Tag Archives: Alec Bradley

by | November 3, 2012 · 8:46 am

My Visit To The New Cigars International Superstore In Hamburg, PA

Friday I took a vacation day so that I could visit the newest super store in the Cigars International empire in nearby Hamburg, PA.  My eldest son, Corey, and I drove up for the grand opening celebration. The first thing one sees when approaching the location is the Cabela’s store that sits on a hill, you can see this place for miles.  The Cabela’s is enormous.  In the shadow of Cabela’s is the newest Cigars International store.

Mike, who appeared to be the general manager, gave us a little tour of the place, along with Joe Winder, our local Perdomo rep.  He walked us through the cigar store area, pointed out the downstairs bar and lounge complete with a pool table, then took us upstairs to the second bar and lounge.  We walked around the outdoor deck and saw the view of the surrounding area.  Across the parking lot they have an amphitheatre.  He told us that they have a state of the art sound and entertainment system, if there’s a band playing in the amphitheater he can pipe it into any or all of the bars and lounges in the building.  They also have what they call the “Man O War room”, a private meeting room overlooking the store as well as a lounge dedicated to the armed forces.

Corey and I bought some cigars and sat down in a couple comfy leather chairs to enjoy a smoke and take in the surroundings.  The waitstaff is very attentive, they have waitresses moving throughout the store, inside and out, taking care of your beverage needs, and rumor has it that they have an agreement with the neighboring Red Robin restaurant where you can place an order and have it delivered in fifteen minute intervals.  Did I mention the size of the store?  You may or may not have visited the Cigars International Super Store in Bethlehem, PA, or JR‘s in New Jersey, or even Corona Cigars in Orlando.  If you haven’t, you’ve probably seen pictures or heard stories about the enormity of those stores (the JR’s in North Carolina don’t count, as the cigar stores are located inside big outlet stores with every consumer good imaginable).  This new location is easily twice the size of any of the aforementioned shops.  I’d venture to say that Corona in Orlando may have them beat in variety of cigars, they just have a ridiculous number of facings, and I can’t speak to the 2 Guys and Smoke Inn chains as I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting them.  It’s the biggest full service cigar store and lounge I’ve seen.  At 4 o’clock they had the official opening, and half of the place cleared out to get in a line outside that went clear out to the parking lot. Everyone received a gift bag with a Gurkha Beauty cigar, a $5 CI gift card, and a commemorative pint glass, which Corey and I got on the way out (prompting a return to the cashier to purchase some more cigars, clever bastards!

It was nice to hang out in a comfortable setting and have a cigar with my son for the afternoon, get a chance to hang out with Dave Lafferty of Drew Estate for a while and see Nick Perdomo again.  These pictures don’t do the place justice.

Antelope: is that Undercrown lion looking at me?

 

While there I smoked another Alec Bradley MAXX Brazil robusto that was delicious, and Corey had a Diesel Grind Robusto (I picked up a couple on his recommendation and smokedone on my evening walk, a very nice, smooth smoke!)

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

Share

7 Comments

Filed under News, Stores

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | October 24, 2012 · 8:46 pm

A Few Cigars International Exclusives: MAXX, Punch and Man O’ War

The next series of retailer driven reviews are brought to you by Cigars International. I was approached by Scott, a web guy at CI, and he sent along some of their exclusive products. Of course, my CDO (that’s OCD in the correct, alphabetical order) makes me worry too much about the order that I smoke the cigars, so it’s a constant battle. Should I smoke them alphabetically? Lightest to Darkest? Shortest to longest? I decided to smoke them in the order of my own personal interest level. I hadn’t previously smoked, nor in most cases even heard of most of the included cigars. So I started with the one which intrigued me the most.

 

The Alec Bradley MAXX Brazil was a beautiful, dark robusto. Whether I’ve ever stated it publicly or not I don’t know, but the robusto is my default size. 4”-5½” x 49-54, although a rather broad range, is the size range I find myself reaching for regularly. I rarely have the time to commit to a larger cigar, although I do like toros, and torpedos. I love the occasional corona or lancero too. I guess it would be safer to say my favorite size range is 4” to 7” x 38 to 60 ring. I’ve gotten silly and I digress. The MAXX Brazil was a fantastic smoke. It had that nice balance of flavor and strength. it’s not a heavy smoke, but very tasty and very satisfying. I loved the dark and rich cocoa flavors. This cigar suits my palate just about perfectly, and they are quite fairly priced, going for $3.00 to $5.00 each.

 

The next cigar I selected was a Punch Bareknuckle, this example being the Belicoso, weighing in at 5” x 50. Where the MAXX was smooth as butter, this Punch was a powerhouse. Despite the fact that the picture on the website shows a cigar with a smoking ¾” ash and an uncut cap, and I don’t care for footbands (another inconsistency in said photo) this is also an outstanding cigar. If you like the standard Punch line, this will appeal to you as well. It’s got a little more oomph, maybe a more concentrated flavor. Burn and draw were perfect and the belicoso shape was fun and interesting. Another winner.

 

Third up was the Man O’ War Side Projects Little Devil. This was a corona which fought with the previous two for my interest, but something in my head told me that this would be a tasty smoke, it being from A.J. Fernandez. I can’t think of a cigar from A.J. that I haven’t liked. I lit this cigar up and BAM!, there was a blast of loamy, musty, earthy tobacco goodness from the uncut foot. All that extra wrapper folded over the foot really shows how much flavor that Habano wrapper has.  This cigar also burned very well and was very nicely presented with the unfinished foot and the little pig-tail head.  These are still fairly priced at around $4.  Steve Saka once told me that coronas cost almost as much to make as larger cigars, but they have to be priced quite a bit lower because of the perception that a smaller cigar has to cost a lot less than a larger one. So the people who buy larger cigars actually subsidize those of us who buy smaller ones!  Anyway, this was a fun cigar to smoke.

 

I have two more cigars to smoke, I’ll cover those in Sunday’s installment.  Tomorrow evening I’m going to visit International Tobacco in the King Of Prussia mall.  This mall is one of the largest in the country, and it’s nice to have a shop in the mall where one can stop and smoke a cigar.  They are having a Camacho event and I certainly like Camacho cigars.  Probably an uninteresting fact, but the very first cigar I reviewed online was a Camacho Monarca back in 1996 when Steve Saka held a blind taste test on the alt.smokers.cigars news group, which eventually ended up on the now defunct CigarNexus website.  I loved the Camacho, but one of the other cigars in the test was a Havana Montecristo No.2 that I called a dogrocket because it was so terrible.  Anyway, thanks to Scott at CI for letting me try these cigars, they were all new to me and I think I found some gems.  Is this post a big CI commercial? Maybe, but the cigars are good and well priced, worth a look if you have the chance.

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

Share

7 Comments

Filed under Review, Stores

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | August 12, 2012 · 5:50 pm

An Almost Regular Sunday Cigar Post

Since coming back from the IPCPR show earlier in the week I’ve been working on getting some of the videos we shot during the show.  I actually haven’t been smoking a lot of cigars lately, and really didn’t smoke many while at the show!  I started getting a cold while there, and everything has tasted funny for the last week, so why bother!  I had made a decision that while I was on the show floor, I was going to abstain from smoking cigars for two reasons: first that it’s one more thing to have in my already full hands, and second, I hate walking into one persons booth with another person’s cigar, it just seems rude.

 

On the opening night I smoked an Emilio AF1 athe “Gala” dinner, followed by an Alec Bradley Prensado Robusto at their after party.  I had brought both of these cigars along with me, and they were both exceptional.  The one cigar I did smoke on Friday was a pre-release ORTSAC San Andrés robusto, which was amazing.  I’ll get more when I can because I really want to experience it without the distractions of the show. Friday night we went to the Joya de Nicaragua party which was in an enormous tent in the parking lot of one of the Corona Cigar stores.  These Corona stores are amazing places, by the way.  They are set up in a super market style, with everything out on display in rows.  I purchased a pair of the new CLE Corojo Preferidos for future enjoyment while there, and went on to enjoy a wonderful Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta Lancero at the party.  I know, I should have smoked the new Cuenca y Blanco which we were there to celebrate the release of, but when the lancero calls…

 

Saturday was our last day on the show floor.  At this point I just propped myself up with various over the counter cold remedies and soldiered on.  As you can see, and will see in the coming weeks, we shot a fair amount of videos over the course of the day.  After the show closed, we visited the Toraño hospitality tent for a smoke where we ran into our friends Mitch and George.  At the hospitality tent we had our choice of the new size they were debuting at the show, the LFC, which is a 4½x60.  Charlie talks about these in the video I did with him which I posted last week. I selected an Exodus 50 years, but they also had the Vault, the Loyal and the Master.

Mitch and George with an old car that had the steering on the wrong side

From there we went to see the downtown Corona store with Mitch and George.  We sat and ordered a pizza from across the street and from someplace a Gurkha Cellar Reserve Perfecto appeared which I smoked and enjoyed. I have Mitchell to thank for that, as well as the food and drinks, he really needs to take a couple bucks for this stuff one of these days!  George gifted me a very special cigar which I will report on when I can taste again, thank you very much! I would love to have smoked it then, but it would have been criminal in the state I was in.  The volume went up on the music at Corona, so we found where I parked the car and headed back to the other Corona location for the Miami Cigar/La Aurora party in the tent.  They had a live band there, it was very loud and smokey and a lot of the party had spilled out into the driveway, which had been closed off.  Everyone seemed to be there again, many of the manufacturers, retailers and bloggers.  It was very kind of Corona Cigar Co. to host all of these fine events.  I understand the Sunday night Drew Estate event was fantastic. We packed it in around midnight, it had been a long day and we had my 18 year old son and his friend to worry about.

 

We spent Sunday at the Magic Kingdom, riding the rides and having a nice day. Monday we made the long drive home, stopping for dinner at a Waffle House in NC, just because I didn’t think it would be right to drive down and back without eating there once!  We had a great trip.  Took too few pictures, smoked too few cigars, but had a great time seeing old friends.  I have to thank my publicist/ videographer/wife for putting up with me dragging her around the show floor and helping me out along the way.

Here’s a few random pictures:

Uncle Sam getting the most of the second hand smoke!

 

Kiss My Ash Radio going live from the show floor

Fake Cubans in a little grocery in Kissimmee near our hotel. I told the girl they were fake, she didn’t care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had asked for input into what you wanted to know from the manufactures, and I’m afraid I avoided the questions about the FDA.  I did this because I really want to remain positive about it, and I thought asking what plans they have should the FDA regulate cigars would result in being told that it would shut down all but the largest players.  In retrospect, maybe having a library of videos of people saying they’d be put out of business would make a point to the government, but I didn’t really want to bring down the excitement of the show and new products.

 

Stay tuned for plenty more videos over the coming weeks.  I’ll try to pair them with smoking the samples, if my taste buds ever return to normal!  I’ve  smoked a cigar or two since getting back, but have felt that it was a waste to have done so.  I didn’t even have a cigar in the pool today!

Anyway, until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

Share

7 Comments

Filed under Editorial, IPCPR

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

by | August 3, 2012 · 7:28 am

IPCPR 2012 Day 1 Quick Recap

Day 1

Thursday evening found the CigarCraig.com team (that being myself and my adviser/publicist/partner in life, Jenn) attended the Gala Opening reception at the Hilton.  We got something to eat and made our way through the room meeting up with old friends, some of whom I had not met face-to-face before.  Among those were Kip Fisher from The Cigarmy/CigarMedia.tv and the folks from The Cigar Federation/Ezra Zion.  It’s always a treat to meet people you only know through written correspondence, it’s surprising how you almost always feel like you’ve known them all along.  Saw too many old friends to mention and ended up going to a big party Alec Bradley Cigars was hosting with old friends Mitchel Orchant of C-Gars.Ltd, Frank Seltzer, MangoJoe Phillips among others.  The party was night-clubbish, with a DJ, an ice sculpture, and the works.  They had an open bar, and people were lined up to get in.  They even offered bus service to shuttle people back and forth from the  convention center hotel. A very nice event, hosted by a great group of folks. We ended up calling it a night as we had been out much longer than we had planned.  Friday is opening day, and I needed my beauty sleep!

 

Stay tuned for continuing coverage as internet access allows!

 

From the 2012 IPCPR show in Orlando,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

Share

2 Comments

Filed under IPCPR

Tagged as , , ,

by | June 24, 2012 · 8:39 am

Accessory/Website Review, Flor de Gonzales, San Lotano, KMA, Alec Bradley and Partagas

Last week I received an e-mail from CigarBargains.com about a Combo Cigar Cutter/Knife w/ Belt/Money Clip.  CigarBargains.com is a site run by CheapHumidors.com which allows one to negotiate with “Suzy” and work the price down.  I thought it would be a neat experiment and always kinda wanted a knife like this, knowing full well it would be crap for properly cutting a cigar (more on that later).  I buy stuff for a living, Buyer is actually my job title, so I know how this works.  I start out looking at the shipping and deciding how much I’m willing to pay. In this case, the farther under $10 the better.  Their starting offer for this item was $10.99, so my opening offer was $3.  “Suzy” replied with “I might have peed myself a little at your offer of $3.50. You need to be closer to $9.68.”.  This went on for a while, with various comments about needing a new purse, feeding the kids and such.  When all was said and done, I ended up getting this for $9.05 delivered, which met my requirements.  Shipping from Florida was reasonably quick as I received it on  Thursday after completing the transaction last Friday.  As anticipated, the knife does a reasonably good job of mangling a cigar, I had the strangest cut, but I have to admit it cut cleanly and I ended up having an excellent smoking experience.  I think it would work better using the blade to make a V cut, or, and I haven’t tried this yet, putting the cigar in the hole, putting the blade up to the cigar with a little pressure, and rotating the cigar, then pealing off the cap.  It was a worthwhile experiment, and there are some decent deals to be had with enough patience to follow through with the negotiating.

 

The cigar I cut with the new knife was a Flor de Gonzales 90 Miles Robusto, the last of a 5 pack I won well over 2 years ago.  I’ve enjoyed smoking these cigars, the construction was flawless and the flavors agreeable.  The poor cut, while offensive to my CDO (OCD in alphabetical order as it should be)  addled brain, was not a factor and didn’t take away from the experience.  It was a smooth, flavorful medium bodied smoke which I enjoyed to the fullest. The two years or so of age didn’t hurt this cigar either.

 

Friday evening calls for a little bit of a special cigar, so I selected a San Lotano Habano Lancero for my evening walk.  I had picked this up at a San Lotano event at Olde World Tobacco in Lancaster, PA several months ago.  This is a beautiful 7″ x 38 lancero, with a nice little pigtail cap.  I went back to my regular cutter for this one, no reason to risk mangling this cigar.  Burn was perfect.  I love it when a cigar burns with a nice flat ember, not pointy, all the tobaccos burning at exactly the same rate.  It’s a miracle that this can be accomplished and I always appreciate it it when I see it.  AJ Fernandez makes some terrific cigars, this was no different.  I love the lancero format.

 

Saturday morning I had the great pleasure of being the guest on Kiss My Ash Radio‘s Bloggers Corner segment.  I was nervous as hell, and there were some things I planned on mentioning but missed. Fortunately, Abe had done a piece on pairing root beers with cigars, which I’ve been doing for years.  I wanted to suggest Victory Brewery‘s root beer, as it is exceptional and made right here in my home town.  I even had notes and in my nervousness I didn’t look at them!  Oh well, I hope I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself, I appreciate being invited on the show.   Saturday afternoon I stopped by JM Cigars in Exton, PA to say hello to Jon Lipson, the Alec Bradley rep, who was having an event there.  I picked up a few American Classic Blends in Corona and Robusto and smoked a Corona while catching up with Jon and the folks at the shop.  For an absolutely stunning day I was surprised at the traffic in the store.  I guess I figure people have better things to do on a stunning Saturday, I know I did.  I enjoyed the American Classic Corona very much and went home to change the oil in the scooter and mow the lawn.

 

To finish up the day I fired up a Partagas 1845 Gigante that I received in a sample pack from General Cigar.  It’s a 6 x 60 that feels much bigger for some reason.  I took my son’s dog for a nice walk and enjoyed the heck out of this cigar. So far I think I liked the Robusto better, but this monster was very good, burned well and lasted for quite a while.  So far I’m impressed by this line, although I really can’t think of a Partagas cigar I really haven’t enjoyed, General Cigar Co. or otherwise.  Dirty little secret: Havana Partagas Presidente is one of my all time favorite cigars.  Give the Partagas 1845 a try, it’s a very tasty smoke.

 

I’m off today to Whippany, NJ to meet up with ACigarSmoker.com‘s Peter Glad at JR Cigars‘ store and lounge.  It’s always fun going to the store there and having a nice lunch and cigars, and I’m looking forward to meeting Peter.  Of course, stop on by if you’re in the area and say hello and join us for a smoke!

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

 

 

Share

3 Comments

Filed under Accessories, Review, Stores

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,