Tag Archives: Brulee

by | May 12, 2024 · 10:13 am

Blackbird, Sobremesa, Cohiba and Brickhouse Cigars

First off, I’m really looking forward to going to the Smokonos event at Best Cigar Prices in Drums, PA next Saturday.  There’s going to be a lot of the A-list cigar celebrities there, and a bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a long time. Unfortunately it’s sold out, but I hope to see some of you there!  It’s a shame that it’s the same day as the Atlantic City Cigar Social, we had a nice time at that event last year.  If you happen to be attending that event, say hello to my friend Dan at Bucksco Barrels! Wednesday evening we went to Parings Cigar Bar in Media, PA to visit with Jonas Santana of Blackbird Cigars, and his area broker Mark Weissenburger. We didn’t stay around for it, but he was hosting a tasting session with puritos and rum. I picked up some of my favorite Blackbird cigars, the Crow, and some of the new Superb in toro.  I smoked a Supurb there, and had one Thursday night at home.  This is a 6″ x 52 toro, where most of their toros are 54 ring gauge. It has a Habano wrapper and undisclosed binder and fillers. Jonas is very tight lipped about the blend, claiming he forgets, which I don’t buy for a minute.  I speculated that it had Dominican Olor, and got nothing…I find it has a dryness that I associate with that tobacco. It also has some sweet spice, and was a very nice cigar. I generally don’t smoke the same cigar twice in a row unless it’s really good. It’s always nice to see Jonas and Mark, and the staff at Pairings is top notch. It’s one of the few cigar bars around the area, so if having a drink with your cigar is something you enjoy, check this place out if you’re in the Philadelphia area.

 

Friday evening came around and I decided it was the right time to smoke the Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust Sobremesa Brûlée Wagashi that was a generous Secret Santa gift from a fellow Craig.  This is from the original CigarDojo release, not the new regular production.  If I have to smoke a shade wrapped cigar, there are a short list of ones I’m attracted to, and the Brulee blend is one of them. I’ve had the Brulee and Brulee Blue, and I’d heard this was milder.  Maybe so, but it was packed with sweet, nutty tobacco flavor right off the start.  This is a box pressed, 6″ x 50 with a bun type pigtail cap.  I think I liked this better than the previous two iterations of Brulee, and I like them a lot. Highly recommended. 

 

I noticed that my friends at CigarMojo’s The Grove location (the one close to me) decided to use one of my pictures in an Instagram reel. I don’t mind, but a photo credit would be nice.  Remember people, when you use someone’s intellectual property, it’s the right thing to do to give them credit.  I left a snarky comment, but I might have to stop in and have a talk with them!  Anyway, yesterday afternoon I watched some TV on the porch with a Cohiba Riviera Lancero, which, admittedly, had just arrived the day before. I let it rest overnight, it seemed fine, and I gave it the old Humidimeter test, but the prongs on the meter are ever so slightly narrower than the cigar, so it was really only reading from between the binder and wrapper.  This is a box pressed 7″ x 38 with a San Andrés wrapper, Honduran grown Connecticut shade binder, and fillers from Honduras and Nicaragua, made at STG’s factory in Esteli. The box press makes it seems slimmer than 38 ring gauge.  I really liked the Robusto size in this line, so I felt compelled to smoke this lancero.  I really liked it.  It has dark chocolate and espresso, and since I figured out that dark chocolate gives me migraines, I seek it out in cigars.  The Lancero is actually the most affordable in the Riviera line at $15, the rest of them are in the $20 range, which means I won’t be smoking them. $15 I can handle and it’s a very nice smoke. It surprises me that it took this long for General to make a Cohiba in the Lancero size, considering how iconic the Cuban Cohiba Lancero. is. 

 

I wanted to include a fourth cigar today, and I was hunting around the humidors for something I hadn’t written about yet, and it occured to me that I hadn’t talked about the Brickhouse Crystal Churchill from J.C.Newman.  I’ve had a box in the humidor for a year or so and have smoked half a dozen.  This is the 7¼” x 50 Habano wrapped Brickhouse in a glass tube.  They come ten per box and run just under $10 each. I quite enjoy the Brickhouse line, they are Nicaraguan cigars that aren’t terribly expensive, but provide a good smoking experience. It’s on the leathery side, but I like it anyway!  The tube doesn’t do much for me, although it’s a nice presentation, I worry about carrying glass around in my pocket, so would prefer aluminum tubes for portability.  I like Churchills,  and this is a good one (although it’s a couple rings oversized!). 

 

That’s all for now, happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate.  Don’t forget the Smokin Tabacco Raffle for The CFCF! Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | June 19, 2022 · 9:10 am

Red Meat Lovers Battleship New Jersey Meat and Cigars Event

Happy Father’s Day to everyone! Later today I will smoke an Esperanza Para Los Niños torpedo, a cigar which was my traditional Father’s Day cigar for the better part of 20 years, until I smoked the last cigar out of the box I bought in June of 2000. An old friend sent me the better part of a box earlier this year so I could continue the tradition, after taking last year off.  For those unfamiliar, this cigar was made by Christian Eiroa with the help of some members of the alt.smokers.cigars Usenet group back in 1999 and sold to benefit children orphaned by hurricane Mitch. It’s a maduro cigar, and the last one’s I smoked had held up well over the 20 years, we’ll see how they’ve continued to mature later today!  Thanks Roger Farnsworth!  

 

Thursday evening we had the great fortune of attending the Red Meat Lover’s Club “meating” on the Battleship New Jersey, which is docked right across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, NJ. I’ve seen it, but never been aboard, one day I would love to go back and take the tour.  It’s a big ship, and we dined on the fantail. The event was a benefit for the ship, and it’s my hope that a substantial sum was raised, I know that we contributed through the silent auction (my wife purchased a Beatles piece). We arrived early and hung out with Steve Saka (my wife now refers to him as “SquishySquatch”), who was also early, so that was nice. The food was amazing and abundant. Guys were walking around sucking on tomahawk bones, we had cheese steaks, smashburgers, delicious ribeye, and “macaroni and cheese” from an outfit from my wife’s ancestral home of Abruzzo, Italy.  I was trying to steer (😉) clear of carbs and stick to proteins at this event, but the pasta was outrageously good. I also got sucked into some rolls, as the cheesesteak and smashburgers seemed to be a bad idea without them. I consumed a satisfying amount, and they had cookies too!  I skipped the pig, and there was something salad-like I saw (that’s what food eats!) Evan Darnell, the secretary of steak, the head cheese, the ringleader of this whole thing, put on an amazing event. We even got to hang out with some old and new friends! Kevin and Jessica from CigarProp were there, and I finally got to meat and hang out with Lee McClain, LeeMack912 on Youtube.  Lee was one of those guys who, even though you’ve never met, you feel like you know, and you’re instant friends, great dude. We also met some other great folks there, and saw other old friends, it was a good time. I highly recommend attending a Red Meat Lovers Club event if one comes to your area.  Since Saka was the cigar sponsor, of course the cigars were outstanding, everyone got a bag with a Sobremesa Brulee, a Mi Querida and a Sin Compromiso, all top notch smokes. Casa de Montecristo was there selling Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust cigars as well. Let me tell you, there’s not many things better than a Sin Compromiso after a smorgasbord of meat!  Thanks Evan!

 

 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | November 29, 2020 · 10:06 am

Sobremesa Brulee Blue, Platinum Nova, HVC Black Friday and Triqui Traca Cigars

We had a really low key Thanksgiving. We didn’t have a big meal, just the immediate family hanging out around the house. We actually ordered sandwiches from Wawa for dinner! It was much more relaxing than the stress of preparing a big meal and cleaning it all up in all honesty! I, like many days, treated myself to some great cigars. I realized that I haven’t written anything about the Sobremesa Brulee Blue yet, so I figured it was about time. This is a 6 ¼” x 46 lonsdale cigar with a pigtail cap. I used a cutter because I’ve evolved to use tools, I’m not an animal. Also, even though Saka sent me this cigar, it’s a $15 cigar and I’m not risking screwing it up by manhandling it. Of course, I’ve smoked a few Brulee’s, including the STFU! set, and I don’t believe this had a sweet cap. It certainly has a natural sweetness to the tobacco, and a creaminess to the smoke that’s really nice. There’s plenty of body and some spice to the smoke too, making it a really interesting and entertaining cigar to smoke. The bands a re really pretty too.

 

I guess I had the blue in the Sobremesa bands in my head when I went to select my after dinner cigar. Full disclosure, while the rest of the family had “Gobblers”, I had an Italian hoagie, as I am not a fan of the turkey sandwich with the thanksgiving meal fixings on it. It’s my holiday, I’ll celebrate it the way I want! So I went to the humidor and selected Limited Edition Platinum Nova Torpedo. This was a cigar that Ari and Leo of Nova Cigars gave me at the TPE show last January, and I’ve probably mentioned it here before. It’s a 5 ½” x 55 torpedo that retails around $30, so it’s no cheap date. It’s got Dominican Binder and Fillers with a Habano 2000 wrapper. Remember when the Habano 2000 wrapper came on the scene and it didn’t burn? Now it’s on $30 cigars! This cigar has a really delicate, floral flavor profile. If you like that sort of thing, this is a cigar for you. It’s an entertaining change of pace for me. Of course, it burned perfectly, I’d have been disappointed for it hadn’t. this company makes some really good cigars. You don’t hear about them a lot, I hear about them on the Smokin Tabacco podcast/show, a show which Matt Tabacco (his real name) and Jon Carney which is entertaining. It’s a good thing that Ari and Leo started Platinum Nova when they did, because they worked for Nat Sherman, and would have been looking for jobs now anyway.

 

Friday I smoked the HVC Black Friday Firecracker. I thought I might have missed out on this, but when I went to 2 Guys website on the Tuesday after they came out, I was still able to get some. From the hype, I thought they would sell out. I got lucky, I guess. So I added some to my stash of various Firecrackers, and smoked one Friday before my granddaughters came over for the afternoon. This is a 3½” x 50 little smoke with a long “fuse” and a closed foot. Initially the spicy “hotness” covers any flavor to me. It was overwhelmingly strong off the bat. The Corona Gorda was strong, but this little bastard was really strong. It eventually settled down, but by the time it settled down, it started ramping back up because it was getting near the end. It’s pretty much pepper and strong, black coffee flavors, which is OK. If you aren’t prepared for the strength, it might me troublesome, and it’s a darned good thing it’s only 3½” long.

 

When I ordered the Firecrackers, I added on a few of the new sizes of the Mi Querida Triqui Tracas that recently came out that weren’t included in Saka’s media pack 😁. Here’s a couple of ethical disclosures: I buy a lot of cigars, and I get samples of cigars from vendors. If there is a problem with a cigar I get from a vendor, I don’t trash it, I talk to the vendor. I try to smoke cigars that I like. There has been an instance recently where I was given an item to review, I found it to be sub-par, I gave the vendor a draft of the review, told them I didn’t want to post the review and offered to return the item to them, which they agreed to do, even though two other items I’ve been given and reviewed in the past have been excellent. I can’t damage someone’s business with my opinions. I don’t have a problem endorsing something I can stand behind, but I’m not going out of my way to tear something down. Anyway, not quite sure why I went on that tangent, but I took Macha out to Valley Forge Park yesterday for a walk and took the huge Triqui Traca 764 along. This is a big cigar, as the name suggests, it’s 7” x 64, clever guy, that Saka. I suppose it’s better than calling it Donkey D*ck, but not quite as good as Gran Buffalo (which is what he called the same size in the Mi Querida). I lit this up and used it to maintain social distance, with both the smoke and physical size of the cigar. We walked for a while, then turned back, drove home, then I spent another few hours on the porch finishing the cigar. There are monuments at Valley Forge smaller than this cigar. It’s larger than some of the canons. They built cabins for the soldiers out of logs smaller than this cigar. It was a lot of good cigar, and I look forward to smoking the 652, because I felt like the 764 was maybe less flavorful, or maybe just a lot of work getting to the flavor. I bought more than one, so perhaps next summer I’ll work on another one.

 

Keep those Reader’s Choice Cigar of the year entries coming! Please 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. That’s more than enough for today, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | September 6, 2020 · 11:12 am

Saka’s Taste For U’rself !!! Sobremesa Brulee Cigar Sampler Recap

For those who haven’t been following this particular cigar industry soap opera, let me set the scene for you. First, as the card included in this five cigar sampler explains, these are five Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust Sobremesa Brulee toros. Soon after they came out there were allegations that they were sweet capped, much like a Baccarat, or many of the Acid cigars. This was flatly denied, and explained away as a natural sweetness in the Connecticut shade wrapper. I smoked an early version of the Brulee and never got the saccharine sweetness that I associate with a sweetened cap. If you go back to my very last podcast episode, Steve talks about the Brulee, I think it’s pretty interesting. So Steve was bored during the COVID pandemic, he decided to have some fun and put together this Brulee sampler and mess everyone with the whole sweet vs. not debate. I’ll post my findings below, but I have a few things to get off my chest first. I was questioned as to whether Steve was making me smoke these cigars, and I said that Steve doesn’t make me do anything, but I need to back off of that statement. After thinking about it, Saka is a master manipulator. A few examples: Steve and I have known one another for a long time, and Steve will tell people, unsolicited, that I am a cheap bastard (I have this on good authority). It’s true, of course, I admit it. That being said, when Steve releases a new cigar, I go out and buy a few. I know that if I see Steve, he’ll hand me a few, and if I were to asked him, he’d send me some, but I never ask for anything as a general policy. So he puts out $15-$20 cigars and, like a sucker, I go and buy a few because I want to smoke them, and partly because I don’t want Steve to think I’m a cheap bastard. Another way he manipulated me, in this case, is that when I buy a handful of cigars, I generally smoke a couple and set the rest aside for a while. Under normal circumstances, if I buy a fiver of cigars, especially dropping the coin I did on this fiver (I bought local, but with taxes and shipping it hit my wallet harder than my cheap ass prefers), I’d stretch out the purchase over the better part of a year, I bet. So, with a deadline posted, and an admittedly self imposed deadline for writing a blog post, I smoked the five cigars in four days. I rarely smoke the same cigar twice in a row, let alone five in a row. Can you see how I feel manipulated? It is a genius sales move, although I doubt the margins are great on Saka’s end (I’m sure Steve would whine about what a pain in the ass, money losing venture it was, but he’d be an idiot if this were the case, of course it has to have profit built in or he wouldn’t do it! Then again, there’s the three foot Sakaquatch statues, so maybe he does just do stupid shit  😆  ).  All that being said, spoiler alert, here’s my analysis of the five cigars:

 

All five cigars were the excellent Sobremesa Brulee 6″ x 52 Toro with an Ecuador Connecticut Shade Wrapper over a San Andrés binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This is, literally, meant to be your grandfather’s Connecticut shade cigar, a throwback to shade cigars from the ’80s and early ’90s. It’s got some body, it’s milder, but not mild, it’s great with a cup of coffee, like I’m enjoying the !!! right now as I write this. My process was to fellate (hat tip to Jon Carney for bringing this term into the cigar lexicon!) the head of each cigar to determine the presence of the sweetener used on the cap. Honestly, I could have cheated and put the cigars away after this, but that would have been gross, and I couldn’t have lived with myself. For the seven or eight readers who got this far, I soldiered on and smoked five great cigars back to back. I took that hit for you, faithful readers. Needless to say, I smoked them in order, I’m not an animal. The S – no sweet cap. The T – Sweet cap. The F – a slight hint of sweet, if this one is sweetened, then the T is the double sweet. The U and !!!, no sweet cap. So to me, three were straight up Brulee, maybe even four. I can only definitely say the T was sweetened, and I kinda liked it, to be honest, it was a nice change of pace, to the point where I was a little disappointed that none of the others ended up being sweetend.

 

One thing I did confirm is that there’s a reason I don’t smoke the same cigars back to back like this. No matter how great the cigar is, I really need the variety, and I’m looking forward to smoking something completely different later today, although it was a little bit liberating not having to make a choice. I look forward to Steve’s reveal to see how far off I was on my analysis.

 

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

 

CigarCraig (word count 887 😀)

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by | June 24, 2019 · 6:25 pm

News: Dunbarton Tobacco And Trust Debuts Sobremesa Brûlée at IPCPR

I’ve smoked the Brulee, the Brulee is spectacular. It’s a must try when these become available, whether you like Connecticut shade cigars or not. Saka put his spin on the classic mild(er) cigar and it’s a good one.  Check out what he has to say about it:  

 

Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust® will be debuting the Sobremesa Brûlée® blend of fine handmade cigars at this year’s 87th Annual Convention of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 28th through July 2nd, 2019.

“Sobremesa Brûlée is a recreation of the milder, shade wrapped ligas of my early years. Somewhere over the last three decades many of the classic shade cigars have become wispy, uninspiring and rather dull to my palate. I wanted to share with others the way I remember these blonde cigars being,” states Master Blender Steve Saka. “Also as ligador and tobacco man, I do not understand the recent trend of making strong Connecticut Shade cigars aka “not your grandfather’s cigar”. To me this seems like an oxymoron and a fundamental lack of appreciation of the enchanting characteristics and nuances of shade grown Connecticut Seed tobaccos. In Brûlée, I embraced this shade capa and dedicated myself to showcasing its mild, sweet and nutty nature.”

He continues to add, “The Brûlée is a variation of the core Sobremesa® liga in which the Pennsylvania Seedleaf ligero has been removed, the Condega Seco has been increased and the wrapper is replaced with a top shelf grade of BW Ecuador Connecticut Shade leaf. The result is a milder, even smoother adaptation of the Sobremesa blend that does not sacrifice its wonderfully complex flavors or aromas. This is not a cigar to be smoked casually, but rather a relaxing smoking experience meant to be savored slowly.”

Sobremesa Brûlée will be offered to Select Purveyors and it will be available in three vitolas: Brûlée Robusto – 5.25 x 52, Brûlée Toro – 6.00 x 52 and the Brûlée Gordo 6.25 x 60. Packed in 13 count dress boxes, the MSRP ranges from $12.45 to $13.95 per cigar. Initial availability will be very limited.
The anticipated ship date to those Select Purveyors who order at this year’s tradeshow is July 2019.

Sobremesa Brûlée
Crafted by Joya de Nicaragua, S.A.
Master Blender: Sr. Steve Saka
Esteli, Nicaragua

Sobremesa, “over the table”, has no precise English translation, perhaps because there is no cultural equivalent in the US. It is an idiom used among the Latin culture to describe the leisurely time spent tableside after you have finished dining, but before you rise. It is the experience of lingering casually with family and friends in conversation, relaxing, drinking, smoking, and enjoying each other’s company. Sobremesa is one of life’s simplest, yet greatest pleasures.

The Brûlée is a variation of the core Sobremesa liga in which the Pennsylvania Seedleaf ligero has been removed, the Condega Seco has been increased and the Capa is now a top shelf grade of Ecuador Connecticut Shade. The result is a milder, even smoother adaptation of the Sobremesa blend that continues to retain its wonderfully complex flavors and aromas.

Frontmarks:
Brûlée Robusto – 5.25 x 52, Brûlée Toro – 6.00 x 52, Brûlée Gordo –  6.25 x 60 all in a 13ct Semi-Dressed FBN Box.

Liga Details:
Capa:Ecuador Connecticut Shade G2BW

Capote: San Andreas Negro

Tripa: Nicaraguan
Forteleza: Mild-Medium

Flavor Profile:A creamy liga with softer flavors of cedar, caramel and café, which are complimented by its inherent sweetness being allowed to blossom on the palate and nose – a nuttiness is also apparent within this blend.

Puro Style:Milder, yet flavorful and satisfying. Good for both the inexperienced
and experienced palate.

Maker’s Notes:

  • My recreation of the mild shade ligas of my youth. Somewhere over the last three decades most Shade cigars have become wispy and uninspiring, dull and flat. I wanted to share with others the way I remember these blonde cigars to be.
  • As a blender, I do not understand the recent trend to make biting CT Shade cigars aka “not your grandfather’s shade cigar”. I view these as a novelty at best, in Brûlée I embraced the shade wrapper and worked to showcase its mild, sweet and nutty nature.
  • This cigar is a departure from the robust, full bodied blends I am best known for.
  • Not a cigar to be rushed through, it deserves relaxed focus to best be enjoyed.

 

About Steve Saka

Regarded as a cigar expert throughout the industry, he is credited as being an experienced cigar blender and maker, a prolific author regarding cigars and black tobaccos, a forefather within the online media segment and a dynamic tobacco industry executive. In 2000, he worked directly for Lew Rothman, the former owner of JR Cigar, as an executive consultant for four years and he subsequently served as the President, then CEO of Drew Estate from 2005 through 2013. In 2015, he established the family held Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust to craft and distribute traditional handmade puros. For more information, please visit: www.dunbartoncigars.com.
®Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust, Sobremesa Brûlée and Sobremesa are registered trademarks of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust and/or affiliated companies.

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