Tag Archives: 2 Guys

by CigarCraig | December 15, 2013 · 6:49 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 4: Leccia Tobacco

We had another great turnout yesterday, and the cigars were, once again, spectacular! Part of the fun of doing this is putting new and interesting cigars in peoples hands that may not have had the opportunity to try them otherwise. The Atabey is such a limited and exclusive cigar (and expensive!) that not many people will have access to them. Big thanks again to David Garofalo at 2 Guys Smokeshop for providing the winner, chekk12, the chance to sample these! Congrats to the lucky winner! Send your address so we can get these beauties to you. Today’s another day, and another contest! Check it out:

One of the highlights of this year was the return of Sam Leccia to the cigar industry. The IPCPR show was abuzz, it was next to impossible to get an interview with him, but I did, and we enjoyed spending a few minutes with him and his lovely wife in his end of the Toraño booth. He made a splash with two unique cigars, the Leccia White, and today’s present, the Leccia Black. In addition to a Leccia Tobacco t-shirt, we have a box of Leccia Black Petite Rothschild. This box of 21 4″ x 48 cigars feature the “Dark Fire” Kentucky tobacco which gives these a distinctive smokey flavor. These are really good (as are the White!). Sam knocked it out of the park with these debut cigars, some lucky reader will have a box in their humidor soon!

Thanks to Jack Toraño and Sam Leccia for providing today’s gifts! You know what to do next! Load up the comments!

Rules

Here’s how you enter: leave a comment. That’s it, plain and simple. Tweets don’t count, but feel free to spread the word, only comments on this page count as an entry. Each day there will be a different prize and the winner will be drawn from that day’s comments. The winner will be announced on the next day’s post. The contest is open to everyone, even if you’ve won one of my contests in the past six months, but once you’ve won, you are ineligible to win again in this series of contests. All prizes will be mailed as soon as I get a chance to go to the post office, or whenever the sponsor decides to ship, whichever is the case, so don’t make me chase down your address! If you are the winner, please e-mail your contact information to craig@cigarcraig.com as soon as possible! That’s it, leave a comment to enter and good luck. Check back tomorrow to see if you won and enter tomorrow’s contest!

Until Tomorrow,

CigarCraig

112 Comments

Filed under Contest

Tagged as 12 days, 2 Guys, Atabey, cigar, cigars, Leccia Black

by CigarCraig | December 14, 2013 · 6:18 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 3: 2 Guys Smokeshop

Yesterday was awesome! Great momentum carrying over from day one, the turnout was pretty impressive. There were a couple comments that made me think that there was still a little confusion about how things work though. It’s early yet, we have time to get in a groove, ten days to go! So yesterday I had 126 entries to select from and the winner was comment number 75, so Jesus C, please e-mail me your mailing address! Thanks to the great folks at Iconic Leaf for the box of Recluse cigars, I’m sure Jesus will enjoy them. Thanks again to everyone who entered! More great cigars to come…

Day 3

Today we have something very special, something I haven’t smoked yet. David Garofalo from 2 Guys Smokeshop (and The Cigar Authority) has provided this set of Atabey cigars. These cigars are made in Costa Rica by a gentleman named Nelson Alphonso, who is responsible for the design of all of the special packaging that Habanos S.A. uses, the ceramic Jars especially. The Atabey line is super premium. The filler leaves are color sorted so that not only are the wrapper shades consistent, but the binder and filler are all the same shade too. This five pack is packaged in Humitubes® which not only have a humidifier, but a punch cutter built in too! You’ll be able to use these tubes for years to come, long after the cigars are gone. Those who’ve smoked these say they are the best cigar that they’ve ever smoked.

There you have it! Leave a comment to enter and good luck! I’ll be envious of the winner of this one, for sure! Many thanks to Dave at 2 Guys for providing today’s special present! Don’t forget to tune in to The Cigar Authority show Saturdays from Noon to Two at TheCigarAuthority.com! Maybe Dave and Mr. Jonathan will mention the contest on the show?

Rules

Until Tomorrow,

CigarCraig

123 Comments

Filed under Contest

Tagged as 12 days, 2 Guys, Atabey, cigar, cigars, Recluse

by CigarCraig | October 7, 2013 · 12:53 am

2 Guys Smoke Shop and The Cigar Authority

Editor’s Note: I warned you last time that today’s post might be late! I was writing this on my tablet on the road, and somehow, I inadvertently posted the first paragraph last night. Sorry for the false start! It’s not quite as easy posting from the tablet. So here’s the real deal, better late than never.

This weekend my wife and I got in the car and drove north to New Hampshire for a weekend getaway. One of the destinations on our list was the 2 Guys Smoke Shop in Nashua. I’ve been hearing about this chain of shops for years through various channels, it was about time I paid a visit. Dave Garofalo just celebrated his 28th year in business. As well as running the three stores in New Hampshire, he has a mail order business and sits on the boards of the IPCPR, the TAA, and the CANH (Cigar Association of New Hampshire). The store in Nashua is impressive. They have 1100 open boxes in display cases surrounding the shop, a huge walk-in humidor filled with boxes, and a Diamond Crown Lounge. The pricing is excellent considering there is no cigar tax in New Hampshire, and they do my home state of Pennsylvania one better by not having sales tax. I bought a handful of cigars and settled in with a Bandolero Traviesos robusto and chatted with Dave. The Bandolero is an exceptional smoke. It was sweet, smooth and had a curious little twang in the background. This cigar is made by Nelson Alfonso, the guy behind a lot of Habanos S.A.’s packaging like the ceramic jars and such. The packaging for these is equally as cool. These are offered in tin “jars” each of which has a picture and the story (in Spanish) of the Bandolero, who was someone who kind of black marketed tobacco in the days when Spain had a monopoly on cigar production. The tins even have a humidifying element in the lid. It’s a terrific cigar with great presentation.

One of the things Dave does in his free time is a two hour radio show every Saturday called The Cigar Authority. I’ve been listening to the podcasted version of the show for a couple years and have corresponded with Dave several times about things that have come up. I was excited when Dave invited me on the show, clearly it was a slow week for them. The first cigar we smoked was a Psyko 7 from Ventura Cigars, which was very nice. It was medium bodied and had a nice sweetness. It was quite enjoyable. I’m not going to go into what was discussed, you can listen yourself at TheCigarAuthority.com or find it on iTunes. I ended up sitting in on the rest of the show. In the second half we smoked one of Dave’s own brands, La Gianna Havana, in honor of his daughter’s birthday. He gave me a Maduro which was a really nice, tasty mild cigar. While I was sorry to put the Psyko 7 down, this was a suitable replacement. It was a great time, an I was honored to ba able to participate. My one regret was that I wasn’t able to follow the chat-room or Facebook and failed to give a shout out to my old friends Mike Perry and Mark Williams (and maybe Dan Poe). Sorry guys! Jenn was trying to type it in a large enough font on her tablet for me to see but the show was over by then. Next time, I promise. I also had the pleasure of meeting a Facebook friend, Charlie Pitarys, who has a cigar lounge in Tennessee. He was there celebrating his birthday. Many thanks to Dave and Mr. Jonathan for their generosity! They made us feel like family and that we belonged there.

I’m not sure when I’ll visit New Hampshire again, but you better believe I’ll be visiting one of the three 2 Guys shops while I’m there. In a funny coincidence, we ran into Johnny Brooke, the PR guy for Drew Estate, who just moved to the Boston area from Miami. He was there with Derek Stewart from the reddit.com/r/cigars forum. I had no idea John had moved north and it was a bit of a “what the f*** are you doing here” moment for both of us! Small world. Jenn and I said our goodbyes and headed to Maine for a lobstah dinnah, and passed the 2 Guys Seabrook store on the way. Today we headed to Burlington, Vermont, then home to PA. We had a whirlwind weekend, covering eight states! Lots of fun and lots of great friends and cigars.