Tag Archives: All Saints

by Craig Vanderslice | January 2, 2022 · 10:01 am

New Year Cigars: EP Carillo, Rare Pink and an All Saints Saint Francis

Happy New Year to everyone! As CigarCraig.com enters it’s 13th year I hope to continue to bring you the same level of rambling nonsense you’ve come to expect from me! If all goes to plan, I will be attending the Tobacco Plus Expo in Las Vegas in a few weeks, so that should bring some exciting content (I hope), and maybe some insight into what’s coming up down the road. I can’t say I’m excited to be getting on a plane, but it’s a necessary evil, I suppose. Anyway, 2022, huh? Crazy. 2021 went by in the blink of an eye it seems, not a great year for a lot of people, pretty good for some. As is my custom, I try to smoke some good cigars through the New Years “holiday”, so I dug out some special ones. New Years Eve I came across a cigar that had been gifted to me a while ago by a friend in Florida who I hope is doing OK. This was a E.P. Carrillo 10 Year Anniversary Limited Edition Perfecto. These are 6½” x 56 perfectos that came out in 2019 in a box with 10 each of the La Historia blend and the Encore blend, of which this was the latter. I believe the Encore blend is a Nicaraguan puro, made in the DR. It’s an excellent cigar, somehow it avoids being a heavy Nicaraguan cigar, sure it’s a bit earthy and peppery, but there’s a light citrus that’s sophisticated and delicious. This was a good choice for the last cigar of 2021. Make no mistake, I was asleep by 10.

New Years Day I decided to get the year started off with the Arturo Fuente Rare Pink Signature that I bought when we went down to South Carolina a few months ago. Technically the name for this is line is the Rare Pink Vintage 1960s Series, and uses the same molds as the Hemingway line, with a couple exceptions. It’s my understanding that some proceeds benefit a breast cancer charity, never a bad thing. I’ve always liked the Hemingway Signature size, it’s practically a Corona Gorda in a perfecto shape, 6″ x 46. Let’s face it, once the nipple burns off it’s 5 5/8″, a traditional corona gorda. This certainly didn’t taste like a Hemingway, lacking the Cameroon wrapper (or broadleaf, they are a treat!). It has a rosado wrapper from Ecuador, and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers from the best I can tell. I thought it had an interesting sweet spice that set it apart from other cigars. The burn meandered a bit in the first half, but evened out in the second and was perfect until the end. I’d smoke another without hesitation, but I wouldn’t chase them down or pay more than MSRP for them, but that’s me.

I’ve mentioned before that I toss around the idea of making a top whatever list of favorite cigars of the year. I decided that my ego doesn’t require the stroking of those who make the list, although I guess that’s a little cynical on my part and perhaps my readers would like to know what cigars I found worthy over the last year. I probably don’t have to summarize for my regular readers, but some notables over the last year were the Stolen Throne Three Kingdoms, Undercrown 10, La Sirena Mexican Mermaid, Casa Cuevas Patrimonio, Partagas Decadas 2021 and this cigar that I smoked last night, the All Saints Saint Francis. I smoked the Churchill, which I like a lot, it seems the Toro was The Cigar Authority/Two Guys Cigar of the Year, which is a pretty cool thing for Mickey Pegg and his partners. The Saint Francis is a stellar cigar, it’s rich, decadent, delicious. It’s desert. If I were making that list, it would have been tough to decide if the Saint Francis or Three Kingdoms were on top, hey are both cigars that if I have them in my humidor, I’m smoking them. I can’t wait to try the Saint Francis Colorado, although the bar is set pretty high.

One housekeeping note. I have changed the email subscription service I’ve been using for updates from Feedburner to Mailchimp because Feedburner is no longer supported, has become unreliable and may just go away at any minute. Today will be the first test to see if/how it works. I’m hoping for the best. There’s a new subscribe button on the left sidebar of the site if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications when the site is updated if you don’t already. I never share the e-mail addresses, I’ve been asked, the answer is always no. EDIT: I’ve deleted Mailchimp as the email that went out didn’t have any content and it didn’t look like it was going to suit my purposes. I’ve decided to try a WordPress plugin that looks like it should work, we’ll see the next time I post! PLease bear with me while I work this out. That’s all for today, happy 2022! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

2 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as All, All Saints, Arturo Fuente, cigar, cigars, E.P. Carrillo, Encore, Rare Pink, Saint Francis

by Craig Vanderslice | August 15, 2021 · 10:33 am

A Padron Damaso at Diner en Blanc and a Couple of New All Saints Cigars

Thursday evening my wife and I attended the Philadelphia Diner En Blanc, which is a large, organized pop-up picnic of sorts. This is something that happens in cities all over the world where everyone has to wear white, bring their own tables and chairs and a picnic dinner, and meet at pre-arranged spots in the city where they guide the groups to a “secret” location. It’s usually a historic landmark, in years passed it was Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row, City Hall, and the Art Museum steps (think “Rocky”). We’ve been doing it for the last several years and it’s a hoot, and, of course, I work cigars into it and I try to make appropriate choices. This year I packed my travel humidor with the Macanudo Inspirado White Robustos that I had gotten for the event two years ago (of course, last years was canceled), and left said travel humidor at home. What a dunce. Of course, I didn’t realize this problem until we had finished eating. Fortunately, the secret location was Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia, and I realized in time to walk 2 blocks to Holts. Of course, the only cigar they had with “white” in the name of the cigar was the Montecristo White, which is one of the few cigars I actually dislike, and just about every cigar with a white band is a Connecticut shade. So I went with some Padrón Dámaso No. 8s since I had not smoked the Dámaso yet amazingly enough. There have been venues in the past where smoking was a problem and this one was not one of those venues, and the folks around us were very cool, so I was able to enjoy that Dámaso comfortably seated at our table. It was quite warm, high eighties at night, so we weren’t wandering in the crowd (3000 people, limited by the pandemic, it’s been upward of 6000 in the past), or dancing or anything, and I really enjoyed the cigar. It was very rich in flavor, the cocoa one expects from a Padrón, with the creamy, nuttiness of the shade wrapper. It was perfect for the occasion! I’ve actually grown quite apathetic where Holts retail store is concerned, but them being there saved the day for me!

I received a message a few days ago from Mickey Pegg of All Saints Cigars that he left a couple cigars for me at the new Son’s Cigar Lounge in Exton, which is up the road from me. Funny thing is, Mickey would have pretty much driven past my house going home from Son’s, but he doesn’t know that, and I appreciate it because it gave me an excuse to stop in to see Vince and Brian now that the place is actually open. They still need to stock the front with accessories, and the humidor is maybe 15% filled, but they still have a great selection as it is. Mickey left me his newest cigars, which I promptly smoked. Actually, the Saint Francis looked so good I bought a few assuming I’d dig it, more on that later. I ran home and fired up the newest size of the All Saints Dedicación, the Mitre. This is a 5″ x 54 torpedo in the round, which I note because I believe the rest of the vitolas are box pressed. It has a San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers and is made at TAVICUSA. I cut this to leave about a 13mm opening, which worked well. 13mm is a guess, I didn’t measure. This is a nice smoke, medium bodied, with a little more punch than the other sizes, save maybe the Berkey. More earthy than sweet, I enjoyed it. I like the fact that it’s named after the Pope’s hat.

The other cigar Mickey left for me was the newest line in the All Saints portfolio, the Saint Francis. This is the one I picked up a few in the Toro size on speculation, Mickey left me a Churchill which I eagerly smoked last night. This has dark, oily Ecuador oscuro wrapper around Nicaraguan binder and fillers, it’s a beauty. The Churchill is 7″ x 48 and box pressed, making it feel closer to a traditional 47 ring Churchill. This is the best cigar I’ve smoked all week. My instinct was correct in buying some of these, it remains to be seen if I should have gotten Churchills, but I know where I can get them! This cigar had the quintessential flavors I love: the dark, rich coffee, cocoa, dark fruit flavors. Construction was perfect, it was, overall, an ideal smoking experience. This is my new favorite All Saints cigar, and it’s a sure thing one of those Toros will go up in smoke later today. This is on the CigarCraig recommended list, smoke with confidence. I liked it.

Contest

Last week I had a contest for the Wooden Indian Exclusive Cafe Cubano LCA cigar and Coffee. I’ve consulted the random number generator and paul1954 is the winner! Please send your address! I’ll get your package out and see what else might fall in the box out of my humidor while I’m packing it up! That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

3 Comments

Filed under Events, Review

Tagged as All Saints, cigar, cigars, Dedicación, Diner en Blanc, Mitre, padron, Saint Francis

by Craig Vanderslice | November 15, 2020 · 10:04 am

All Saints Dedicación Cigars

Thursday evening I went to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA where they were having a cigar event revolving around the Masters. There was chipping and putting involved in a tournament with brackets and everything. The winner received a bottle of booze and a box of cigars. This was all sponsored by All Saints Cigars, and Mickey Pegg was there for the event. The cost of the event was $25 which included two cigars and food, but I decided instead to buy a bunch more cigars and pass on the food., I showed up two hours late anyway and had no intention of participating in the event really anyway, apart from smoking the featured cigars and meeting Mickey finally. It’s been months that we’ve been trying to connect. Of course, the several months that I was unemployed and had tons of time on my hands would have been ideal, but but there is this pandemic going on limiting contact and stores being open and all. Now that I am gainfully employed, my time is limited, and we still have the limitations of the pandemic. Fortunately, Cigar Mojo has a large outdoor area, and a large enough lounge and is responsible about occupancy and masks and cleanliness. I felt like it was a good opportunity to venture out. I bought a selection of All Saints Dedicación cigars, along with a couple other new cigars and went and met Mickey.

I smoked the 6” x 60 “Huge” while there. The Dedicación has a San Andrés wrapper, which does not appear to be fermented to a Maduro to me, and Nicaraguan binder and filler. I also bought some of the 6 1/2 x 52 Commandant and Mickey hooked me up with a 5 1/2 x 50 Berkey. the later of the two being box pressed. I’m not going to break each one down individually, the Huge was smoked at an event while I was talking and distracted, but it was a really nice smoke. I smoked the Commandant on Friday. It smoked well and had flavors similar to the Huge, which were earthy for the most part. I found the Berkey to be the best of the three. It had a spice and sweetness that the other two didn’t seem to have. I also felt like the larger two burned faster than I would like, I think the smoking time on the smaller Berkey was darned near the same as the larger two. If I recall, Mickey said that the 6” x 60 would be the outlier flavor wise, I suppose I’ll give them all some humidor time and revisit them at a future date. I certainly won’t hesitate to buy more of this brand though, either front mark, the Dedicación of Solamente, both are excellent. Both are made at Rocky Patel’s Nicaraguan factory, but they are blended by Mickey Pegg. I wrote about his backstory in my Solamente post on September 30.

Reader’s Poll!

Instead of me selecting a cigar of the year this year, I thought I’d do something different. Let’s have a CigarCraig’s 2020 Reader’s Poll! E-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the year. I’ll compile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. It’ll be fun!

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

CigarCraig

1 Comment

Filed under Events, Review, Stores

Tagged as All Saints, cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigars, Dedicación, Readers Poll

by Craig Vanderslice | September 30, 2020 · 9:45 pm

All Saints Solamente Cigar

Most people probably don’t remember when Mickey Pegg was the VP of sales for CAO cigars before General Cigars acquired the company, but he’s back now with the brand All Saints Cigars. He also lives near me, although we still haven’t met, ,which I’m sure will amuse Kevin at Cigarprop. It’s s bit of a running joke between Kevin and I, because I’ve had had the great fortune to have met so many people in my cigar journey. He thinks I know everyone, but there are plenty of people I don’t know, and many more don’t know me 😁. Anyway, meeting up with Mickey is on my list, we’ve discussed it, between the pandemic and schedules, we haven’t managed to make it work out. I did come across some All Saints Solamente cigars in a recent cigar shop visit and figured I needed to smoke some.

The Solamente is a 5″ x 58 cigar with and Ecuador Habano wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers. I believe that they work with TAVACUSA in Esteli, Rocky Patel’s factory. It’s a very nice looking cigar, and an interesting size. I don’t have a problem with the size, I kind of like it actually. The burn and draw on this cigar were perfect and I’ve had a few disappointing experiences recently, so this was extremely welcome. I’m not one who is a big fan of cedary cigars, but this cigar was cedary really tasty. One would think this cigar was presented in a cedar sleeve, it was so cedary, yet, I really enjoyed the flavor. There was a sweetness that balanced it out, I think, which is what I liked about it. I’m glad I bought two, and I’ll smoke more for sure. I look forward to exploring the San Andrés Mexican Maduro wrapped Dedicación.