IPCPR 2013 – Cigar Oasis Humidifiers and Hygrometers

It’s been a whirlwind couple of days here in Las Vegas at the annual IPCPR trade show.  I’ve  had the good fortune to see a lot of great folks and wonderful new products as well as get to a couple after show parties. Monday night we went to the Toraño Party at Tao Nightclub in the Venetian, then with friends to Casa Fuente in Caesars Palace Forum Shops.  The Alec Bradley party Monday night was hopping, it was outdoors at the pool at the Palms with an open bar and very loud music. After that we hung around the Circle Bar DSC00550in the Venetian and schmoozed with a bunch of folks.  Over the coming months I’ll be smoking samples and including videos related to them.  I hope you enjoy them and while you may see the same information elsewhere, I hope I can add something a little different so it’s not just the same old information.  We’re getting ready to fly home tomorrow night and as tired as I am right now, I had to get a post put together to serve as my regular Wednesday post.  It may be a little early.

 

Today I had the good fortune to meet Chaim Kohn of Cigar Oasis and shoot a video of him explaining their line of products.  Cigar Oasis has been around a long time and always seems to be improving and innovating.  I was very impressed with the Caliber IV hygrometer which is a round digital unit made to fit where a round analog unit would be in in the lid of the humidor.  It’s a sharp looking item.  Chaim had e-mailed me inviting me to stop by the booth and on day 3 of the show I finally found him not too busy and he gives us this tour.

 

You’ll notice that I took camera man duties on this one, giving my wife, Jenn, a break.  She’s been such a huge help to me on this trip and I can’t thank her enough. The downside is that the camera work suffers, but the upside is you don’t have to see me in the video!

 

Time to try to get some rest before wandering around Las Vegas looking for some cigar friends to hang out with.

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Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

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IPCPR 2013 – Iconic Leaf and Recluse Cigars

Yesterday I visited with the folks at Iconic Leaf and J.D. Dominguez showed me his newest creation, the Recluse Draconian Sidewinder, in what looks to be a 7″ x 60 box press. I’ve loved these guys since I met them last year at the show and pick up a recluse cigar or two whenever I see them in my local shop (one of them carries them!).  I smoked the cigar that was featured in the video at the show (the only cigar I smoked on the show floor yesterday) and it was fantastic. Rich and full of great flavor and burned perfectly.  It’s more of a good thing, that’s for sure.  the only drawback was that I was frequently distracted and it lasted 2 hours or so!  If you haven’t tried the Recluse line, hunt them down.

 

Here’s the video:

 

I’m off to celebrate my wife’s birthday by seeing the Cirque du Soliel LOVE show at the Mirage next door.  We’ll see where the night takes us after that!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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IPCPR 2013 Day 1: A Moment With Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands

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Myself, Armand Asante and my wife Jenn

Day one at the Annual IPCPR Tradeshow is in the books for us, and we had a great day on the show floor. Of course, it went by too fast and we are fortunate to have a couple more days to soak it all up. We had some great meetings and interviews which will all be shared over time. One of the great ones came today as I had an opportunity to sit with Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands and talk about his new ventures. (you can read about them here) Victor recently sold his old company, and is off to a rip roaring start with Legacy Brands, featuring Tortuga and his new offering, Ora Viva Armand Asante. Mr. Asante was in the booth and I had the pleasure of talking with him for a few minutes. I’ll see if I can get a chance to do a video with him over the next couple days.  I’m looking forward to trying these two new cigars from Victor.

 

Here is a video interview I did with Victor telling us about his new offerings:

 

As you can imagine, I’m worn out from the day’s events, and have some parties to go to tonight yet. I’ll be trying to get something else posted tomorrow and Tuesday. I hope you enjoy my style of coverage of the show, there’s loads of stuff to come. Be patient though, uploading video is time consuming over the hotel WIFI! If the video isn’t there right away, give it 20 minutes or so.

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Breaking News from Victor Vitale and Legacy Brands

I rarely post press releases, but these two arrived in my inbox tonight and I wanted to get the news out as soon as possible.  I’m looking forward to visiting with Victor Vitale at the show and will get more information.  Victor recently sold his company, The Cigar Agency to focus on new projects.  Here’s the latest from Victor:

 

Set to launch in Las Vegas next week at the IPCPR trade show, is the much anticipated Tortuga 215 Reserva by Victor Vitale.

Tortuga 215 is a limited production brand that is allocated in small quantities to only Appointe

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d Merchants. The Tortuga 215 Reserva by Victor Vitale is a Nicaraguan puro with the majority of tobaccos from Esteli.

The Tortuga 215 Reserva by Victor Vitale will be an all box-pressed line up and initially debuted, as four sizes, for purchasing at the IPCPR trade show. Additional sizes will be made available in the upcoming months. Victor Vitale is looking forward to meeting with present merchants and also appointing some new merchants next week, at IPCPR 2013.

Tortuga 215 Reserva is a Legacy Brands by Victor Vitale product. For more information please visit www.VictorVitale.com and www.TortugaCigars.com

 

LegacyBrands

 

And:

Victor Vitale producer of the highly rated Tortuga 215 cigar brand has created a new blend, Ora Vivo Armand Assante.

Armand Assante, an artist, musician and golden globe award winner has had a 35 year love affair with cigars as is evident in many of his films. Throughout his career as an Actor, companies such as L’Oreal as well as Calvin Klein pursued Armand Assante as one of the few iconic images to be associated with their products. Other than Studio and International Independent Films and Television Armand never entertained the ‘commercial market’ save for the voice of Lincoln Continental and Serta in the nineties, and as host of stellar narration to political Documentaries. Though he comes from an exceptionally cultivated Family, his Grandfather an Italian Chef/Restaurateur in New York, his parents both Artists and Uncles and Aunts in Politics and Education, in the last few years the international scene has beckoned Assante once again to trade his persona on product such as casked Limoncello from Sorrento, Italy, Vodka from the oldest distillery in Russia, Spanish Vineyards as well as venues in Las Vegas. Assante seriously considered but stayed focused on a long time thought.

 

In the meantime offers to have his name on a cigar have been made consistently in the past but nothing inspired him enough to “make the cut”. He has a cultivated knowledge of cigars.

 

The desire to create a Legacy started with his career in the film industry thirty five years ago and Premium Cigars were only a part of his personal life and not a possible staple. He was not about to consider something that wasn’t personal. ‘Ora Vivo’, was an inevitability.

 

Armand writes:

I’ve lived an amazing life literally all over the planet. I don’t take it for granted. I wanted to express that. Sometimes what is unattainable can be approached if you choose the talent as well that comprehends you. Not that it’s a common occurrence. It rarely happens in Film being an industry defined often by consensus.

With ‘Ora Vivo’ I am creator and monitor of the product. If I create or distribute a product it would have to qualify as a product of legacy.

The product must have the necessary endurance to be associated with ‘Ora Vivo’.

Victor Vitale and Gary Macchione are of the same belief as me. What we create is a living expression of us. It’s the way we were raised. When we initially discussed creating a blend of a superior cigar in all respects we appointed Victor Vitale as our mentor. Victor Vitale has a long and tested career in the tobacco industry and his passion for tobacco and the cigar business is contagious. He created many successful brands such as the Tortuga 215 which is apart of his Legacy Brands cigar company. Victor brings 20 years of industry experience to our Ora Vivo cigar brand.

Gary Macchione has a passion for cigars, a talent for understanding and connecting with the consumer, and the ability to establish key relationships and create opportunities by bringing the right people together. Macchione has proudly partnered with veteran cigar maker Victor Vitale and screen legend and Cigar Aficionado Armand Assante to help create the cigar brand Ora Vivo.

Gary and I watched Victor carefully. He has the same discipline, knowledge and devotion to the blends as to the whole industry. He has been a student of the Latin American culture of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua for 20 years and always speaks about ‘A tribute to the art and tobacco culture’. You have to respect culture. If you are willing to embrace people… and to learn from their culture… inevitably your own sensibilities will evolve… if you’ve seriously considered their branch of knowledge. What we wish for ‘Ora Vivo’ is it to be our tribute and honor to the Cigar industry’s brotherhood… of cultures. We want those nations that have created the magic of Cigars to be honored together, and shared, by one, such as the one Victor and Gary and I have created. This is our gift to those nations. We tasted Victor’s tobacco blends until we knew we had tasted the tribute those cultures deserve. That is the fundamental philosophy shared between us as men. We do not take the cultural legacy that goes into the creation of a great Cigar for granted… or the legacy that goes into the creation of anything for that matter.

Life is a fleeting glance and taste of beauty. We honor it… in all its forms.

Ora Vivo is our salute.

— Armand Assante

Ora Vivo is a Legacy Brands by

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Victor Vitale product. For more information please visit
www.VictorVitale.com and www.OraVivo.com

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Getting Ready for Vegas, a Perdomo, a Four Kicks and a Nica Rustica

In the week leading up to our trip to the IPCPR show in Vegas I’m losing track of what I’ve smoked!  I had to go back and check twitter and Instagram to refresh my memory. My wife is right, I need to take a note book along this time to write things down along the way. I’m certain to forget something in the information overload that is the IPCPR  show. Case in point: I smoked a couple cigars on Sunday, I think a CAO Concert and a Gurkha Seduction. Both are cigars that are on my “go to” list when I want to smoke something, enjoy the heck out of it, and not have to worry too much about it. The Concert went very nicely in the pool, and the Gurkha was perfect after a end of the weekend rainstorm complete with a double rainbow. These two cigars capped off a pretty great holiday weekend for me.  I had to go look up what I smoked!

 

Perdomo_10th Maduro RobustoMonday evening I grabbed one of the Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Maduros I had picked up recently. I was in the mood for something new and I really don’t smoke a ton of Perdomo cigars for whatever reason. I’m not sure if it goes back to the 90s when I had a string of bad luck with the brand or what. This cigar was pretty darned sublime. The flavor was right up my alley, chocolatey and espressoey  and well balanced. Well worth the $5.25 I paid for it. It was a lovely smoke and I’ll certainly have to pay a little more attention to this brand. Yes, I know that chocolatey and espressoey aren’t real words (I already had that argument with the spell check…).

 

Four Kicks_RobustoLast night I selected a Four Kicks robusto that was gifted to me a few months ago in New Jersey by Alex “StogieCop” Martinez. I’ve enjoyed a few different sizes in this line, and they are nice cigars to be sure. I kind of wanted to get some older (ie. last years) cigars smoked before going to the trade show and being inundated with new stuff. This was a worthy smoke, although I just can’t get as excited about it as some do, perhaps it doesn’t suit my preferences as much as some others. Still a terrific smoke, thank you Alex for allowing me to revisit this one.

 

DE_NicaRustica_ToroChanging gears, tonight I wanted to preview a cigar that I gather is being released at the show this year. In the past few weeks I’ve smoked some NicaRoma cigars from Villiger,the Nica Puro from Alec Bradley, so I thought I better smoke the Nica Rustica that’s coming out from Drew Estate. I was given a sample a few months ago when I visited the factory and I would be

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lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit intimidated by this stick! Will at Cigar-Coop.com posted a nice write up on this last week, where he notes that the blend includes a Nicaraguan Rustica tobacco grown in Esteli that is among the most potent of tobaccos it’s wrapped in a San Andreas binder (yay!) and a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper (another yay!) and will be offered in a 6″x52 toro shape. The example I smoked had an unfinished foot and a pigtail head. It certainly was a rustic looking cigar, and had a wonderful syrupy sweetness on the wrapper.  You an feel the tingle of the nicotine in the mouth, and there is a ton of flavor. This is like a Liga Privada on steroids. I have yet to find anythig remotely subtle about this ci

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gar, it’s just loaded with great, in your face flavor and strength. I’m sitting on the deck finishing this off as I ty

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pe, and I already look forward to smoking another one. Now, I have to admit that I don’t know if this is the finished blend or not, but I hope it is close.  I remember Steve Saka saying that production capacity was holding this release back, apparently they made some room to produce a bunch of these. At the reported under $7 price tag, this is a no brainer for anyone who doesn’t mind having your ass kicked around the block a few times. Highly recomended and anticipated!

 

That’s it for tonight. The next post will probably be from the IPCPR show. I’ll do my best to get some interesting and entertaining video here, assuming I can get some WIFI connections here and there.

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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