It’s the end of June already, we’ve reached the halfway point of 2024! One of my favorite things about summer is that I can write my Sunday blog post on the porch with a cigar. This morning it’s a Macanudo Gold Label 2023, which is a 4½” x 60. I think my friends at Best Cigar Prices would call this a Robolo, they used to have 
a whole series of them! Anyway, that’s not what I was planning to talk about today! Last week I smoked the new E.P. Carrillo Maduro from their new Essence Series, This week I smoked the Sumatra. Lately I’ve been surprised at how many times the Maduro has come in second to another wrapper when I’ve sampled cigars in the same line with different wrappers, so I was half expecting this to happen again. The Sumatra I smoked is the Toro, a 6″ x 52 with an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, binders from Nicaragua and Honduras, and fillers from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. This was a really interesting cigar! It had a heavy, almost cloying, flavors of dark dried fruit, to me. It was mouth coating, like black licorice can be, with a pretty long finish. Where the Maduro brought back memories of the old La Gloria Cubana maduros, this was something new and different. I enjoyed it, although not as much as the Maduro, and look forward to seeing what other wrapper combinations they come out with in the future. This line is priced in the $10 range, so it should be a hit!
I stopped by a local shop on the way home Friday and grabbed a couple of the new A.J. Fernandez Dias de Gloria Brazil in a corona size. They call it a corona, it’s 6½” x 44, more of a lonsdale, really, which is why I picked a couple up. I’m not overly fond of smaller cigars. This has a Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers. It’s a nice, dark cigar, which started off with a bit if tanginess. It progressed to a savoriness with some sweet notes. I liked it very much. The price tag made me recall a few years back when they released the Ramon Allones at around $14 and we all thought that was a pricey A.J. Fernandez cigar. This Corona was $14. How times have quickly changed. Geat smoke though! Worth the price.
I go back about nearly a dozen years with Antonio Lam of Reinado Cigars. I think we first met at Cigar Emporium in Lyndhurst, NJ back in April of 2013. He sent me his newest project, the Capablanca. This cigar, like the rest of his recent work, is a tribute to his father. My first thought, looking at the name as a non-spanish speaker, I was expecting a shade wrapped cigar. It’s not, it has a Cameroon wrapper, over undisclosed filler and binder, and it’s made at an also undisclosed factory in the Dominican Republic. Capablanca refers to the Cuban chess master José Raúl Capablanca, who was the world chess champion in the 1920s. Antonio’s father would replay Capablanca’s chess games with his brother, and taught Antonio to play chess, often replaying the Capablanca games. Because of Antonio’s father suffering from dementia, a portion of all sales of Reinado cigars goes to the Dementia Society of America. The cigar is listed at 5½” x 54, but if felt more like 6″, but that might have been the inch of wrapper hangin over the foot. It also had a pigtail cap. I’ll admit that. I pulled a bit of the loose wrapper off pre-light because I’ve burned to many shirts, pants, rugs with flying burning debris! This is a really nice smoke. It has some nuttiness along with a pit of creaminess. It was medium bodied and burned well. It wasn’t overwhelmingly Cameroony, but that flavor was still there. I smoked it to a small nub while enjoying a movie on the porch with me family. I highly recommend anything from Reinado, this included.
I heard someone talking about what cut they prefer, and it got me thinking that I really don’t have a preference. I have three cutters sitting next to me, a Colibri V cutter, a CigarMedics Baller, and my Screwpop MagPulse straight cutter and I use them all depending on my whim. I have an Adorini Double Cigar Punch that I use (mostly the large end) when I absolutely need a Punch (flat capped cigars). I really am not that picky about what I use, as long as the cigar draws and doesn’t come apart. I have a variety of straight cutters which work fine, if I’m out and about it’s usually with a Xikar, due to the pocketability. Whatever works. Anyway, that’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
