Monday evening was rainy. I actually thought there was a break in the showers long enough to take the dog for walk, but it turned out it was only long enough to get a cigar lit and get a little ways down the road before it started pouring again. I suppose if I had walked farther before it started pouring it would have been worse, as it was I ran the dog home and sat in the garage while I enjoyed my last Villiger Talanga Double Robusto. I have to say, I like the Talanga a lot. I like the Villiger Colorado more, but the Talanga is a tasty smoke. It’s smooth and full flavored, and just a delicious, well made smoke. I’ve said it before, I’ve always liked the little Swiss Villiger Export dry cured cigars for a quick smoke, but they have been making some darned good premium cigar offerings. I’m actually quite interested in trying the NicaRoma series, which is a mixed filler budget offering in Honduras Connecticut, Nicaraguan Habano and San Andreas Maduro wrappers. If it tastes good, I don’t really care if it’s 40% short filler…but the Premium offerings from Villiger are solid.
Tuesday night brought much nicer weather and a cigar that you heard about here first and I don’t think it’s had any exposure elsewhere in the blogosphere. The cigar in question is the BSB No.1 by Rocky Patel Crossbar. This is a new size following the initial release which was a little 4½ x54 box pressed cigar with an Ecuador Habano wrapper blended by Nish Patel. The Crossbar is a 5½”x56 robusto (Gran Robusto? Super Robusto? Short Toro?) that’s round, as opposed to the other new size in this line, the box pressed torpedo, the HOF ‘84 (Hall of Fame, and the year Bernie was inducted). I really wrestled with paying $11.00 for this cigar, but it was easier than paying $12 for the HOF 84, and only slightly more difficult that $8.50 for the original BSB No.1. I wanted to smoke this cigar and report on it, so I bit the bullet, and Tony at Old Havana Cigars was doing me a favor putting up a Ticked Off Music Fest poster 
for me so I was going to buy a cigar or two there anyway. When I took the foot band off I noticed a chip in the wrapper, which turned into a bit of a crack after I lit it. When I got to the main band (which is awesome with Bernie’s crest which pays homage to not only his NHL hall of fame membership, but his back to back Stanley Cups in the 70s) and took it off, I noticed another split in the wrapper. It drew well, and tasted good, so I let it go, but I wasn’t very happy about a cigar in this price range that’s anything but flawless in construction and appearance. It was a tasty smoke, and I’ll eventually spring for the HOF ‘84 at some point, but it’s hard for me to forgive the wrapper problems on this example. I do miss hanging out with a cigar and Bernie after the Flyers games.
Adorini Humidor Progress
It’s been a few days since I filled it with cigars. I’m sure most of my readers know that a full humidor works a heck of alot better than an empty one. For starters, you have the space filled with 40 or 50 little humidifiers, so the only real reason you should need to add distilled water to the humidifier element (in this case an acryl polymer, which, from what I can tell, is similar to the polymer beads. Does anyone remember clay or soapstone humidifiers?) is to replace moisture lost through the constant opening of the humidor to admire your cigars. We all do this, don’t try to deny it. So far, since I filled this humidor up, the hygrometer has been reading a bit over 70%, so I’m going to let it breathe a little because I’d rather see it around 65% relative humidity. I closed the vents on the humidifying element, which is a handy feature, we’ll see how it works. I remain impressed. I love my The Griffins humidor, but I think this one may be functionally superior for about a quarter of the retail price.
Not much more to report, until the next time,
CigarCraig
