CigarCraig's Blog

by CigarCraig | March 11, 2015 · 9:44 pm

A Great Big Toxic Cigar, Half a Toscano 1492 and an Arandoza

This isn’t going to be too long a post, we went to a local Vietnamese restaurant for dinner tonight and apparently Vietnamese cuisine isn’t a good match for my digestive tract! Scratch that one off the list! We have a shopping center within a half mile of the house that has a bunch of interesting eateries, and we’re working our way through. So far Cheeburger Cheeburger is a winner for dinner, and The Bacon Press is an obvious choice for breakfast and lunch (not open for dinner, the Mac and Cheese with Bacon and Jalapeño was really good). Something about the rice noodle wanton soup didn’t do it for me. Anyway, if you want to hear about digestive woes tune into The Cigar Authority show, we’re here to talk about cigars! 🙂

Tuesday I was late getting home due to traffic, and figured it wound be a good time for a short smoke. I have had some Toscano 1492 cigars in the humidor for a month or two now, and have been waiting for the right time, this was it. Toscano cigars are Italian cheroots, and are very rustic. They are hand rolled with out molds, and are meant to be cut in half and smoked that way. Of course you can smoke the whole thing if you want, but the tradition is to halve them. These are the cigars that use the majority of the Kentucky Fire Cured tobacco that was all the rage in premium cigars last year, and, if there was any doubt about that, the unlit flavor and aroma removes that doubt. They smell like a campfire. Sadly, I’m not enamored with this flavor profile, but once again I soldiered on, for science. It’s been my experience that this style of cigar burns longer than one would expect, and it took me nearly an hour to smoke the half of the 1492 (the unbanded half in the picture). THIS is an in your face, powerhouse of a little cigar, very smoky in flavor and not without some acidity and bitterness. This will certainly appeal to a group of folks who like that sort of thing, and certainly satisfy the need for a strong smoke. These and other Toscano style cigars are available at ItalianSmokes.com. Everyone should at least give this style of cigar a try to see what pure Tennessee grown Kentucky Fire Cured tobacco tastes like, and to look cool like Clint Eastwood.

Tonight I enjoyed an Arandoza White Label Robusto after dinner as Macha and I took a walk on the first warm day of the year (I think it may have hit 60). I love it when it’s still light at 7 PM, and not having to suit up with hat and gloves and layers is a welcome change. The Arandoza White is a tasty smoke from the La Zona factory in Esteli. I seem to be amassing cigars made there recently, as I’ve gotten a box of La Sirena Divines in the past couple weeks which are also very nice (I smoked one Sunday, more on that as I smoke a few more and actually pay attention, now and then I need to just smoke a cigar without thinking about it!) I’ve talked about the Arandoza White Label before, and it’s a well balanced, dignified cigar that I find quite pleasant

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and flavorful, I’m a fan of the whole line. I’m very much looking forward to meeting Robert Arango at the IPCPR show this summer.

That’s enough for now. My new humidor shipped from Florida yesterday, so I’m hoping it arrives by Friday. Expect and update one way or the other on Sunday. I have to figure out how it’s going to get unloaded from a truck, the new house has no loading dock, nor do I own a forklift (fun fact: I am a licensed forklift driver!). I cant wait to finally get this thing and get it up and running!

Have a great week, until the next time,

CigarC

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raig

7 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Arandoza, cigar, cigars, Toscano, Toxic

by CigarCraig | March 8, 2015 · 6:21 pm

La Gloria Cubana, Padron, Rocky Patel and a New Tortuga Cigar

With so many new cigars to smoke, I decided to go with some old favorites and not so new cigars this week. We had probably the biggest snow of the year this week, and it was only about 10″, but it’s still enough to mess up the roads. Hopefully this is the last we’ll see of the white stuff (I know a lot of the country has seen their fair share this year). I’m celebrating the return of Daylight Savings Time here today as well. It’s gotten a lot easier now that most of the clocks change on their own, we used to have to run around and change all the clocks manually, and for the CDO (OCD in alphabetical order as it should be) afflicted, getting them all set to the same time is a nightmare. I have a Sony alarm clock that sets itself, but it’s ALWAYS five minutes fast! What’s up with that? Anyway, enough rambling nonsense, let’s get to some cigar nonsense!

Thursday was the day it snowed, and we closed up work at one-thirty, I was home by two-thirty and out taking Macha for a walk with a La Gloria Gubana Serie R Esteli No.54 by three. I never really cared for the Serie R line, they didn’t have enough oomph for me. I know they pioneered the large ring trend back in the late ’90s when they came out (at the time, the Casa Blanca Jeroboam and Puros Indios Chief were the notable giant cigars that were actually real premium cigars). Last year General Cigar Co. released the SErie R Esteli and Black, with the Esteli being brick and mortar exclusive, and the Black only available online. I find the Esteli to be not only right up my personal alley flavor-wise, but far superior in flavor to it’s predecessors as well as the Black. Comparing it only to the Black, as they hit the market at the same time and seem similar, I find the Esteli to be richer and deeper in flavor, and those flavors are the dark cocoa and espresso with some spice flavors that I really like. Burn was great, draw was great and it’s got a hearty enough Jalapa sungrown wrapper to hold up to a few snowflakes here and there. I’m a La Gloria fan anyway, but this is among my favorites, I’ll happily smoke these in any size, although my preference is for this size, 6″ x 54, which is the smallest.

Friday I went old school. I had two Padron 4000 cigars floating around the humidors since last year sometime. One slightly darker than the other, so one could assume one was the maduro and one the natural. Of course, it’s hard to make these assumptions with Padrons, but I leaned toward the darker of the two. The Padron “thousand series” is the quintessential Nicaraguan cigar. All the Anniversary series are great, but the “bottom of the line” standard Padrons are great on their own. Reasonably priced, almost always available, and consistent in flavor and construction year after year, you really can’t go wrong. The 4000 hasn’t been in the line-up as long as the 2000 or 3000, so this is the first in that vitola I’ve smoked, but it met all my expectations. There’s a dusty cocoa flavor that is the core of Padron, and this cigar absolutely satisfied all my criteria for an excellent cigar. Maybe these aren’t as pretty as the Anniversary series and have a few rough edges, but for the money these are something that should be a staple in every humidor.

Yesterday I was poking around looking for a cigar to smoke after the disappointing Flyers loss to the Bruins. the occasion wasn’t deserving of a BSB No.1 Bernie Parent Lord Stanley by Rocky Patel, but next to it was a Rocky Patel Fifteenth Anniversary Toro, so I said “what the heck” and grabbed it for a post dinner walk. Tonight I get to start taking walks in the daylight again! I wasn’t sure where this cigar was going to go, having not smoked one before and knowing nothing about it. What I do know is that it came out a few years ago to commemorate the company’s 15th anniversary (well duh…that was tough to figure out there Captain Obvious) and a little research turns up that it has a Habano wrapper, comes in sizes Corona Gorda, Robusto, Toro, Torpedo, Sixty, Toro Tubo, of which the Toro is a 6½” x 52 with a comfortable box press. Ask me where I got this one, I couldn’t tell you. I seem to have amassed a pretty good handful of Rocky Patel cigars over the years, and I can only remember buying a few, the rest must have snuck in. I don’t get samples from RP, except the occasional “here, try this” unbanded sample from my local rep, Mark. Anyway, this was a taasty cigar, nice sweet notes and a solid core of rich tobacco flavor. I liked it and would smoke it again, for sure.

Last week Pottery Barn, of all places, listed a cigar case and cutter on their clearance page (that part isn’t particularly surprising, that they had them there in the first place was the surprise. Unbeknownst to me, my wife order them and they arrived this week. I personally would have passed on this offer, although I will certainly use the double tube cigar case. I have several single tubes that I use from time to time, but then I end up with empty tubes that I needed to take home. The tubes might accommodate a 6″ x 46 cigar, but are probably better suited for a smaller ring gauge. The caps fit nice, although the overall fit and finish is a little sloppy, but it kind of fits with the antique brass finish. The cutter is your typical single blade in a metal housing instead of the usual plastic. It seems sharp enough and is certainly a nicer alternative to a throw-away promo type cutter. It would certainly do the job and goes nicely with the case. She didn’t get them monogrammed, but that was available, although checking today it looks like only the cutter is still in stock. I would have liked having an R and and L on the lid of the tubes, just to satisfy my aforementioned CDO. 🙂 I really like the Brass tube that Kevin Shahan in Florida made, if he could make them double like this, I think he’d be on to something.

Today I went to have a quick meeting with Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands and Tortuga Cigars. We met at local favorite cigar hotspot, Cigar Mojo. Victor only had a short window of opportunity, so we met at 11am, when Mojo opened. We each purchased a handful of cigars, oddly including some Tortugas and RomaCraft cigars. We sat down at a table and lit up the new Tortuga 215 Reserva Connecticut Elegante, a 6″ x 54 cigar presented in a tissue paper wrapped cedar sleeve. This cigar debuted last month, and hasn’t been talked about much. It’s a mild cigar, wrapped in Ecuador Connecticut (Victor would have liked to use US Connecticut, but there were questions of the sustainability of the blend, and he wanted to be able to make this cigar consistently for years to come). The cigar is on the milder side, a perfect pre-lunch smoke, and I was impressed with the burn, as it left my favorite nice flat ember. It’s a flavorful, well balanced Connecticut cigar, as one would expect from a Tortuga. The very limited Tortuga Regalo with the same wrapper is a great smoke, and this one is the Regalo without the ligero, quite a great cigar. In the process of talking cigars and tobacco, Victor shared with me a new cigar he’s been working on for the last year, and the first production is already sold out and will be in stores next week. I’m not going to reveal too much more, but it’s something very different for Victor. Watch on Wednesday for more information.

That’s it for now, I would have smoked Victor’s new cigar today, but a migraine knocked me out again and took my afternoon away. I’m looking forward to getting it smoked for Wednesday’s post, and I’m also hoping to see the new cabinet humidor show up this week. Now I’m off to take my first evening daylight walk of the year!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

8 Comments

Filed under News, Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, La Gloria Cubana, padron, rocky patel, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | March 4, 2015 · 10:54 pm

A Mia Dora, a CAO Cigar, a Psyko Seven, a Epicurean, a Jingle and Conan in Cuba

I received a nice bunch of cigars from Gary Griffith of The House of Emilio this week which included some new coronas from some of the great companies in their stable, as well as a couple of the Emilio Mia Dora robustos. I had one I picked up at an event a few months back that I had been waiting for the right time to smoke and figured now tat I had a couple more, the moment was Sunday. This cigar is a 5″ x 50 robusto with a Habano wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler. The cigar is a tribute to Gary’s fiancé, Dora. The cigar smoked very well, producing copious amounts of smoke and a savory flavor. Much like Gary’s Draig line, there is a distictive charred meat flavor to my palate. I look forward to sampling this cigar again.

Monday I grabbed another cigar from the CAO Area 9 collection, the VT6. This collection of six cigars are all from the original CAO lines which have been in storage for anywhere from five to twenty years, and could be anything CAO made during that time period. I know I had smoked this cigar before, and have a feeling it may have been a Gold Vintage. I was a slightly box pressed toro with what looked to me like a darker Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, and had a sourness that I don’t particularly appreciate in a cigar. It burned reasonable well, and was certainly well aged. This is a fun sampler, the only cigar that one can identify by appearance alone looks to be a CAO America, which I don’t think I’ve ever smoked. I grab one every now and then when I am feeling experimental.

Tuesday I selected a cigar I’ve wanted to revisit since I first smoked it over a year ago when I sat in on the Cigar Authority show. I only got to smoke about half the cigar during the show, and I wanted to finish it, but the second half got cleaned up in the aftermath of the show. I came by one at the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival and was very happy. This robusto is a generous 5½ x 50, and features a primary band that covers the majority of the cigar, which a secondary normal band underneath so you don’t forget what you are smoking. The cigar is buttery smooth, and has a very pleasing mellow flavor. I really enjoyed the heck out of this milder cigar, it’s got a Dominican Hybrid wrapper, Mexican Sumatra binder and multi-country blend in the filler. There seem to be some terrific cigars coming from Ventura Cigars, and I think this is one of them.

Tonight I dipped into the cigars from Gary Griffith and selected a petite corona from Steve Ysidron’s Epicurean Carnavale line. I was looking for a fairly quick smoke, and this seemed to be the smallest of the selection. This cigar is listed in several outlets, both media and retail, as 5½” x 48, and is most definitely not, even with the box press, it’s a 40 ring gauge if anything. It is a really comfortable and elegant size, much like a short lancero. There can be no mistake that this was the petite corona as it said so on the barcode sticker. this cigar was probably my favorite of the week so far, and the Psyko Seven set the bar pretty high. It had a nice sweetness that was a nice digestif to the Fish and Chips dinner I had at a nearby brewhouse. The burn and draw were perfect and is smoked longer than I anticipated, as evidenced by the late hour this edition will be posting. I can’t think of an Epicurean Cigar that I didn’t really like, and this is the best of the bunch.

Today my wife presented me with a jingle she had made for me through a site called Fiverr, and I think her $5 was money well spent. Here it is with a video visualization.

httpv://youtu.be/P6HYezkmeto

Tonight on TBS is Conan O’Brien’s Cuba show which could be quite interesting. Conan is a laugh riot, and I try to stay awake late enough to watch the show. I have the DVR set just in case. I thought it was funny when the show’s twitter account followed me today (@TeamCoco), then I received an e-mail with a list of links to the show segments in my e-mail. I guess it’s pretty cool that they sought out my site, it shows that my Google ranking isn’t too awfully bad, I guess! If you miss it tonight, here’s the list of links they sent:

“Conan In Cuba” Open

http://teamcoco.com/video/conan-in-cuba-open

CONAN Highlight: Watch the first four minutes of Conan O’Brien’s one-man mission to meet the Cuban people and make some friends. (live now. Worldwide)

More from tonight’s show (TBS 11/10c) – live 5:30 am ET:

Conan Joins A Cuban Salsa Band

https://teamcoco.com/node/88071

Conan learns the importance of the Cuban clave beat and wows the band with his 8th grade Spanish skills. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Takes A Cuban Spanish Lesson

https://teamcoco.com/node/88072

Thanks to Maestra Yolanda, Conan masters the Spanish tongue twister about three sad tigers. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Visits The Havana Club Rum Museum

https://teamcoco.com/node/88073

Conan learns the rich history of Cuban rum before tasting a flight of Havana Club’s best with his guide Gretel. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Learns To Dance Cuban Rumba

https://teamcoco.com/node/88074

Dancing is a huge part of Cuban culture, inspiring Conan to take an intensive lesson to master the erotic rumba. (live5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Visits Havana’s El Malecón

https://teamcoco.com/node/88075

Conan makes friends with Cuban youth on the famous waterfront promenade, and picks up a few bad habits… (live5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan’s Havana Rooftop Sunset

https://teamcoco.com/node/88076

Conan admires Central Havana at the end of the day, and imagines how CNN would report on it. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Visits A Cuban Cigar Factory

https://teamcoco.com/node/88077

Conan tries his hand at rolling La Corona cigars, but unfortunately his stogies just don’t measure up. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Dines At A Cuban Paladar

https://teamcoco.com/node/88078

Conan enjoys authentic Cuban cuisine at a paladar, a family-run restaurant located in a private home. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

Conan Says Goodbye To Cuba

https://teamcoco.com/node/88092

Conan recounts the wonderful time he had in Cuba and the amazing people he met. (live 5:30am ET. Worldwide)

That’s more than enough for now. I was going to tell a story about my first major cigar herf experience, but I’ll save that for another post.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

7 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as CAO, Carnavale, cigar, cigars, Conan, Emilio, Epicurean, Mia Dora, Psyko Seven, Ventura

by CigarCraig | March 1, 2015 · 10:57 am

Punch, Ora Vivo, Quesada cigars: Go Big or Go Home!

For no other reason than I had the cigars and time, I smoked some large cigars this

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week. Punch has come out with two new sizes in the Rare Corojo line, the Rare Lapiz, a figurado, and the great big El Diablo, a 6½” x 66 box pressed monster. You’d expect a cigar called Rare Corojo to have a Corojo wrapper, right? It has a Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, a Connecticut Broadleaf binder and fillers from Nicaragua, Honduras and The Dominican Republic, with no real mention of Corojo tobacco in any of the literature! It’s been a few years since I smoked a Rare Corojo, but I always liked them, there’s a distinct flavor that this line has that I can’t put a finger on, but I really like it. I suppose it’s both sweet and savory at the same time, and maybe a little creamy. The size was a bit much, although the box press made it seem a little smaller than it’s 66 ring gauge, it was still a devil to hold on to, not real comfortable in the hand. I look forward to trying the 6¾” x 56 figurado (which they only describe as “tapered”). One interesting note, I didn’t feel that the immense size of this cigar watered down the flavor of the blend at all, it tasted like I remember the robusto tasting when I first smoked this maybe ten or more years ago, an impressive feat.

Friday I took a day off to get some things done, and took a nice long on a local trail with a Ora Vivo Armand Asante World Edition 6×56. I wrote about this cigar in the November/December Issue of Prime Living Magazine. I said: “The brand made its debut in July 2013, with the original blend having sold out, as well as the European blend. The latest release is the World Edition, of which the 6×56 is the subject of this review. The cigar is a Nicaraguan Puro, manufactured in Honduras. The blend is comprised of tobacco from three growing regions in Nicaragua. The wrapper is from the Jalapa valley, the binder is from Condega and the fillers are a blend of Esteli and Condega tobacco. I find this cigar to be smooth, medium bodied, well balanced and refined. The flavors are sweet and earthy tobacco, and the construction is perfect and consistent as one would expect from a premium boutique cigar. The Ora Vivo Armand Assante World Edition is Armand’s tribute to the cigar industry, a cigar he truly loves, and it’s a great smoke.” Of course, this cigar is a sibling of the Tortuga line, both are from Victor Vitale’s Legacy Brands, and share great flavor and balance. I’m hoping to get together with Victor this week for a smoke, watch Wednesday’s post.

Yesterday I made some real headway on a cabinet project in a utility room. The previous owners wouldn’t recognize the room, when we moved in it had walls which were still showing unfinished 1959 drywall and had simple shelves, pegboard and a workbench of sorts and an unfinished concrete floor. In addition to the shiny new furnace and water heater, it also has a nice epoxy floor, patched and painted walls, and a wall of cabinets and counter we purchased from a medical office clean out for a reasonable price. With my son-in-law’s help we got the cabinets in, I just need to do some finish work and it’s done. To celebrate, I took a walk with a 6″ x 65 Quesada Oktoberfest Uber (should it be Über? German for “super”). I picked up a handful of t

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hese on closeout locally for $5 a cigar, and at that price it’s a nice smoke, I don’t know that I would be as enamored with it at $10. The burn and draw was perfect on this cigar and half of the cigar was good for a two mile walk. I probably spent the better part of two hours with this cigar, and I did enjoy it quite a bit. I was going to crack open a bottle o

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f Goya Ginger Beer with it, but I knew that particular ginger beer would over power the cigar, it’s really spicy.

I used a new cutter on the last couple cigars I smoked from the folks at Screwpop, makers of the Screwpop Punch and other key chain multi-function tools. This is a cigar scissors of sorts, which requires a bit of practice. I closed the blades around the cap of the cigar and applied some pressure while turning the cigar to remove the cap. In the case of the Quesada, this method removed the cap nicely, however the binder was still folded over and I had to pick it out with my fingers. Anyway, I’ll continue testing this new tool and get into it more later. I haven’t tested the bottle opener part yet, but there’s really not a lot that can go wrong with that part.

Editorial

In my continuing support of Cigar Ri

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ghts, I used the CigarRights.org site to send some

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letters to my elected officials this week, and this is the reply I received from my Senator, Mr. Casey. I knew he had been a co-sponsor of the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2015, but I wanted to make sure he knew I was still paying attention! His letter starts off being worrisome, but takes a turn for the better, I’m pleased to see that this legislator “gets it”. Of course, the premium cigar lobby in Pennsylvania is strong, being that we have quite a great many large retailers here.

Dear Mr. Vanderslice:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the regulation of tobacco products. I appreciate hearing from you about this issue.

Protecting Americans from the harmful effects of tobacco is a priority of mine, which is why I am proud to have been a cosponsor of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. The bill was signed into law on June 22, 2009, and gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight of the tobacco industry’s advertisement and promotion of their products, and the authority to regulate tobacco products. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act became law independent of the World Health Organization’s global tobacco treaty, which was signed by President Bush in 2004 but has not been submitted to the

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Senate for ratification.

Tobacco products are proven to have harmful effects on their users. Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco contain the addictive drug nicotine, which hooks users on the drug and endangers their health. There are also dozens of cancer-causing ingredients in tobacco products. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability and death in the United States. Secondhand smoke can also cause premature death and disease in those exposed to tobacco users.

This law is an important step forward because it protects children from being targeted by tobacco companies. It also ensures that tobacco products are appropriately labeled. Please be assured that I will continue to monitor efforts to regulate tobacco products, and will keep your views in mind should the issue arise again in the Senate.

Although I am a proud supporter of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, I am also a cosponsor of S. 441, the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2015. This bill would clarify the Tobacco Control Act by exempting traditional large and premium cigars from the FDA’s regulatory authority. While I understand the serious threat that tobacco products pose to the health of our Nation’s youth, premium cigars are not marketed to children nor are premium cigars easily obtained by children, due to their higher cost relative to products such as cigarettes.

While I support this bill, I am open to reasonable proposals that might further balance the ability of adults to purchase a legal product with our need to fight underage consumption of tobacco products. One concern I had with the version of the bill that was introduced in the 112th Congress involved the definition of “traditional large and premium cigars.” In response to feedback from myself and others, the current version of this bill tightens that definition considerably. I am satisfied that this tightened definition will effectively confine the exemption from FDA regulatory authority to true premium cigars and will not include inexpensive cigars that are easier for children to purchase. Please be assured that

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I will keep your views in mind as the Senate considers S. 441.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about this or any other matter of importance to you.

For more information on this or other issues, I encourage you to visit my website, http://casey.senate.gov. I hope you will find this online office a comprehensive resource to stay up-to-date on my work in Washington, request assistance from my office or share with me your thoughts on the issues that matter most to you and to Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,

Bob Casey

United States Senator

I urge everyone to visit CigarRights.org and send letters to your legislators. Some of them really do listen, and it doesn’t take much time. It’s important to peoples livelihoods to have premium cigars protected from FDA regulation, not just our personal enjoyment of cigars.

That’s it for now, until the next time.

Craig

4 Comments

Filed under Editorial, Review

Tagged as cigar, cigar rights, cigars, Ora Vivo Armand Assante, punch, Quesada, rare corojo, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | February 25, 2015 · 8:43 pm

Brick House, Leccia Luchador and Arturo Fuente 8-5-8 Cigars

I continue to have trouble NOT reaching for maduros and darker wrapped cigars! I guess it’s a winter thing, I’ll try to reverse the trend, but, honestly, I’m loving most of the cigars I’m smoking lately! The My Father Connecticut I smoked a week or two ago was a really good change, but I have to wonder how I would have felt smoking it outdoors in the cold. The darker, heavier wrappers just seen to hold up better both structurally and in flavor, when the mercury drops.
Sunday’s cigar was a Brick House Mighty Mighty Maduro from the folks at JC Newman. This is a Nicara

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guan puro, manufactured at their factory in Esteli. This is a large cigar, 6¼” x 60, and very well built. The burn and draw were perfect. I haven’t been

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screwing around lately experimenting with various cutters, I’ve been using a straight cut on most (exceptions being punching small ring cigars sometimes). I can’t tell you how tired I am of bundling up then making sure I have all the tools I need before I walk out the door to have a smoke. It’s taking me 15 minutes to do all the prep needed, grabbing a cigar, tools, taking a picture, posting on Instagram, then I always forget something….anyway, this was a good smoke, and these are reasonably priced. It’s got a thick, rich flavor of cocoa from the dark brown and oily Brazilian wrapper. I think it’s a darned good cigar.

The lure of the Luchador was too strong for me to resist this week, so Monday had to feature the Leccia Luchador El Hombre for my attempt at an evening walk. It’s still too cold, barely getting a mile in in this weather, but the porch provides shelter from the worst of the elements. This cigar is one of my absolute favorites from last year, and continues to be right up there on my list of favorite cigars. It’s not overpowering, but full of flavor, and I still get some jalapeño and dark chocolate in the flavor profile. It’s entertaining and satisfying and I dig it. Happy to say a box of these will be moving into the cabinet humidor when it finally shows up in a couple weeks.

A few weeks ago one of my vendors at work sent me a pile of cigars from Fuente. His story was that a friend or business associate of his is friends with someone in the Fuente family and regularly sends him care packages. This bag he sent me had some Opus, an Añejo Shark (a cigar I haven’t smoked yet) some Hemingways, a Don Carlos, and a couple Sungrowns. It was a very impressive selection, even for someone as jaded as myself. I figured I’d dig into the bag last night and came out with the 858 Sungrown. Of course, I’ve smoked a bunch of the 858 in natural and maduro, but it’s been a dozen years easily. I always enjoyed the cigars, so I was looking forward to this one. The difference is the Ecuador Sungrown wrapper with is nice and dark, and a cedar sleeve with a black band and ribbon (the regular line is still green on the band, right?). I love the size of this cigar too, 6” x 47, which makes it chunkier and longer than a corona gorda, but not quite as big as a toro. I ended up having a very nice time smoking this cigar. There was a nice sweetness and it burned pretty well. These tend to be in the $6-$7 range from what I can recall, and I think that’s a good price, or at least it’s a very good cigar for that price. It’s certainly a cigar I would revisit often if I had them in the humidor. Tasty!