Friday evening Matt Booth from Room 101 was making an appearance at a local shop, Old Havana Cigar Co. in West Chester, PA. I frequently attend events there and it’s always really busy, Friday being no exception. I purchased a handful of singles and lit up a Room 101 ‘305’, which is the robusto in the line. I enjoyed the cigar, probably not surprising since I’ve long been a fan of Camacho cigars. I had the great pleasure of talking to Tom Smith, the Davidoff representative, who doesn’t like bloggers. I can see his point, which is that particularly popular bloggers can cause damage to a brand or shop by giving a bad review. I suspect that the number of cigar smokers who are influenced by blogs is reasonably small, as I haven’t run into too many people hanging around in cigar stores that use the Internet for any kind of cigar stuff, be it forums, blogs or whatever. Certainly we need to be responsible and not pretend we are experts and tell people what they may or may not like. The 305 was a really nice cigar, very Honduran and perfectly made.
I followed the 305 with a Namakubi Papi Chulo (is it a coincidence that “Papi Chulo” and “petite corona” share the same initials?). This is a nice little 4″ x 42 with a reddish Habano wrapper. It took a little work getting it to light right, but ended up being packed with flavor and smoking very nicely. I was going to leave after the 305, but I got to talking to a gentleman who came in and was lighting up a Papi Chulo, so I decided to join him. He was an interesting gentleman, he had taken the opportunity in college to study abroad in Havana, which was interesting. He had a sincere interest in cigars and was really refreshing to talk to. The Papi Chulo was terrific, but short, so I was soon done and decided to head home. I took a few minutes to talk to Matt on my way out. If you have a chance to meet him, take it, because he’s a nut, but one of the nicest nuts out there. We had a little back and forth on zipper up vs. zipper down (on my jacket, what were you thinking?), all I can say is: Matt, you worry about your CDO, I’ll worry about mine, K?. Very cool guy. Also cool was Tom Smith of Davidoff, even though he hates bloggers. A wealth of information on all things cigar. I appreciate the chance to meet and hang out with both of these gents.
Summary: Room 101 cigars good, although priced a little higher than I’m comfortable with. Sometimes one has to factor in the overall experience and it makes it worthwhile. On a side note, I got to thinking about petite coronas vs. larger cigars. Certainly petite coronas offer a different, often more flavorful smoke, and when it comes to variety, you can smoke several vastly different small cigars in the time it takes to smoke one large one. However, this is a tough sell for me when the price is close: do I pay $5 or$6 for a PC, or $6 or $7 for a Churchill? I usually choose cigars based upon the time I have to smoke them, so this isn’t generally something I worry about. Another little item rattling around in my head: I was once told that it costs nearly as much to make a small cigar as it does to make a big one. Manufacturers can’t price the coronas and PCs that close to the larger vitolas, so you are actually getting a good deal on the smaller cigars, as the larger cigar sales basically subsidize the smaller ones. Not really relevant to anything, just something that comes up in my head from time to time…
That’s it for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
Cool review Craig.