Tag Archives: chateau real

by | October 17, 2010 · 6:25 pm

This Week’s Cigars: A Long Walk and a Liga Privada Guest Review – Sunday October 17, 2010

Cigars were few and far between this week.  A combination of struggling to get rid of this damn cold and other general business made having a cigar a lower priority.  I did manage to get a couple in, but stuck with some familiar cigars as I didn’t feel up to smoking anything new or special.

Mid-week I grabbed a Chateau Real Maduro Small Club for my walk.  I just love these cigars and will be sad when they are gone.  They have a nice strength of flavor, but aren’t particularly strong nicotine-wise.  Great little smokes.

Today was the day of the Aids Walk Los Angeles in which my wife participated.  Of course, we are in Pennsylvania, but I joined her on a 10 Kilometer walk here in town in solidarity with Team Price is Right, where she was second to Drew Carey in funds raised!  A big thanks to those who contributed in her name!  Anyway, I took a Hamiltons House Selection Torpedo for half the walk, which had some good moments, but I’m finding that these burn quite fast.  For the second half of he walk I went with a National Brand maduro robusto which lasted until we got home.  I still think these are one of the better $2.00 cigars around, once you get past the sweet cap.  Burn draw and flavor always satisfies me.

Guest Review

I received an e-mail from Jose, who was last months contest winner.  One of the prizes he won was a Liga Privada T52 Belicoso, which was one of a couple that were given to me at the IPCPR show by Steve Saka.  He smoked it as well as a No.9 and I’d like to share his comparison:

OK; the LP9 has about 6 months in my humidor; the T52 was gifted by Craig (from cigarcraig.com) and rested for 2 weeks before lighting up.

Similarities: Great construction for both cigars; oily wrappers, except because I botched lighting up the T52 they would had the same burn lines (sharp). Similar strength and complexity (but different flavors).

Differences: LP 9 started with espresso, roasted nuts flavors (kind of a “dark” impression) and went spicy after first third without losing the “dark” overtone; eventually went creamy but adding nutty and leather, cedar glimpses and it was GREAT! Paired with Jack Daniels Single Barrel and matched really good.

T52 started floral and spicy; more complex than LP9 at the beginning; burn line was a problem and maybe related to a little more oil on the wrapper. I have to mention that I had preferred the T52 over the 9 in other sizes (Robusto and Toro) but I have enjoyed immensely the Flying Pig (looking forward to the T52 version!!). After the initial ash fell off (after 1.5 inches, same for both cigars) the flavor changed slightly and started ‘darkening” (I called that when the flavor goes to coffee, espresso and roasted nuts) and sneaking up the strength. It also went creamy but with the floral taste still around, some cedary impression (slightly); did not pair well with the JD Single Barrel, changed to Macallan Scotch (Elegance) and it matched much better (because the bourbon was sweeter I think). Anyway it was better than average but I liked the 9 better.

Interestingly for me (and maybe because of the shape) I prefer the Toro size in the T52 over the LP9 but loved the Belicoso in LP9 against the T52. Personal preferences I believe.

Thank you again for the cigar and the accessories; as you mentioned I could not use the cutter on these but I have been using it with regular vitolas.

best regards,

J.A. Solis

As always, I enjoy sending out cigars to people, and am absolutely thrilled to receive feedback such as this!  Thanks for sharing that review!

By the way, I received the following information from Thompson Cigar Co. via E-mail.  Most of us, I’m sure, have our opinions of Thompson’s, but I share this with my readers as a community service:

1. Sweepstakes: This month we launched a Sweepstakes. This month, we are giving away a 20 pack of Padron Serie 1926 40th Anniversary Cigars (retail value is $516). Your readers can enter once a day through October 31. We’ll have a new giveaway in the Sweepstakes for November.

Here is a link to the Sweepstakes page:

http://www.thompsoncigar.com/content/content.jsp?pageName=Sweepstakes1

And here is a link to the Padron Serie 1926 Cigars, in case you wanted to check them out some more:

http://www.thompsoncigar.com/product/PADRON-SERIE-1926-40TH-ANNIVERSARY-NATURAL-TORPEDO/73913.uts

2. Coupons for ThompsonCigar.com: We also just launched a new site, http://www.thompsoncigarcoupons.com/ where your readers can get some pretty sweet deals for ThompsonCigar.com purchases.  Right now we have free shipping on your entire order and some other pretty good deals ($10 off a order of $50, $20 off an order of $100).

Here is the URL of the coupon site:

http://www.thompsoncigarcoupons.com/

In an unrelated note, I attended a book release party at Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, PA Saturday for Jude Southerland Kessler’s new book “Shivering Inside“, which is the second book in a series of nine.  Jude’s books are novels about the life of John Lennon and are painstakingly researched to be as accurate as possible.  I was there the help out as my wife is Jude’s publicist and  organized the event.  One of the people who helped Jude a lot in writing the book was Richard Langham, who was one of the engineers at EMI Abbey Road who worked on the Beatles “Please Please Me” album.  Richard is an amazingly nice gentleman who had some wonderful stories.  It was a pleasure to spend the evening with Jude, her husband Rande, Richard, and a host of other wonderful people.

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

Share

1 Comment

Filed under Guest Review, News, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | September 17, 2010 · 6:37 pm

The Week’s Cigars: Camacho, Murcialago, CAO – Friday, September 17, 2010

Sunday evening my family went to our local park to see the final installment of the Concerts in the Park series which featured Liverpool Beat, a Philadelphia area Beatles tribute band. I took along a Camacho Connecticut 11/18 to smoke during the show. Both the band and the cigar were excellent. The 11/18 is a perfecto shape of sorts, looks like a toro with a bulging middle (not unlike myself), at 6″ x 48/54/48 ring gauge. The Connecticut wrapper, which was flawless, tempers the strength of the blend a bit, but it’s still a formidable cigar strength-wise. I like the Camacho line quite a bit, but the lines that lean more toward medium are my favorites, the Havana line, Connecticut and, yes, the Corojo Candela are cigars that suit my palate the best. The band played a rousing set of early Beatles hits in costume and in character and were very entertaining. You can see my wife’s review of the band on her site Beatles-Freak.com.

On Thursday I noticed a tweet from Eddie Ortega (@eddieor) of EO Brands that he was traveling to the Philly area and visiting a local shop. My son and I took the 20 minute drive to Old Havana Cigars in West Chester to say hello. Eddie greeted us like an old friend. I picked up a handful of Murcialago robustos and lit one up (it was the traditional “buy 3, get one” deal, I got 3 robustos and got a free 601  Robusto). I lit up the Murcialago and hung out with Eddie for a while. Old Havana Cigars is a nice shop with a spacious lounge in the back. The walk-in humidor is also quite large and seemed well stocked. I have only stopped into this shop once before and found their prices on the high side, but I’m a cheap bastard and am easily sticker-shocked. The Murcialagos were in the $6 range and the 601s were around $7, which isn’t bad, all things considered. The cigar was very nice. It had a dark Mexican maduro wrapper that was very pretty. The burn was good and it had a nice, full flavor. I gave my son one and he enjoyed it as well. Here’s some cigar math for you: I purchased 3 cigars and got one free. I smoked one and gave one to my son, I walked out with two cigars. My son purchased 3 cigars, got one free, AND Eddie hooked him up with another cigar. He walked out with 5 cigars. Something went horribly wrong for me! Generally the rules of Bad cellphone pic! Forgot the camera again!cigar math are that when you go to a herf or an event, no matter how many cigars you smoke or gift, you always seem to come home with more than you took (which, in fairness, I did). I just have to assume that every once in a while there has to be some karmic correction or something. What comes around, goes around. In all seriousness, I take great pleasure in gifting a cigar, and to know that my son enjoyed the cigar and doesn’t mind hanging out with his old dad for an evening is worth much more to me than the cost of a fine cigar.  I took a little tangent there… It was a very nice evening hanging out with Eddie, who is a great guy and quite a character, as well as the folks at the shop. We spent quite a while chatting with one of the locals, a lawyer we’ll call “Alex”. Chatting with “Alex” reinforced my opinion that cigars can bring folks together that perhaps normally wouldn’t have the chance to interact with one another. We came across so many little things we had in common in a brief chat that it was pretty incredible. All in all it was a nice way to spend a rainy Thursday evening.

This Just In!

In the “new inmates in the humidor” department, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy a box of Chateau Real Small Club Coronas on JR Cigars Dutch Auction this week.  As I’m sure you know, I really enjoy this line and I fear that it is going away.  I’ll get some confirmation on that, but I picked up the box of 32 for under $50 delivered, which I thought was a dynamite deal for a cigar I like.  Heck, I’ve paid more than that for cigars I don’t like!  I also threw in a couple of cheap Klip-it key ring punch cutters to make me feel better about the $8.95 shipping charge.  Believe it or not, in 15 years of smoking cigars I’ve never owned a punch.  I figured for a whopping $1.25 I’d get a couple and see how they work.  s I’m writing this I’m enjoying a  CAO Black Bengal that I punched.  I have not particularly enjoyed this cigar in the past, but this one is very nice.  I doubt very much that the punch has anything to do with that, perhaps a couple more months in the humidor has helped, or maybe something else.  This is a nice, medium smoke that I’ve been enjoying on my deck as I type.  The burn has been dead even and except for a little flakiness in the ash, it’s exceeded my expectations.  The punch will find a home on my key ring for sure.

That’s about all I have this time, until the next time,

CigarCraig

Share

2 Comments

Filed under Events, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by | September 5, 2010 · 4:58 pm

Drew Estate Contest Winner Announced! – Sunday, September 5, 2010

I struggled with finding a creative and entertaining way to select a winner in this month’s contest.  The cats haven’t been cooperating, the dartboard thing was downright embarrassing, and my attempt at making a wheel of fortune fell through. I assigned a number to each entrant based upon the order the comments were received, 1 through 24.  I was all ready to use a pair of 12 sided dice and live with the possible outcome of having 2 winners (it’s VERY difficult for 1 to come up with 2 dice, so I would have given out two prizes if I had rolled snake-eyes), but I figured that the odds were weighted poorly for the poor guy who was number 24.  I decided to wuss out and let the “True Number Generator” at Random.org do the dirty work for me.   So here’s a video of the official selection:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ-h8-2irZ0

We were having a heck of a time getting the camera to focus, but you can see that there was at least some feline involvement as my frequent smoking buddy Frank stopped by.  I’ll need an address from the winner e-mailed to craig@cigarcraig.com at his earliest convenience so I can get the Drew Estate hat, Liga Privada cutter and T52 Belicoso in the mail.  The music in the video is “You Get Me So Excited” by Jim Babjak’s “Music from Jim Babjak’s Buzzed Meg, Vol. 1”.  I want to thank Jim for allowing me to use his music.  Many thanks again to Drew Estate for the great cigars and goodies they sent me so that I can give away cool stuff without having to go deeper into debt :-).

Cigars

As far as cigar content, I’ve stuck to the old familiars so far this weekend, first being a Friday night Chateau Real Maduro Gran Cru Perfecto which will be sorely missed in my humidor when they are gone.  Real nice cigars as far as I’m concerned.  Saturday was beautiful but windy and, not wanting the wind to spoil a cigar I’d want to pay attention to, I grabbed a National Brand Maduro robusto.  These are such solid performers in flavor and burn that I forgive the sweetened cap.  For $2.25 they get the job done.  Finally, as I type this, I am thoroughly enjoying a  Hoyo de Tradition Toro.  This has made the process of putting the video together which usually makes me swear a lot, quite a bit easier and less profanity laden.

You’ll notice a new thermometer on the right.  My wife Jennifer has joined Team Price is Right as a “virtual walker” in the 26th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles.  She has mapped out a 10k route locally so she can do her part (Maybe I’ll  walk with her, I need to figure out what cigar will last me 10 kilometers).  If you have the inclination, please consider making a donation to a cause that really doesn’t get that much attention anymore.

That’s it for now, just waiting for an address so I can send off the prize.  Thanks to everyone for your comments, even though, as one person pointed out, I get a lot more when there’s free stuff on the line, I still enjoy comments and e-mails so keep them coming.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

Share

6 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | September 3, 2010 · 6:20 pm

New Cigar: CAO Brazilia Corcovado – Friday September 3, 2010

The CAO Brazilia Corcovado was an IPCPR sample that was given to me by Paul Spence, whom I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting several times and is a real good guy.  I had my eye on a Brazila robusto in the humidor when I remembered having this one and figured it was one I really hadn’t seen any reviews or heard much buzz about.   This cigar is in a format that seems to be growing in popularity.  Sam Leccia’s NUb line came on the seen a few years ago in this short and fat format and I would guess it’s just about the most coppied vitola in recent memory.   The CAO Brazilia I had had a jet black wrapper and had a very prominent vein running the length of the cigar.  I will say right now that I should have left this one sit for a while longer in the humidor.  It seemed “not ready” to me, which is a shame for a IPCPR sample which is supposed to entice the smoker to buy these cigars.  I work near a company that manufactures molases, so I’ve occasionally smelled the pungeant aromas that is produced there. This had a raw molases flavor to it thatbrought to mind that factory.  It also left me a little queezy afterward, which is not a sensation I am looking for in a cigar.  No doubt a year or so of age would settle this cigar down in my opinion and I do regret smoking this one too soon.  In the same bag from CAO was a LX2 in a 60 ring gauge, but 6″ long which I will let mature for a year or so, as past experiece with the LX2 has told me that I like these more with some age.  I should have smoked the LA Traviata Maduro from the same bag, but it seems like it’s being reviewed to death and as much as I look forward to smoking that particular cigar I think I’ll wait a bit.   Unfortunately this particular sample didn’t really do it for me this time.  I would never trash a cigar based on one example though and I will try this one again if I have the chance.

Editorial

This cigar got me to thinking about why it is that everyone is putting out cigars with enormous ring gauges lately?  Is it possible that, since the SCHIP tax is the same for any size cigar, that fatter cigars are perceived as a better value?  Could it be that smoking bans cause people to have less time to enjoy a cigar and a short, fat cigar gives the impression that they smoke quicker?  I am really baffled by this as I had thought that (or hoped may be a better word) that we had moved past the “bigger is better” thing.  I’ve actually gotten to the point where a 50 ring gauge cigar looks pretty slim!  I personally enjoy a smaller ring gauge cigar, although I smoke darned few of them it seems.  Anyone who has any theories they’d like to share on the subject is welcome to leave them in the comments.

Contest Update!

I know I had promised a contest winner announcement, but I’ve been slacking off!  Hopefully by Sunday I will have concocted a clever and entertaining (yet totally fair and impartial) method of selecting the winner.  There have been 21 entries so far, and the contest remains open until at least midnight Saturday, September 4.  You can leave a comment to enter to win a hat, cutter and Liga Privada T52 Belicoso courtesy of Drew Estate here.

That’s about it for now (as I enjoy a Chateau Real maduro while writing this).  Until the next time,

CigarCraig

Share

Comments Off on New Cigar: CAO Brazilia Corcovado – Friday September 3, 2010

Filed under Contest, Editorial, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

by | August 25, 2010 · 7:55 pm

The Week’s Cigars So Far: CAO, Dirty Rat, Chateau Real…and a Contest! – Wednesday August 25, 2010

Got the week of to a good start with a really nice CAO VR Moby, a 6″ x 50 maduro toro.  I have enjoyed the three examples I’ve had which my wife bought for me for Valentines Day.  They were part of several 5 pack samplers she got from Cigars International.  I believe these are made for CI.  I think these are a nice, medium maduro that is very well made.  I’m not one for identifying specific flavors, but peppery is definitely a flavor descriptor that I’d use with this cigar.    I don’t know that I would drop a c-note on a box of 20, but I suppose they are worth $5 each compared with a lot of cigars out there.

I decided to wrap up the weekend with a treat and grabbed a Liga Privada Dirty Rat from the humidor.  This was one that Steve Saka had given me a few months back.  I have to say that this is just about cigar perfection.  The corona size is very appealing to me, and it’s just a really pretty cigar.  The dark and oily wrapper, the funny pigtail, it’s just so appealing.  Then you light it, and it burns razor straight with a nice flat coal and draws perfectly.  Steve says they cost more to make than the double coronas, and considering this little corona had five different filler tobaccos packed into it’s stalk cut Connecticut wrapper, it’s no surprise at the cost.  The leaves have to be scissor cut to fit them in.  Lot’s of labor involved but what a fantastic smoking experience.  I’ve enjoyed all of the Liga Privadas I’ve had, and I don’t often spend upwards of $10 on a cigar.  Exceptional cigar that will be worth the occasional splurge when they hit the shelves sometime this September.

Monday I went for a Chateau Real Gran Templar in claro.  Another cigar I really like and is consistently good.  I decided on this particular cigar since I had just come off the excellent experience of the Dirty Rat, and wanted something quite different, but without any surprises.  This cigar shared the excellent construction with its cousin the Rat, and had a clean and smooth flavor.  The Connecticut shade wrapper was without flaw and quite pretty.  Another cigar that’s more expensive than I generally prefer, but worth it. I really think Drew Estate is making good cigars, but I have to say that while their website is nice and flashy, it’s kind of a pain if one wants to link directly to a specific cigar and sometimes takes a little while to load up.  It does have a lot of good information though, which is better than some sites.

On to the contest!

Since I smoked a couple Drew Estate cigars this week, let’s go ahead and give away a DE hat and a Liga Privada cutter.  As a special bonus I will sweeten the deal with a brand new Liga Privada T52 in the Belicoso size.  While I was visiting the IPCPR show and saying goodbye to Saka, he threw several of these at me, so I feel the need to pay it forward!  I have yet to send out a cutter prize without including something to use the cutter on anyway, but this time it’s something that may not be in the stores yet.  So there ya go, that’s the prize.  Since I’ve been having trouble with my feline assistants lately, I’ll work on figuring out a clever selection process.  So leave me a comment which will be your entry.  I always enjoy comments anyway, but for some reason it seems that I get more when I give stuff away…not sure why that is…so bring on the comments and win some awesome stuff courtesy of Drew Estate!

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

Share

25 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,