Company
Portfolio, please visit venturacigar.com.

 

 

About Ventura Cigar Company

Ventura Cigar Company (VCC) is a unique cigar brand born in sunny Southern California that is on a
mission to create memorable, complex cigar blends that excite the senses and reward discriminating
palates. Their flagship Archetype, Case Study, Project805, and PSyKo SEVEN brands offer multiple
award-winning blends that earned 90+ ratings in Cigar Aficionado, Cigar & Spirits, and Cigar Snob. And
Archetype’s Axis Mundi won #13 Cigar of the Year for 2017 from Cigar Aficionado. Ventura Cigar

Company also distributes Tommy Bahama Luxury Cigar Accessories and the 4 th Generation Tobacconist
and Comoy’s of London lines of pipe tobacco products, extending its reach and tradition of offering top-
quality tobacconist products. Pipes and blends under these brands are cultivated through generations of
craftsmanship, making them longtime favorites of pipe tobacco enthusiasts.

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