CigarCraig's Blog

It’s been a weird week.  Readers who follow me on Facebook will already know that I’m currently exploring new employment opportunities. It’s time to get away from what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years and find something I like doing (that pays the bills, no easy feat, I think!). I appreciate everyone’s support, and I don’t put this out there for a pity party, but one never knows what opportunity might arise from making my availability public. Hopefully allows me to provide more content here for the time being. The casual observer will notice no change in my daily routine. Which brings me to Wednesday’s cigar. Since the Flyers were opening their Stanley Cup playoff series with the Penguins (I hate those guys), I decided an appropriate cigar was in order. As I had already had a very bad day, I thought a pick-me-up would be the broadleaf wrapped BSB No.1 40th Anniversary Bernie Parent by Rocky Patel Conn Smythe (mental note, I should review one of this series for a future Prime Living article as the name alone will account for much of the 300 word limit!).  This cigar came from a special box released in 2015, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Bernie Parent winning the Stanley Cup, The Vezina Trophy (best goaltender) and the Conn Smythe Trophy (league MVP) two years in a row, something that has yet to be repeated. The box contains four cigars each of the three blends and an autographed puck. I bought a box at full price when they were released in 2015, which Bernie autographed and is still intact, and caught a deal on another box later that I’ve smoked/shared. The Conn Smythe has a Broadleaf wrapper and is a delicious toro, perhaps my favorite in the series, loads of dark chocolate and espresso. The cigar was just about the only bright spot of the day as the Flyers suffered a humiliating loss.

Thursday I got some yard work done, laid some groundwork for some income replacement, and took a walk with a JRE Aladino Maduro in a box pressed toro size. I recently heard the guys on The Cigar Authority rave about this, so I ordered a couple each of the toro and lancero.  I generally let cigars rest, but I knew these were only in transit for a couple of days and the weather has been moderate so I felt confident firing one up. The Toro is a 6″ x 50 with a nice box press, and has a Mexican San Andrés wrapper and Honduran Corojo binder with Honduran fillers.  I’ve been distracted lately, but this was a tasty smoke, and I look forward to smoking more of them, especially the lancero. It was medium bodied, burned great, and nice flavors of cocoa and wood. This is from the Eiroa family, Justo and Julio specifically, and the Aladino line is an homage to the Corojo blends of days past. Personally, I think I enjoy the JRE cigars more than Christian Eiroa’s CLE line, although I haven’t sampled all of both companies offerings, this opinion is based on limited samplings. I have purchased every Eiroa cigar I’ve ever smoked, save for one CLE sample from their first trade show. Christian is one of those old usenet guys I’ve known for 20 years too

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Friday was a chance for the Flyers to redeem themselves, and they did with an exciting 5-2 win, which included at least one Academy Award worthy embellishment, proving my opinion that Penguins don’t fly, they dive.  I decided to try the BSB approach again (for those not in the know, BSB is an acronym for Broad Street Bullies, the Flyer’s nickname in the ’70s) and No. 1 is Bernie Parent‘s retired number. Interesting factoid: Bernie retired due to an eye injury, which led to massive improvements to today’s goalie masks. Anyway, I went with the Vezina, which is a Habano wrapped toro. Both the Vezina  and the Conn Smythe are presented in a round format, while the Lord Stanley is box pressed. Maybe I’ll smoke a Lord Stanley today for game 3.  Anyway, I think the Vezina was a tasty cigar too, although in a different way than the Conn Smythe. I think it’s more on the savory end of the spectrum, with more earth and wood notes. If you can find these stashed away anywhere I recommend trying them, especially if you are a hockey fan.  I can’t say that I think they are a good value at the original price of around $13 each, but at half that they are great.

Finally, yesterday I rummaged through the humidor with what’s left of last year’s IPCPR samples, and came out of it with a Veritas 3 Blends, which is a barber pole wrapped cigar with Sun-Grown Ecuadorian Habano, Habano Maduro and Connecticut wrappers, San Andrés binder and fillers from Jalapa, Ometepe, Condega & Esteli Nicaragua. you’d think this cigar would have a lot going on given that blend of eight tobaccos. Maybe it had too much going on for my pedestrian palate to appreciate? I found it had a drying effect on my palate, and, as with many cigars wrapped in this style, it’s didn’t burn well. It sure was a pretty cigar, and it wasn’t offensive or really bad in any way, just not my cuppa tea, unfortunately.  I like all cigars, there’s some I love, and I almost always smoke a cigar to the (sometimes) bitter end, and I did with this one too, although the crooked burn made me leave more behind than usual.  Earlier in the week I had a Cornelius and Anthony Señor Esugars and a Nica Rustica, two “comfort food” cigars of mine, and all the other cigars I smoked during the week were pretty darned good, with this one being the least yummy of the bunch to me.

That’s all for now, I’m going to go out and make some money now, and fire up a cigar for the Flyers game later.  Until the next time,

CigarCraig