Tag Archives: Cigar Federation

by CigarCraig | November 9, 2014 · 9:32 am

An Arandoza, a CAO Flathead and a new Sindicato Cigar, and a CONTEST!

OK, lots going on today, so let’s get some cigars out of the way! My palate’s a little flat still, I blame the change in weather. It’s gotten cold all the sudden, and I tend to gravitate to heavier maduros this time of year anyway, and I’ve been slow in following my own advice. One reason is it’ll be boring writing about the same couple cigars twice a week, and it’ll be equally boring smoking the same couple cigars! I’ll adjust, it’s like that first day it drops in the 40s and you bundle up with gloves, and by January you’re in a t-shirt when it gets that warm. So I smoked some cigars, came across a neat cigar related item or two, and there’s a contest too!

Thursday I decided to dig in to the box of Arandoza White Label Robustos that I apparently won in the most recent Cigar Federation Project Mañana Raffle. I really like the cigars from Arandoza, which are made at Erik Espinosa’s La Zona Factory. This is a nice, refined Nicaraguan cigar with good balance and flavor. I really look forward to smoking more of these, there is just about nothing I don’t enjoy about this cigar, from the smoking to the presentation, it’s first class all the way. I suppose it’s possible one of these falls into the contest box when it mails out. Stranger things have happened. Thank you to Arandoza Cigars and Cigar Federation for supporting a worthy cause.

To give my palate a proper test, I decided my Friday evening smoke should be a favorite cigar that I’ve smoked a bunch of over the past year or so. I really like the CAO Flathead line, with the only possible gripe I have being that the only real neat and tidy way to cut these is with a punch, which actually works out nicely for today’s post. I used the first edition of the Screwpop Punch on the Flathead (if you don’t know, the head is flat, so it’s really hard to use anything but a punch on these). I smoked the 556 Camshaft size of the Flathead, with is basically a toro, but I can recommend any size (including the 770) to anyone who enjoys bold, heavy bodied maduro cigars. These are about the perfect autumn cigar for me. Another benefit is that they don’t roll off the table when you set them down! Good stuff from Ricky Rodriguez and his team at CAO.

Yesterday, after spending time at the new house clearing brush and ancient overgrown hedges for a fence to contain Macha (and keep the 16 year old Cocker Spaniel from wandering off), I came home to a cool package in the mail. This package contained the redesigned Screwpop 2.0 Cigar Punch. When I tried the original punch almost two years ago, I made some suggestions to Brett at the company on some ways I thought it could be improved. One suggestion was to reverse the design so that the punch came off of the clip/opener end so that it could remain clipped to something, and the other was to make it self clearing, as the original version tended to keep the cap cuts in the body of the unit. It seems my suggestions were taken to heart, and here we have the new version of the punch. Of course, I had to try it out. I received some samples of the new Sindicato maduro last week, and these looked really good. The samples were all of a larger size, so I went up the middle with the 6×60 Magnum size. This wasn’t the best test for the Screwpop 2.0 becuase the folks at Casa Fernandez, who make this cigar, use a bit of a pigtail cap. Not to be deterred, I gave it a punch. The 2.0 is a slightly larger bore than the 1.0, which is good, since it doesn’t render my old trusty punch obsolete. The cigar has my favorite San Andres Morrón wrapper, and has a nice, rich cocoa flavor. The 60 ring gauge was very comfortable given the box press, so it felt a bit smaller. It burned very well and I can’t wait to smoke the Churchill and Toro sizes. It smoked very well and was a fine way to wrap up a tiring, but productive day.

And now for something completely different

I received a note from one of my readers, Josh, in Salt Lake City, pointing me to his Etsy store. He’s been making some really cool lamps from cigar boxes. These have a really nice kind of steampunk feel to them and are very high end. Take a look at his site when you get a chance! https://www.etsy.com/shop/saltcitylampworks

Contest

Since Brett at Screwpop Tool, LLC was kind enough to send me more than one Cigar Punch 2.0, I figured it only made sense to have a contest and give one away! Strike that, I’ll give TWO away! Be aware, I can’t just send out a punch without including something to try it out on, so, invariably, some cigars will fall into the shipping boxes when they go out. I can’t help it, it just always seems to happen. So to recap, the Screwpop 2.0 Cigar Punch no only bores a nice hole in your cigar and cleans itself out, but you can also use it to take the cap off your favorite bottled beverage. It’s got a handy and fashionable gated clip so you can wear it with pride or clip it to your key ring. These are black anodized aluminum and look really sharp. Leave a comment to enter and I’ll select two winners at random on Wednesday. If you’ve won in the last six months you aren’t eligible, sorry.

That’s it for now, time to head over to the new house an clean up the mess we made yesterday! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

37 Comments

Filed under Contest, News, Review

Tagged as Arandoza, CAO, cigar, Cigar Federation, cigars, Contest, Flathead, Lamp, Project Mañana, punch, ScrewPop, Sindicato

by CigarCraig | August 21, 2013 · 6:11 pm

IPCPR 2013 – 1502 Cigars, the Black Gold and News

I have a weakness for the 1502 Black Gold, a beautiful Nicaraguan puro with a maduro wrapper. When I have these in my humidors it’s all I can do to not smoke them up right away. Something just hits me right about that cigar, and my only option is to smoke them. Both vitolas, box pressed Toro and Torpedo, have a partially closed foot, which gives a blast of tasty wrapper flavor right off the light. The Ruby and Emerald are great smokes too, but the Black Gold is my favorite! I smoked one the other night and enjoyed the heck out of it. Rich, dark, bold flavors in a full bodied cigar that doesn’t strike me as strong like the website would suggest, but well balanced and tasty.

Here’s a video from last month’s IPCPR show with Enrique Sanchez of Global Premium Cigars telling us about his 1502 line. It was tough to get time with Enrique, as the entire House of Emilio booth was mobbed the whole show. I actually somehow missed meeting him at last year’s Delaware Cigar Festival, an obvious oversight on my part. Enrique is a great guy, and quite passionate about his homeland.

News

Cigar Federation, the cigar-centric social media site, which you should all check out by the way, is partnering with Brian Berman (Cigar Rights of America) to hold a raffle to raise money for Brian’s Project Mañana. Project Mañana is a charity Brian set up to help the impoverished in The Dominican Republic. Cigar Federation hopes to raise as much money as possible for this organization, and is holding a raffle to this end. You will get a raffle ticket for every $10 you donate, and some of the prizes are pretty darned good. Head over to their page and see. Give them a few bucks, you’d just spend it on cigars anyway, right? Did you miss the link? Here is is again.

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

CigarCraig

3 Comments

Filed under IPCPR, News, Review, Video

Tagged as 1502, cigar, Cigar Federation, cigars, Emilio, IPCPR, Project Mañana

by CigarCraig | August 28, 2012 · 7:06 am

IPCPR 2012 – The Cigar Federation

This is the third and final video with the guys at The Cigar Federation/Ezra Zion Cigars. The Cigar Federation website is a social media site with forums, reviews and video content by the team of Kyle, Chris and The Don, and information valuable to cigar smokers. I’ve been trying to spend more time on the forums and I always announce updates to my site in the form of a blog post or status update. It’s a slick platform, very user friendly and intuitive. I’ll let Kyle tell you about it in this video from the trade show.

That’s the third and final installment of the videos from the guys at Cigar Federation and Ezra Zion Cigars. Have a look at the site, sign up and give it a spin. The videos they shoot are always fun, and there’s a lot of good info to be had. We really can’t have enough good communities of cigar smokers, can we?

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

CigarCraig

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Filed under IPCPR, Video

Tagged as cigar, Cigar Federation, cigars, IPCPR

by CigarCraig | August 24, 2012 · 6:09 pm

IPCPR 2012 – Ezra Zion Cigar Company

One of the first booths we stopped at at this years IPCPR show was the guys from Ezra Zion Cigar Company and CigarFederation.com. I reviewed this cigar a month ago, you can find that post here. I ran into Kyle, Chris and Alan (aka The Don) the previous night at the opening reception and knew I had to get some video with these characters. This is the first installment of three where the guys talk about the new Ezra Zion Inception cigars. As I said in my previous post about this cigar, it’s no easy thing to bring a cigar to market, kudos to these guys for following their dream! I wish them much success, and the cigar is so good it shouldn’t be a problem!

One small thing I’d like to correct that Kyle said in the video: I’m much more likely not to mention a cigar I think is crappy than to say it’s crappy. I am of the opinion that just about every cigar in the premium or boutique category is someone’s baby. Unless a whole box unravels on me or is plugged or something, whether I think a cigar tastes crappy or not is of little consequence. I have e-mailed cigar makers privately when I’ve had issues with construction and off flavors, but I’m not going to pretend I’m some sort of expert on how a cigar should taste. Taste is subjective and I recomend that everyone try everything. Case in point: some people like lima beans. I don’t. What do I know? Rest assured, when I love a cigar, you’ll know it whether I paid for it or it was a sample. You can count on that!

That’s it for now, look for parts two and three of this series over the next few days.

CigarCraig

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Filed under IPCPR, Video

Tagged as cigar, Cigar Federation, cigars, Ezra Zion, Inception, IPCPR

by CigarCraig | July 22, 2012 · 9:18 am

A New Cigar: Ezra Zion Inception and Hoyo de Monterrey Contest No. 4

This week I was presented with a unique opportunity, to try a new cigar from the guys at Cigar Federation, the Ezra Zion. Kudos to them for dreaming of producing a cigar line and doing it, it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds! There isn’t a lot of information on their site, and the promotional info they sent doesn’t say anything about the blend either, but these are apparently made at the ~~Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras~~ TABSA factory in Esteli Nicaragua (note: I jumped to the conclusion that they were made in the Raices Cubana factory because I was told it was made in the factory that made Illusione, Viaje, Casa Magna and I ASSumed that these were made in Honduras.Mea Culpa) . The cigar was a 6.125″ x 50(?) box pressed toro. It could have been 52 ring gauge, but the box press prevented me from checking, and I was too lazy to get a string out and measure it that way. I honestly don’t believe it really matters! The band was large, black and silver, with some angels flanking an “EZ” in the center. It’s nice looking and, most importantly, comes off cleanly and easily. The foot band, simply says “Inception” and “Primera Edicion” and was also easily removed, a good thing because foot bands make a cigar taste funny when you first light it up (that’s a joke there, I usually take them off before lighting). The bands and the box press looked good. The wrapper was a dark Colorado with maybe a tinge of a reddish hue, slightly veiny, almost rustic in appearance. So it looks good, looks like a cigar I’d like.

My usual routine is to grab a cigar, light it and smoke it. When someone offers me the chance to try their baby before just about anyone else, I take a little more care in my routine. I smelled this cigar pre-light. It smelled of rich, properly processed tobacco. I lit it up, careful to get it properly lit. The draw was perfect, loads of smoke on the easy draw. So far I enjoy the flavor, I get a little Honduran vibe along with the richness of Nicaraguan tobacco. There’s a bite that could be attributed to it’s relative youth. I’m not saying that it isn’t ready to go, just that a few months or a year in a humidor might smooth this part out a little. I’ll have to try to get my hands on a few more at some point and test this theory. The sacrifices I make for science…sheesh. Anyway, the cigar burned perfectly and continued to smoke well. Strength-wise I put it on the fuller end of medium. As I got down to the last inch, I began to feel some of the effects of the nicotine, and decided it was time to let it go, at least an hour and a half after lighting it up. The flavor was savory and rich and it was a satisfying smoke, things I look for in a cigar. It certainly compares favorably with many of my favorites, a Cain F or an Emilio AF2, for example. Not that it tastes like them, particularly, but the experience was equally satisfying. When I can smoke a cigar and think “hey, I look forward to smoking another one of those” it works for me. So many cigars underwhelm me, but this one certainly did not. It was tasty, relaxing and trouble free!

So, bottom line, unless this is a $10+ cigar, and it certainly could be, I’ll try to get my hands on more of these. Keep an eye on Chris, Kyle and the Don from Cigar Federation, I look forward to what else they come up with. With any luck I’ll run into them at the IPCPR show, I’d love to meet these guys.

On a related note, I smoked another Emilio AF Suave corona this week. I found that one of the ones I had picked up last weekend has a crack at the head, probably from me sticking the bag in my pocket and being careless. I can’t abide cracked sticks in my humidor, they aren’t going to heal or anything, so they must be smoked ASAP. Stellar smoke. Helpful factoid: wrapper cracks only effect the draw if the binder is cracked too. They my cause some burn problems, but this one didn’t, it just looked crappy. Of course, looks are important too, so I tried to stay out of the public eye while I smoked this one! Also, I had picked up a few of the Tatuaje La Casita Criolla Short Churchills a couple weeks ago and smoked one of those. Another terrific smoke, loaded with Broadleaf goodness!

Also, a card fell out of my CI catalog advertising a 5 pack of Alec Bradley Tempus for $20 with proceeds going to Cigar Rights of America. This is another good way to put some nice smokes in your humidor and throw a couple bucks toward preserving out ability to smoke premium cigars! Just a public service announcement from me.

Contest

It’s time for the fourth installment of the Hoyo de Monterrey Reposado en Cedros giveaway. Hoyo de Monterrey is giving away a box every day on their site, and, once again, I have a pair of three-packs which will be awarded to a randomly selected reader who leaves a comment on this post. Wednesday I asked what you wanted to know from the IPCPR show, so feel free to continue to give suggestions. I’ll select a winner again on Wednesday. Once again, my thanks to the folks at General Cigar for providing the prizes in this series of contests!