Recluse Draconian, Sindicato Hex, La Sirena and Toraño Cigars

Well, winter just keeps getting better and better! Thursday we had a Nor’easter here in PA, which dumped a bunch of snow, sleet, rain, then rain and more snow. Fortunately, my day job closed for the day to allow me the luxury of shoveling the driveway. The snow was heavy and deep and I still hurt. I rewarded myself for a job well done with a lovely Recluse Draconian Sidewinder No. 2, which is one of their proprietary vitolas. The unique feature of this vitola is that you don’t need a cutter, it’s constructed in such a way a squeeze to the head splits the cap and you can peel away the cap and have a perfect draw. Here’s the video from he IPCPR show where J.R. Dominguez shows us how this works:

httpv://youtu.be/TLBHP-pW6x8

The cigar is a 6″x 57 and box pressed. Like all of the cigars from Iconic Leaf, these are rolled in the entubado method. The wrapper is a dark and oily Ecuador maduro. I sat in the garage watching fhe various precipitation and fully enjoyed this rich and flavorful smoke. It had the dark, sweet flavors I love getting. This is a truly delicious cigar, my only complaint is that it burned fairly quick. I would have liked to have smoked this for another thirty minutes. I give this 3 Ds….dark, deep and delicious!

Later in the day I took the dog for a walk with a Sindicato Hex Figurado. There’s a lot to like about these cigars. This is another rich, dark smoke that has a lot going on. I dig the shape, it’s got a bun-shaped pigtail cap and a classic taper on either end. With this cigar it’s also possible to open the head up without a cutter, just by popping the little bun off, but I used the cigar scissors to get a larger opening. If I remember correctly, these are made at the Ortez factory in Condega, Nicaragua and the dark Ecuador Habano wrapper is quite tasty. These are quickly becoming a go-to smoke for me. It’s a little rustic looking, but still a fun size and  shape, and the flavor delivers for me.

Friday I selected a new inmate in my cigar asylum, a La Sirena Trident. I don’t smoke a lot of Churchill sized cigars, but I got a box of these last week. Certainly, I smoke more larger format cigars in the warmer months, but I had to sample one of these and it wasn’t that cold out for a change (might have been in the 20s!). This cigar is made at the My Father factory in Esteli and features a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper. I can see that I’m goung to have to pace myself with these, as I think they will age beautifully. They are not without some strength, and is another cigar with those deep, dark flavors I like, with some nice sweetness. I got a good hour and a half or more out of this cigar, I can’t wait to fire one of these up in the pool on a nice hot day! The thing I like best about the Trident size is that the beautiful band looks more properly proportioned on the longer cigar!  The band is a work of art, but it overwhelms the robusto. Putting the very simple slim band underneath this great band is genius, because the band almost has to come off before smoking.

Guess what happened yesterday? If friggin snowed again! All day, but it didn’t accumulate much on the driveway, which saved my sore muscles a bit. I grabbed the leash and a Toraño Master toro from the 90+ rated sampler Jack Toraño sent me over a year ago and took the dog out for a walk. This cigar is a smooth, well balanced, medium bodied cigar. The wrapper is a perfect looking Ecuador Habano, I have to get my hands on the Master maduro one of these days, that looks really tasty. They offer this cigar in a 6″x60 size they call the BFC. Don’t make the mistake I made and assume that the initials stand for something other than “big fat cigar”. I’m embarrassed that my first thought was something less polite. Charlie Toraño is far to much of a gentleman to name a cigar something so undignified (Jack might 🙂 ). At the 2012 IPCPR show in Orlando they featured a LFC size, which was a 4½”x60. They offered this in several blends and it doesn’t appear that it caught on based on the fact that I don’t see them on the website, nor have I ever seen them anywhere but at the show that year. I liked the Loyal I smoked in that format, and wouldn’t mind smoking some of the Exodus blends in this shape. I admit to being a fan of the little fat cigars.

I have to tell you, I appreciate spending my weekend mornings watching Olympic Hockey. I get annoyed with weekend afternoon games as I like to think I have better things to do than watch TV.  Getting my hockey fix out of the way before 10 AM works out better for me. Too bad it’s only every four years!

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

CigarCraig