Tag Archives: Boveda

by CigarCraig | May 6, 2018 · 9:59 am

A RoMEo San Andrés, Macanudo Inspirado Red and Cigar Podcasts

A bunch of cigars I smoked this week have already been covered here, so I’ll concentrate on ones that haven’t been. Notable among them were a Camacho Ecuador, a Guardian of the Farm and a Flor de Gonzalez that were all really tasty. Now that I think about it, maybe I didn’t write about the Guardian of the Farm the first time around, I suppose I’ll have to get my hands on more and feature it, it was a really tasty cigar that was refined, complex and had some subtleties. A cigar that was a bit of a polar opposite of that was the new RoMEo San Andrés Toro, which is another collaboration between Altadis and AJ Fernandez. I’ve long struggled to find cigars in Altadis’ range that I like to smoke, with a few exceptions, the cigars they’ve made with AJ Fernandez have fallen into the “like to smoke” category. There have been plenty that I’ve wanted to like, some that I tolerate, but the cigars that have really excited me were those made by AJ (H. Upmann, Montecristo, Gispert and now the RoMEo SA). I do like the Placencia made RoMEo 505 quite a bit, so there are exceptions. The RoMEo San Andrés comes in four sizes, Robusto at 5″ x 50, Toro at 6″x 54, Pirámides at 6-1/8″ x 52 and the Short Magnum at 5½ x 60. Of course the wrapper is Mexican, the binder is Nicaraguan and the fillers are Nicaraguan and Dominican. I’ve been pretty much leaning toward Toros lately, so that’s the size I smoked. I really liked this cigar a lot. It’s got the bold, earthy Mexican tobacco flavors I like, that take me back to when I started on Te-Amo Maduros, and while my tastes have expanded over the years, I still like that “dirty” profile. Next to the H. Upmann by AJ, this might be my favorite Altadis cigar now. Worth a try if you like San Andrés tobacco. Odd side note: one year ago today I smoked an H. Upmann by AJ, and three years ago today I smoked a RoMEo by Romeo y Julieta.

Yesterday I intentionally avoided being cliché and smoking something with Mexican tobacco. The new CAO Zócalo would have been an obvious choice, and I really like that cigar. I decided to take a different journey. As previously reported, I am a big fan of the new Macanudo Inspirado Red, made in Nicaragua at the Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s factory in Esteli (I’ve been past it twice, never visited!). I really liked the Robusto, so I figured I’d try out the Toro and Gigante too. Interestingly, the Robusto is the only box pressed cigar in the line, the Toro and Gigante are round. I have no clue why that is. I smoked the 6″ x 60 Gigante yesterday. This is the blurb from the website about the blend:

This bold, full-bodied offering represents the marriage of rich volcanic soil and profound aging techniques to achieve unmatched strength and refinement. Dressed in Ecuadoran Habano ligero and blended with rare tobaccos including twelve-year aged Nicaraguan Ometepe, ten-year aged Honduran Jamastran and five-year-aged Nicaraguan Esteli, Macanudo Inspirado Red is bound with hearty Nicaraguan Jalapa. Enticing notes of pepper and spice reign, transcending the experience of Central American tobaccos to the point of sublime.

For starters, make sure you set aside a couple of hours to smoke the Gigante, while it’s only 6″ x 60, it burned so slow. I was almost a mile into my walk and hadn’t gotten to the one inch mark, and I think the total smoking time approached two and a half hours. It was ridiculous, making it a very good value, because these aren’t expensive cigars. It was a very enjoyable smoke, it had the richness and great flavors of the Robusto in a little less focused way. I wouldn’t use the term “washed out”, but the cooler burn of the larger ring gauge certainly smoothed out the flavors. I thoroughly enjoyed the smoke and look forward to the Toro. The Inspriado Red is a great cigar to celebrate 50 years of Macanudo.

I’ve been listening to a few new-to-me podcasts lately. I’ve really enjoyed the Boveda Box Pressed and Cigar Snob Magazine‘s podcasts, very informative. A few months ago when I was in New Hampshire for The Cigar Authority‘s 400th show, I met Dave who launched the Cigar Hacks Podcast, in the last few months. The Cigar Hacks features a revolving panel and they do a blind tasting and run down events in the New Hampshire and Massachusetts areas. There is much spontaneous discussion and it can be quite hilarious. I’ve been invited on the show, and I need to make that happen, as there are some areas I can help them out with (like pronouncing words like Aganorsa). It was through this show that I was introduced to The Retrohale Podcast. This show is done by a couple of guys in Colorado, and what I like about it is their tagline: “We don’t review cigars, we smoke cigars and talk about them.” , which pretty much aligns with my own MO here at CigarCraig.com. This one is more entertainment than informative, but it’s akin to hanging out in a cigar shop and talking. There are a lot of cigar podcasts out there, I have my rotation, but try new ones out all the time.

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

CigarCraig

1 Comment

Filed under Editorial, Review

Tagged as Boveda, cigar, Cigar Hacks, Cigar Snob, cigars, Insprirado, macanudo, podcasts, Red, Retrohale, Romeo, San Andrés

by CigarCraig | January 22, 2017 · 12:28 pm

Cigars and Music: The NAMM Show in California and Boveda

I just got back from a few days in Anaheim, California where I didn’t get around to visiting any cigar shops, but I did run into the guys from Boveda. I attended the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show at the convention center in Anaheim, CA, just a stones throw from Disneyland. Why did a cigar blogger go to a music convention, you ask? Well, my wife has a Beatles related blog (https://beatles-freak.com/) and asked for media passes and I went to the show with her. After several IPCPRs of dragging her around, it was time to put the shoe on the other foot. Obviously, this show was much larger than the IPCPR show, it was on four floors of the enormous convention center, as well as spilling into two of the adjacent hotels. Where the IPCPR is a show for the vendors to write orders, this is more of an expo of new and current products. All it took was an e-mail requesting press passes and we were in, no application process or annual dues. IPCPR could learn a thing or two about how to treat the media! At every turn there was someone playing an instrument, tapping on a cymbal, and impromptu drum battles broke out. Not a place to be if you’re sensitive to sound! There were also artists playing on various stages all over the place, as well as in vendors booths. We had the good fortune of watching Lawrence Juber, lead guitarist for Wings from ’78-’81) play an amazing set. We ran into Rick Neilson of Cheap Trick on the show floor too, no telling how many other famous musicians we might have seen as many were incognito. I searched far and wide for cigar box guitars but didn’t find any, I saw parts to make them, but no finished product. No doubt they were there someplace.

Here’s just a couple of cool things that caught my eye at the NAMM show:

I managed to smoke a few cigars while there too, mostly walking back to the hotel after dinner, which is my usual routine anyway. I stuck with smaller cigars, Wednesday smoking a Macanudo Inspirado Petit Piramide that I bought on my Iceland trip. This was said to be the best-selling cigar in the only cigar shop in Reykjavik, and it was reasonably priced by Iceland standards at around $8. It was a tasty little cigar, about half way in it changed flavors to an unusual flavor that I couldn’t put my finger on. I bought two, so I’ll give the other one a try another time and see if it smokes the same. I’m also looking forward to comparing it to the domestically released Inspirado Orange.

I had a couple other cigars too, but the weather was rainy (sheesh, we went to southern California to get away from the weather here, and it was cold and wet there!) There was a cigar shop about two miles from the hotel that would have been an easy walk if we hadn’t been walking around all day. I had also hoped to get a chance to sit down and have a cigar with Jerry Goldenson, VP at KHS America, the parent company of Sonor and Mapex drums, Hohner harmonicas, etc. Jerry was the man behind Nick Perdomo’s new drum kit that was at the IPCPR show last year, and Rocky Patel’s conga bar stools in his Burn lounge, and a unique humidor/Cajon (box drum). Jerry is a huge cigar lover. There are rumors floating around that Nick Perdomo is interested in another drum set, this one an enormous kit with four bass drums! It was a rumor on the NAMM show floor, I can’t comment further than that!

Take a look at this short video of how Boveda‘s humidification technology isn’t just for cigars!

Contest!

Wednesday I posted a contest for a Stage V Clinger cigar holder. There were only 22 entries, would it have been more if there were cigars included? I guess it’s better odds, but I was a little disappointed with the turn out! I plugged 22 into the random number generator and got 4 for the winner. It looks like KRUK was the winner! Bryan, please send your address so I can pass it on to the folks at Stage V, so when the thaw comes to New England you’ll be ready for the links! Thanks to Marissa and the folks at Stage V!

That’s it for now, time to get back in the swing of things after a vacation and get ready to start another work week! My back porch has been missing my cigar smoke too! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

6 Comments

Filed under Review, Video

Tagged as Boveda, cigar, cigars, Contest, macanudo, NAMM, Stage V Clinger

by CigarCraig | July 1, 2015 · 9:00 pm

NewAir CC-100 Thermoelectric Cigar Humidor

A few weeks ago the folks at NewAir contacted me about test driving one of their new humidors. I told them I didn’t need another humidor, and my wife would likely kill me if I brought another one into the house. Their website has pictures of a nicely stocked unit sitting on a kitchen counter, that has about as much of a chance of happening in my house as me running my dishwasher safe AshStay cigar ashtray through the dishwasher! As much as I didn’t need another humidor in the house, this one looked like something my readers would be interested in. It’s available from retailers we all know, it seems like a good value, and the “wine fridge” humidors seem to be all the rage these days. So I took on the burden of introducing yet another humidor to the house, at great peril.

Here are the deets on the NewAir CC-100:

Key Features

Comes with Hygrometer & Moisture Container
Real Spanish Cedar Wood Shelves & Drawer
Stores up to 250 of your favorite cigars
The interior temperature can be adjusted in increments of 1° between 54°F & 74°F.
To properly maintain RH, you need to include a method of adding humidity. For your convenience, a moisture container is included.

Let’s take a quick look at this list first, bullet point by bullet point.

The Hygrometer is analog and is inset into the Spanish cedar drawer which is in the top of the unit. It seems to be quite accurate, agreeing with several digital units I put in as a control. The “Moisture Container” is a plastic tray, and I’m not sure why they include this. I suppose one could put polymer beads in it as a humidity source. If a novice to cigar storage were to just fill this with water and leave it in there it would mold very quickly.

The shelves and drawer are nice and fit well. I tried re-arranging the placement but they seem best suited to be left alone, the drawer in the top position and the shelves underneath. Good quality, perhaps not enough wood to truly buffer the humidity swings of frequent opening and closing, but an acceptable start. Storing boxes on the shelves gives it plenty of wood to buffer humidity.

It’s well known that humidor capacity is based upon the number of petite coronas (typically Montecristo no.4) cigars that can be crammed into the box. this will easily hold 250 petite coronas, although probably not in boxes. I have about 75 cigars in there now with room to spare. Since this is a retrofitted wine fridge, it’s deeper than it is wide, so it’s possible that smaller boxes could be stored two deep.

The temperature adjustment is where this differs from a traditional humidor. I set mine at 70, and it seems to be right on. This will be handy in the summer months, and after I have had this for a while and feel comfortable with the stability I am storing some of my best cigars in there, as well as keeping my “on deck” review samples in the drawer.

Finally, adding a humidifier. I happened to have a Cigar Oasis Excel siting idle, and decided to give that a try. It’s just about the right size and really doesn’t take up much space on the bottom of the unit. The ribbon cable has to come out the front door (on the side), once I decide that’s going to be the humidifier of choice, I’ll stick the wire to the side and hide it real good. This unit is so tightly sealed that I figure Boveda packs or polymer beads of some sort, could work just fine. I actually haven’t heard the Cigar Oasis running much, which is a good sign. Please don’t just fill the included container from point number one with water and let it go, you will end up with a large petri dish.

One of the challenges I still have is finding a place to put this. Right now it’s sitting on the floor next to my cabinet. It plugs in, as does the Cigar Oasis, so it needs to be near an outlet. I would love to find a shelf unit to put it, as well as the other desktop humidors, on, as long as it receives spousal support, creating a sort of “tower of humidors” next to the tower humidor. As if it’s not bad enough (or great, depending on perspective) that the focal point of the living room/dining room is already a humidor. This is where the depth works against the unit, but it’s very close to the same depth as the cabinet (a few inches deeper). I really need to get it off the floor. If I didn’t have so many cigars, this would be a perfect humidor to have as my only unit, it holds humidity well, maintains temperature well and looks nice. I am so confident in it that I put some of my higher end cigars in it. It gets the CigarCraig seal of approval, I think it’s a very good value.