CigarCraig's Blog

by Craig Vanderslice | December 25, 2022 · 6:00 am

Merry Christmas and a Couple of Cigars

This is going to be a short one, I mean, I have family stuff to do today, and I assume many of you do also. Not many people are going to have time to read a long post! So Happy Holidays to everyone! Go back to my last post and enter the contest! Maybe you’ll win some great stuff!

We’re enjoying a cold snap here, Friday started out a balmy 50 and dropped to the teens by evening. I got my cigar in early, my heaters can’t keep up with this bitter cold. I chose from a selection sent to me by my secret Santa this year, an Alec Bradley 2014 Fine and Rare. It was my first time smoking a Fine and Rare, I may smoke another Fine and Rare later if time and temps allow. This was a special smoke, a 7″ x 54 perfecto-ish cigar. I’ve had the same shape in a tubed Tempest ,I think. It didn’t seem like it was that big, but it smoked for a good two hours. When I say “good”, I mean really good! I seem to recall the Raices Cubanas factory having some quality issues around this time, which were not apparent in this cigar, it was perfectly built. I believe the blend is Honduran and Nicaraguan with a Honduran wrapper. I also seem to remember some ridiculous number of varietals in the blend on these. Seven? Anyway, this was a really delicious cigar, pretty nunced and refined, but full of flavor. It was bready, with some spice, but not much. It certainly was a special cigar befitting the season. TY MS for these! I look forward to future Fine and Rare’s.

Yesterday I stopped by Goose’s Montecristo Lounge in Limerick, PA for a smoke or two. I intended to just pick one or two nice cigars out to smoke, but I started looking through the discount bin (buy 3, get one free) and found some gems, some CyB Corona Reals, Cornelius and Anthony Meridian Corona Gordas, Jaxx LTs (forerunner of the La Sirena LT) and even an Emilio AF2 (AJ Fernandez). So after I smoked a gifted Montecristo Epic, I lit up one of the CyBs I bought and it was delicious. These had a pretty short life, coming out sometime around 2013 when José Blanco (the B) worked at Joya de Nicaragua with Dr. Alejandro Cuenca (the C). It was originally called Cuenca y Blanco until someone pulled a trademark dispute. The cigar was really good, and I think I found all that he had in the bins. The cigar has an Ecuador Habano wrapper, Dominican Piloto binder and fillers from Nicaragua and Peru. It’s woody and sweet with some spice, the spice probably from that Peruvian leaf. Good stuff! Goose’s is a great spot with a large selection and comfortable lounge. I’d like to get there more than I do!

That’s all for today, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Alec Bradley, cigar, cigars, CyB, Fine and Rare, Goose's Montecristo Lounge

by Craig Vanderslice | December 21, 2022 · 8:55 pm

Contest! Year End Goodies Giveaway!

As we come to the end of another year, I realized that I should do a bit of a giveaway. I miss the days of doing the CigarCraig’s 12 Days of Giveaways, so here’s a huge prize pack of goodies I’ve collected. There are a couple caps, a Gran Habano t-shirt, lighter and cutter, a pair of J.C.Newman Bricktoberfest boot glasses, a Villiger ashtray, travel humidor and Xikar cutter, and assorted Drew Estate goodies! Of course, I’ll curate a selection of my favorite cigars from my humidor too, I can’t send out a package full of cigar goodies without including some cigars! You never know what other stuff I’ll find to include.

The usual rules apply! You must be of legal age in your jurisdiction to win. Please leave a comment on this blog post for an entry to win, and I’ll select a winner on January 1, 2023. Thank you all for reading over the past year, my 13th year of sharing my cigar experiences!

Happy Holidays to all! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by Craig Vanderslice | December 18, 2022 · 8:51 am

Some West Tampa Tobacco and Powstanie Cigars

I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do next week, be prepared for a simple post, or maybe I put something fun together for the holiday week! I have to work on that…anyway, I smoked some cigars that I found interesting this week. When I saw Rick Rodriguez at the Cigar Heritage Festival, he gave me two lanceros, I mentioned the West Tampa Tobacco Co. Black last week, and smoked the West Tampa Tobacco Co. White this week. As with the Black, I found the lancero iteration to be very different from the Robusto and Toro. I don’t know how old these were, which can factor into things, but the lancero started with some “off”, sour notes. The sourness turned into almost a fermented citrus sort off flavor. Very interesting. I am always careful to smoke lanceros slowly, I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, this shape cigar tastes “sharper” because it burns hotter than a larger ring gauge cigar. This is often mistaken for some wrapper to filler ratio nonsense. It’s heat, sip the lancero, it can’t be smoked like larger cigars. I did find that this cigar burned pretty fast, which was disappointing because I enjoyed the flavors, perhaps more than I enjoy the regular White sizes. I liked both of these blends in the lancero format.

I recently came across the West Tampa Tobacco Co. Attic Series in one of my local shops and picked one up to sample. I got some of the Black and Whites too while I was there. I also grabbed an Excalibur No. 1 Maduro while I was there, I hadn’t had one in ages, and thought it might be fun to compare it to the Sakakhan, as the Excalibur loosely inspired it. Anyway, I smoked the Attic and instantly regretted not picking some up at the festival. This was an excellent cigar for me. It was of the dark roast coffee theme that I enjoy. San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan binder sna fillers in a 6″ x 54 format are all right up my alley. This smoked perfectly and was delicious. If you like the cigars I tend to like, put this on your “try” list.

The CigarCraig.com Secret Santa this year had a pretty light turnout, but the quality was very high. I think everyone was well taken care of, including myself. My SS surprised me with a bunch of cigars that I haven’t smoked before, as well as some very nice goodies, some of which I’ve already put into use! He went way over and above and I am humbled and very appreciative! I lit up the Powstanie (link is to the Cigar Hustler site, which is owned by the same dudes who own the brand, not a sponsor, BTW) Wojtek which I believe to be the 2021 edition. This is a barber pole/dos capos style cigar that has Habano and

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San Andrés wrapper. All I can fi

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nd out about the blend is the wrapper, I assume the rest is Dominican and Nicaraguan. Previous iterations had an Indonesian binder, safe to assume this does too. These are made at Nica Sueño in Esteli, and I tend to like cigars made at that factory. I also like the Powstanie cigars, I’m pretty evenly split between Broadleaf and Habano, they are both really good. This cigar was 90 minutes of pleasure. It starts with some pepper, then some earthiness and espresso. It burned well, the box press was comfortable, and it was a really nice smoke. Thanks to my SS fo this, as well as the rest!

Off to see what I can come up with for the coming week, it’s that time of year you know! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, Powstanie, Warbear, West Tampa Tobacco Co., White, Wojtek

by Craig Vanderslice | December 13, 2022 · 5:48 pm

News: Quality Importers Trading Company Launches Palio Gift Sets

Here’s some news from Quality Importers, the folks behind Xikar, Palio, Cigar Caddy, Humidor Supreme and Stinky Ashtrays. I think I have a Cigar Caddy that’s 20 years old, several Xikar products and a few Palio items. The Palio cutter does a great job, I should pull it out of the car and use it more. These look like a good deal:

Quality Importers Trading Company (QI) announces the launch of two Palio branded gift sets, just in time for the holiday season. The gift sets are shipping to retailers nationwide as of today.

The perfect stocking stuffer or gi

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ft for your loved ones, each Palio gift set features a Palio Vesuvio Triple Torch Lighter in green and a Palio original 64 RG straight cutter in either Black or Grey. These two elegant accessories are packaged together in a timeless windowed gift box.

Michael Giannini, Chief of Consumer Engagement, adds “When you are in need of that perfect gift for your cigar enthusiast loved one, and don’t know where to turn, QI is here to save the day! These gift sets are the perfect price point for a

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ll consumers featuring the iconic Palio cutter and one of the best triple torches in the game with the Palio Vesuvio. Happy Holidays from the entire QI Family!”

Both the Palio Gift Set featuring a Palio Vesuvio Triple Torch Lighter in green and a Palio Straight Cutter in black or grey retail for $34.99.

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Tagged as Accesories, cigar, cigars, palio, Quality Importers

by Craig Vanderslice | December 11, 2022 · 9:49 am

Cigar Heritage Festival and Some West Tampa Black Cigars

Last Sunday I attended the Cigar Heritage Festival in Ybor City. As I may have said in last weeks post,

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it was my first visit to that area, long overdue. I spent a disproportionate amount of time at Corona Cigar’s Tampa location, even had a great meet-up with old friends from the alt.smokers.cigars usenet group! I got to hang around a lot with Kevin and Jessica of CigarProp, many thanks to them for driving me around! But Sunday was the day for the Cigar Heritage Festival, a brisk half a cigar walk from my hotel (2 miles, it was a beautiful day!). I wasn’t sure what to expect, a sentiment shared by several vendors and even the staff! I somehow ended up with a VIP pass, which allowed me access to some seating areas, none of which I took advantage of. It also included about seven tickets for cigars, more on that in a bit. The festival covered the Centennial Park and three of the streets surrounding it. There were a bunch of vendors there, many of the people who were principle and prominent “faces” of the brands were there. I have to think that folks like Steve Saka and Tony Gomez being there meant net to nothing to 90% of the attendees, but I enjoyed catching up with some ol

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d friends, Island Jim Robinson among them. One of the highlights for me was meeting Ron Hunt, the host of the All About Wine podcast. You might think it odd that someone who hasn’t had a drink in over 30 years knows someone from the wine industry, but Ron has been a member of a weekly video chat I am involved with, and is fairly new to premium cigars. I introduced him to several people there, and had him collect on my aforementioned VIP cigar tickets. He gave a really nice description of the event on his latest episode. I also ran into my old friend Keith, who I had seen the day before, and interrupted his sleep schedule once again to hang out :-). From what I’m told, sales were brisk, Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust was selling boxes, exceeding expectations. There was a band, food trucks, and all sorts of other lifestyle vendors. I bought a cool t-shirt and a gift for my wife. I especially enjoyed the chickens and roosters wandering around! I recommend the event, and a visit to “Cigar City” in general.

While I was there I ran into my old friend Ricky Rodriguez, formerly of CAO, presently of West Tampa Tobacco Co.. It took me a while to find him, I thought he’d have his own booth, but he was set up with a local cigar store, Tobacco Depot. Ricky was busy taking pictures with people, like the celebrity he is, I had a moment to talk with his daughter, Sara, the Brand Activation & Engagement Manager for the company. I asked her if she had smoked her first cigar yet, having heard that she had never smoked before. Her answer surprised me, I guess, it was a no. She said she has no interest, although she was going to spend an extended time in Esteli learning rolling and blending, so maybe she’d be inspired to try there. I, naturally, recommended trying. I’ve never seen this young lady without a huge smile on here face, she’d certainly be a great cigar ambassador. Ricky gave me a prototype of the Black and White in lancero size, and I smoked the Black version this week, along with a Black Robusto for comparison. I need to go out and pick up a White so I can smoke the other one, I like to have a baseline, and I have only smoke a couple Whites. Something odd about the Black in the lancero format, I was concerned in the first inch, it was a little rough, kind of like the coffee that’s been sitting in the pot half the day, you know, the good stuff! After the first inch though, it went someplace unexpected. There were distinct notes of spices that I identify with Christmas baking, it really turned into something special. The coffee notes smoothed out, but that delicious spice kept going. It was good, better than the Robusto I smoked the next day, which is still a tasty cigar! I’m very much looking forward to the White lancero!