My last visit to the cigar shop had me procuring some new cigars, the last of which was the E.P. Carrillo Pledge. They had both sizes, the 5″ x 50 Pequel and the 6″ x 52 Sojourn, of course I selected the Sojourn. It’s funny, there was a time when I opted for the robusto every time, and I’m not sure it wasn’t cost over preference. I think as I’ve gotten older (I’m hesitant to say “matured”), I’ve valued the experience over the cost, and I prefer the experience I get with a toro. Sure there are times when a Robusto fits my schedule better, I might smoke a couple today, but it’s because I have so damned many of them in my humidors and I usually find myself unfulfilled when I finish one. Anyway, back to the Pledge Sojourn. This cigar has a Connecticut Havana seed wrapper which may or may not be grown in Massachusetts, depending on the source of information. I’ve seen tobacco farms in Massachusetts, so it’s totally possible. It’s a dark wrapper, and it’s beautiful. The binder is from Ecuador and the filers are from Nicaragua. Of course it’s made in La Alianza, Ernesto’s factory in the DR. I forgot to check my band to see if it’s signed, Ernie signed six of each size and if someone finds one they win a humidor. Hang on, be right back. Nope, no golden ticket for me! It was a 1 in 1250 shot. I bet Kameron at the shop checked them all, the band came off awfully easy 😁. I kid. This is a delicious cigar with a beautiful burn and draw. It’s full bodied and full flavored. It has some cocoa and pepper, and I might have initially mistaken it for broadleaf, but it wasn’t as sweet. As a longtime fan of EPC’s work, I am once again impressed, this is another winner. Considering how rarely I spend $12 on a cigar, this one is worth every penny. Yum.
Here’s some news from the folks at Drew Estate that I was too lazy to post separately a few days ago:
Drew Estate announces today that it will donate $50,000 to Operation: Cigars for Warriors (CFW) during its virtual Barn Smoker Live event, which will broadcast directly from the Florida Sun Grown farm in Clermont, Fla., on Drew Estate’s Facebook page (facebook.com/drewestatecigar) on Nov. 14, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Due to COVID-19, Drew Estate cancelled the five Barn Smoker events that had been planned for 2020 in Connecticut, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Florida. Instead, Drew Estate decided to Bring the Barn to the People, announcing its Barn Smoker Good Will Act, through which Drew Estate fully refunded all Barn Smoker ticketholders, sent each of these ticketholders all the incredible swag they would have otherwise received at the in-person events, and decided to showcase a virtual Barn Smoker open to all adults free of charge.In 2014, Drew Estate hosted its first Barn Smoker at Hopkinsville, Ky. The event brought premium cigar consumers onto a real American tobacco farm and educated them on how the dark fire-cured tobacco used in the company’s Kentucky Fire-Cured cigars is grown, processed and finished. The event, which included local cuisine and spirits samplings proved so popular that the company has expanded its Barn Smoker program to a total of five annual events.Jonathan Drew, founder and president of Drew Estate, notes, “I kinda view life as a great big mosaic of stories. As a tobacco man, I love the deep, raw, emotional and authentic stories of real American tobacco farmers and families. One of our goals at Barn Smoker is to immerse our DE family into farm life and premium leaf culture. This year, we have a virtual spin on things, but the team is hard at work loading in super duper surprises and cool shit. I have to say that most of all, I’m just lookin’ forward to chillin’ with you guys. Much love!”
A hallmark of each Barn Smoker has been assisting CFW, a 501(c)(3) charity that has shipped approximately 1.2 million cigars to deployed troops and has also provided them with boutique coffee, cigar accessories and other items. Drew Estate’s association with CFW dates to before the charity’s establishment in 2012 when Drew met CFW’s CEO, Storm Boen, and provided legal advice on how to set up a charity.
“Drew Estate has been our biggest supporter and J.D. [Jonathan Drew] has always been a big proponent of ours,” Boen says. “His legal background provided the foundation for Operation: Cigars for Warriors. Since then, he’s ensured that we are at all of Drew Estate’s Barn Smokers, which has helped us a lot, especially after 2016 when the FDA declared that manufacturers couldn’t donate cigars to troops anymore.”
Prior to 2016, Drew Estate had donated more than 150,000 cigars and has also donated approximately $250,000 to the charity to date. While the FDA now prohibits cigar companies from donating cigars to charitable causes, it still allows cigar companies to donate money to charities. A portion of each Barn Smoker ticket sold supports CFW, and Drew Estate also donates raffle items to raise additional money for the CFW at every Barn Smoker event. Despite not holding in-person Barn Smokers in 2020, Drew Estate will add another $50,000 to its charitable contributions to CFW on November 14th.
“While Covid-19 has seriously impacted all of us, it has had a tremendous effect on charitable contributions worldwide, but the missions these charities serve have not diminished,” says Drew Estate CEO, Glenn Wolfson. “In the face of tremendous challenges brought on by the pandemic, Cigars for Warriors continues to successfully fulfill its mission of sending deployed soldiers and sailors cigars and other much needed items they request. With gratitude to these brave men and women serving overseas, Drew Estate is proud to support Cigars for Warriors and we encourage everyone to consider donating their cigars, time or money to this worthwhile charity.”
Financial donations to Cigars for Warriors may be made via PayPal. Cigar donations may be made at an authorized Cigars for Warriors donation center or sent to Attention: Cigars for Warriors at 8585 SW Hwy 200 Unit # 16, Ocala, FL 34481. For more information, visitcigarsforwarriors.org.
Barn Smoker Live Promo Video
ABOUT DREW ESTATE
Founded in New York City in 1996, Drew Estate has become one of the fastest growing tobacco companies in the world. Under their mantra “The Rebirth of Cigars”, Drew Estate has led the “Boutique Cigar” movement by innovating new elements to the tobacco industry with their unique tobaccos and blending styles that attract new and traditional cigar enthusiasts. In their Gran Fabrica Drew Estate, the Nicaraguan headquarters, Drew Estate produces a variety of brands such as ACID, Herrera Estelí, Herrera Estelí Norteño, Isla del Sol, Kentucky Fired Cured, Liga Privada, MUWAT, Larutan by Drew Estate, Nica Rustica, Pappy Van Winkle Barrel Fermented Cigars, Tabak Especial, Undercrown, Florida Sun Grown, and Java by Drew Estate.
Contest
It’s time to announce the winner of the cool AshStay ashtray, Western Digital Hygrometer and DAHOT Sampler from my humidor! Thanks to Chaim at Cigar Oasis for the Ashtray and Hygrometer! Cigar Oasis has been a great supporter of CigarCraig.com for decades! OK, you’ve told me a million times not to exaggerate, it’s been a long time, and I use Cigar Oasis products in my humidors, as well as an Ashstay on a daily basis! So, I put the entries into a spreadsheet, randomized the list, then used a random number generator, and came up with Patrick Hart as the winner! KingOHarts, please send your address, and you really don’t need to prove your age, because I remember you from the Usenet days, so you MUST be of legal age! Let me scrounge around and see what I can come up with for a future giveaway, the holidays will soon be upon us! It’s getting harder and harder!
I’ve been using Cigar Oasis products in two of my humidors for years with no problems, and very little attention. I have the Magna in the large cabinet which I just have to fill, and the Excel in the Newair winador and I barely have to fill that. I have the Wifi unit, but because it’s awkward for me to configure, I skip using it, but I like having the accessibility to the goings on in my humidor. It looks like integrating the Wifi into the new version 3.0 Cigar Oasis humidifiers is one of the new features. Last year was the company’s 20th anniversary, so they decided to step it up this year with technological innovations raising the bar for cigar storage with the most advanced electronic humidifiers. New features include:
Enlarged backlit LCD display
Built-In Wi-Fi with Smart Humidor®
Brand new App for remote monitoring & control
Soft-Touch button control
Updated colors, design and feel
Micro-USB connection with streamlined ribbon cable connector
Constant LCD displaying of humidity, temperature and low water alerts
Here’s what the principals at Cigar Oasis have to say about the updates to the humidifier line:
“It wasn’t easy, but we were successful in implementing all of these upgrades while keeping the
humidifiers at the same attractive price tag”, said Al Foundos, CEO & Founder of Cigar Oasis. “We feel
that these features will appeal to new consumers as well as our long standing customer base.”
Commenting on the Built-in Smart Humidor®, Donna Oswald said: “A big benefit this brings is that we
can now apply all future software updates over the air without any need to update the hardware. It also
allows for a very simple setup process right out of the box.”
Existing Smart Humidor® users will have full access to the new app while new users will receive a free
trial with access to all app features including live humidity and temperature reports, one year of history,
low water alerts, and humidity set point adjustment.
“We’re very excited about this release and hope to continue making Cigar Oasis humidifiers a staple in
every cigar lover’s humidor,” said Sales Manager, Chaim Kohn
Cigar Oasis 3.0 humidifiers will be on display at Cigar Oasis‘s new booth at the IPCPR and are scheduled
to start shipping soon after the show.
Comments Off on News: Cigar Oasis 3.0 Launching at IPCPR
I was catching up on some podcast listening yesterday and happened across an episode of Stogie Geeks Podcast with Chaim Kohn of Cigar Oasis. I’ve known Chaim a long time, and he’s been a great supporter of my site, and I’m a fan of Cigar Oasis products. I use a Magna in my cabinet and an Excel in the little New Air, as well as Western Humidor hygrometers here and there. I heard on the show where Cigar Oasis is distributing the AshStay cigar ashtray now. I’ve been using an AshStay for three years practically every day, and it works as advertised. I still won’t put it in the dishwasher or make my wife clean up after me (as portrayed in the company’s promotional video, which auto plays on their website, beware), but it manages the odor well, and has been a welcome addition to my smoking porch. Hopefully Cigar Oasis does well spreading the AshStay love.
Thursday I had a bad cigar day. I’m only going to speak in general terms about the cigars, but I get really annoyed when I draw through a cigar and get no smoke. If I blow through it looks like I’m electing a Pope, but drawing gives nothing! I have yet to figure out how this occurs, unless there’s a fold in the bunch that acts as a valve of sorts. The worst part off the evening was when I returned from my walk and put the poorly working cigar down and found a back up, it was plugged. I didn’t get any flavor from either (which could have been a result of drinking a blood orange ginger ale with dinner, but I can’t say for sure), and was left unfulfilled. It was a major bummer. So Friday I cracked open the box of La Gloria Cubana Collecion Reserva Presidente that I bought at the event with Ernesto Carillo a month or so ago. I’ve smoked the robusto and belicoso in this line and love them, but this Presidente, a formidable 7½” x 54, was next level stuff. I had some buyers remorse, buying a box of such large cigars, but after smoking one, I am no longer regretting the purchase. While it started a little slow, it moved into the flavors I am familiar with from the smaller sizes, then, BANG, a sweet cinnamon candy flavor that made my day. It was short of Atomic Fireball cinnamon, more like the hard candies. I can’t say how much I enjoyed that cigar, especially after the previous evenings disappointments. It’s a good thing these are such large cigars, or I’d smoke through them quick. I’ve been high on the La Gloria Cubana Collecion Reserva since smoking the IPCPR show samples, and I’m a fan of the brand in general. It’s important to remember that this line is actually made at Ernesto’s factory and not General Cigars, La Gloria Cubana was his baby, after all. This cigar would receive a 99 on my rating scale if I used my rating scale.
Contest!
I had a couple other cigars I was going to talk about, the Emilio LJZ, and the Jas Sum Kral Red Knight, which were both very good, but I figured I’d get right to a giveaway instead. I had another giveaway lined up, but then as I was typing this post, it occurred to me that it wasn’t a good fit, and will make more sense in a couple of weeks when I have my annual, scaled back, Christmas giveaways. What does make sense is to give away a great item from Cigar Oasis, a Calibur 4R Digital Hygrometer with a silver bezel. I have one of these, and would happily have deployed this one in one of my humidors, but I’ll be happier seeing someone else enjoy using it. This is a great looking unit as well as being very accurate and functional. It wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of cigars fell into the box when I ship it out, it’s been known to happen. Usual rule apply, leave a comment on this post to enter and I’ll select the winner next Sunday, December 10, 2017. Thanks to Chaim for providing this super-cool item! Stay tuned for more great giveaways coming soon, and I’ll be working on sending Secret Santa assignments out this week! God Luck!
That’s all for today, I have to get a ceiling painted and maybe clean out the gutters now that the leaves have fallen. I can’t believe it’s so close to the end of the year already…anyway, until the next time,
I’m back from the annual trade show and trying to get organized. First and foremost, I’d like to extend my thanks to The Wooden Indian in Havertown, PA for their support, I couldn’t have attended without Dave’s help. They will be having their annual pig roast supporting Drew Estate Charities on September 16, and I think this will be an event not to be missed. The Wooden Indian raises more money for Drew Estate Charities than any other shop in the country, and I heard that from Jonathan Drew with my own ears. Trust me when I say that if you are a Drew Estate fan, you won’t want to miss this event. Again, thanks to Dave for helping me attend this years IPCPR show.
All in all I thought the IPCPR did a great job with this years show, considering a relatively late change of venue. General Cigar Co. sponsored the opening gala Monday night and absolutely killed it. Open bar, loads of food (carving stations! They had frickin carving stations!) DJ and places to sit and relax. While there seemed to be fewer other manufacturers there as there have been in the past, I saw a full compliment of Perdomos in attendance, family and staff alike. To the Perdomo’s credit, they were also present at the hotel bar where many congregated in the off hours and fully were a part of the IPCPR trade show. Altadis sponsored the breakfast meeting on Tuesday with a tote bag with cigars and info for each attendee. I personally was less than thrilled with the keynote speaker, Rudy Giuliani. His nearly one hour speech was far too political, did way too much bashing of the former administration, and made bad analogies and offered poor council in my opinion. I have a hard and fast rule in a cigar lounge, no talking politics or religion. I regret staying through the whole thing, honestly. I’m sure my views on this my not be popular, but it is what it is. I liked Ron White’s keynote speech in 2011 a thousand times more. Other than getting started on that down note ( for me, at least) the show was it’s normal labyrinth of vendors, most of which were relevant to the industry. I question the one vendor with cell phone external battery cases that had a team of aggressive salespeople insisting that you tell them what phone you have so they could sell you a case. I heard one report of them breaking someone’s case removing it to demonstrate theirs. The second time I was harassed I just told them I had a flip phone and kept walking. Now that I think about it, I only saw them the first day, so perhaps the IPCPR dealt with them. I’ll share more thoughts on the show in future posts, but it seemed like while retailer attendance may have been low, several people I talked to were happy with the orders that were written.
I’ve known Steve Saka of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust for 20 years and actually found myself near the spot we first met face to face in Caesars Palace near Cleopatra’s Barge back in 1997. Knowing Steve that long has given me some advantages over the years but I never push that and generally keep a respectful distance at the show as he always seems to be busy, which is a good thing for him. In keeping with his “Sakasquatch” theme, I snapped a picture with the night vision camera ( like they use in all the best squatch hunting shows!) and titled it “The elusive Sakasquatch in his natural environment”. I guess one would have to have watched one of those shows to get the joke. My only regret is not having tagged “Finding Bigfoot” on the Instagram post. However, as the show closed on Thursday and I was getting ready to make my exit, I came across Steve engaged in an interesting activity that I thought was unique and wanted to share. I’ll be surprised if any other cigar media outlet has this kind of information. Check out the video below.
After a nap on Friday following a red-eye flight home, I sat down with a Protocol Corona Gorda which was fantastic, and I wanted to try out a couple of gifts I received from a couple of companies whose products I am I huge fan. I have a couple great desktop humidors from Adorini, and they have a punch cutter that has two sizes of punch and a magnetic closure. The larger punch is bigger than I’ve ever seen, slightly over 1/2″ in diameter. I’ll be putting this through it’s paces, I can’t wait to use it on a CAO Flathead 660. Cigar Oasis celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and gifted me a Jetline dual flame lighter (with a flip out punch on the bottom). Fortunately it made it through TSA undisturbed in a checked bag. Put a Cigar Oasis in an Adorini humidor and you never have to worry about your cigars. The Protocol was excellent, and Juan and Bill hooked me up pretty good with samples, which are resting from their journey. More on Cubariqueño in a future post.
That’s enough for today, I need to try to get back into going to work mode for tomorrow, it sucks going back after a week of fun. Until the next time,
I’ve been here in Las Vegas since Monday and have seen many friends and made some new ones. The venue is the Las Vegas Convention Center, a different location than in the past. It’s only a couple blocks off the strip, but has a totally different feel the exhibit space is larger, so it seems more sparsely attended, but many booths seemed busy and it remains to be seen if attendance is down or just more spread out. More on all that later. I attended several media events, Mambacho Cigars hosted an amazing party at a private residence, Davidoff and Ventura had media briefings in their booths during the show, and I’m heading to a Drew Estate media event tonight. There still seems to be new releases like crazy, in the coming weeks I’ll be closely examining some of them. In the mean time, I paid a visit to the Cigar Oasis booth this morning and took the video below, featuring Chaim Kohn telling us about their offerings and about their celebration of their 20th Anniversary.
I tried some YouTube live videos yesterday that are available on my YouTube Channel. Today it didn’t want to work so I didn’t do it live, but did post videos as soon as I was done. They are raw and unedited. More to come. That’s all for now, until the next time.
couple today, but it’s because I have so damned many of them in my humidors and I usually find myself unfulfilled when I finish one. Anyway, back to the Pledge Sojourn. This cigar has a Connecticut Havana seed wrapper which may or may not be grown in Massachusetts, depending on the source of information. I’ve seen tobacco farms in Massachusetts, so it’s totally possible. It’s a dark wrapper, and it’s beautiful. The binder is from Ecuador and the filers are from Nicaragua. Of course it’s made in La Alianza, Ernesto’s factory in the DR. I forgot to check my band to see if it’s signed, Ernie signed six of each size and if someone finds one they win a humidor. Hang on, be right back. Nope, no golden ticket for me! It was a 1 in 1250 shot. I bet Kameron at the shop checked them all, the band came off awfully easy 😁. I kid. This is a delicious cigar with a beautiful burn and draw. It’s full bodied and full flavored. It has some cocoa and pepper, and I might have initially mistaken it for broadleaf, but it wasn’t as sweet. As a longtime fan of EPC’s work, I am once again impressed, this is another winner. Considering how rarely I spend $12 on a cigar, this one is worth every penny. Yum.It’s time to announce the winner of the cool AshStay ashtray, Western Digital Hygrometer and DAHOT Sampler from my humidor! Thanks to Chaim at Cigar Oasis for the Ashtray and Hygrometer! Cigar Oasis has been a great supporter of CigarCraig.com for decades! OK, you’ve told me a million times not to exaggerate, it’s been a long time, and I use Cigar Oasis products in my humidors, as well as an Ashstay on a daily basis!
So, I put the entries into a spreadsheet, randomized the list, then used a random number generator, and came up with Patrick Hart as the winner! KingOHarts, please send your address, and you really don’t need to prove your age, because I remember you from the Usenet days, so you MUST be of legal age! Let me scrounge around and see what I can come up with for a future giveaway, the holidays will soon be upon us! It’s getting harder and harder!
