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ScrewPop’s MagPulse Cutter and the Acid Kuba Arte Cigar

For a year I’ve been looking forward to ScrewPop‘s guillotine cutter, the Magpulse. They teased it in July of 2018, then announced it this July, and it intrigued me from he get-go. I have no idea why. ScrewPop has some really nice keychain tools, and they have some good quality cigar devices in their line-up, obviously they like cigars over there. They’ve missed on a few things, but made up for it in re-designs. I like to think my suggestions led to the punch cutter design being what it is today. They have a cigar scissors sort of device, the Chopo, which works quite well. All of their tools have traditionally included a bottle opener, with the exception of the ashtray, and the Magpulse cutter. The Magpulse is a premium accessory, certainly not a keychain accessory. it’s priced at $149, with an introductory price of $99, so it has a premium price tag too. So far as I can tell, there’s one little spring in this thing, and that’s in the button which releases the blade. There are two strong magnets on either side which are mounted in opposition to one another which force the blades apart, and give resistance when applying the cut. The company say these magnets power will degrade one percent over 100 years, so don’t expect this to work well thousands of years from now. It might still be sharp, though, because the blades on this cut . cigars like a hot knife through butter. I’ve been using it non-stop and never gotten a bad cut. Granted, I have a lot of other cutters I can say the same thing about that I’ve used for years, so time will tell but the 440C Stainless Steel blades should hold an edge for a good long time. Honestly, for a hundred bucks, I expect it to last a lifetime. It is enormous, as cutter go, and something makes me want to find a case for it. As far as the magnets go, if you are in the habit of carrying paperclips in your pocket with your cutter, you might find them hanging on to the cutter, but otherwise it shouldn’t really cause any issues. It’s not like your pants are going to stick to file cabinets or anything. I kinda can’t stop playing with it, and I’ll keep using it all the time just be cause it’s so much fun to open.  Thanks to my friends at ScrewPop for keeping me in the loop. 

 

Thursday I stopped in to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA to visit with Alex and Pedro of Drew Estate again, and hear about Mojo’s upcoming move down the street to a new bigger and better location. They are moving to a former bank building and will have a bigger and better space that they will not be sharing, with be easier to get in and out of, and should server their growing clientele better! Anyway, Pedro handed me an Undercrown Manifesto, the 11″ x 40 panatela which is his event only cigar. I have a coffin of two from an event a long time ago, and I’ve never smoked one, so it was pretty cool to get to smoke one with my buddy Pedro. Obviously, a cigar this long, and this thin needs to be smoked slowly so it doesn’t overheat and get nasty. It was a packed house, and I saw some folks I hadn’t seen in…ok, I hadn’t seen them in 5 days…but I hadn’t been to Mojo in a long time, so I caught up with the guys there and heard about the move. It was a bit of a Drew Estate centered week, with the Barnsmoker and the event Thursday, then Friday I come home to a package containing an Acid Kuba Arte Water Tower, many thanks to my friends at Drew Estate! Last night I felt compelled to smoke an Acid Kuba Arte

 

I can count the Acids I’ve smoked pretty much on one hand. I took a puff off a Kuba Kuba my wife was smoking in the mid 2000s. I smoked a Kuba Maduro on the second day of Cigar Safari in 2011 after about 7 cigars, it was a the last one of the day and I just wanted something to smoke and I couldn’t taste anything. I smoked an Acid Toast sometime in 2013 or 14. I smoked an Acid Kuba Candela in 2017, which I enjoyed quite a bit. That’s the sum total of my Acid smoking experience. I guess it can be said that they were all memorable cigars. First off, the Kuba Arte packaging is way cool. It’s a metal water tower, with a Boveda pack in it and it’s going to sit on top of my cabinet humidor for now because it isn’t fitting inside, that’s for sure. The cigars are 5 13/16″ x 54 torpedos with a Broadleaf wrapper, and they have a sweet cap, and the weird patchouli aroma off the wrapper and foot that one gets from a Kuba Kuba. I’ll be honest, I have no idea if these had the room note that I can identify a mile away. I will say that I enjoyed the crap out of this cigar! I was a little scared, but I really liked it. The infusion was subtle, not off-putting at all. I remember that first Kuba Kuba experience years ago and having to gargle and brush my teeth, I didn’t care for the pungent flavor at all. This was nothing like that. The Broadleaf wrapper was fairly dominant, and the sweet cap was actually OK, in the way that I like it on the Sweet Jane that I smoked this week too. Maybe I’m becoming more open minded in my old age, or dementia is setting in, or something…I really, really enjoyed the Acid Kuba Arte, and I am looking forward to the Acid 20, one of which is in my possession, thanks to Alex of DE.  Who’da thunk it, me smoking Acids….I’m going to have to start counting on the other hand soon!

 

That’s all for today. Don’t forget to go back to Wednesday’s post and leave a comment for a chance to win the “Welcome Fox Cigars” contest! Enjoy your Sunday, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

 

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Contest: Welcome Fox Cigars Episode One!

We’re getting back to the old days for a while, the good old days of CigarCraig giveaways! For those of you who may not recall, search back through the archives at the months of December from about 2011 through 2015 and you’ll see where I used to do ridiculous giveaways for 12, 13 sometimes 14 days straight! It was a hoot! It got difficult for several reasons, some personal and some logistical, so I scaled it back. It’s time to relive some of the glory days! We have something to celebrate, and that is welcoming a new member to the CigarCraig family, Fox Cigars. I’ve been following these guys for a while, I’ve seen friends talk about their events in Arizona, and followed them on social media. I don’t put links on my site that I don’t believe in and patronize, and I never solicit at all, so an ad or link you can trust, and these guys are top notch. So let’s extend a laurel, and hearty handshake, to Fox Cigars!

 

Here’s the contest part! Fox Cigars has provided some goodies for giveaways! First up is some great stuff from Perdomo! There’s a Lot 23 cap, a really nice quad jet Vertigo lighter, and a Connecticut four-pack,  which  includes  a 20th  Anniversary,  a Habano  Connecticut  a Champagne,  and  a Lot  23 (which I didn’t realize was Connecticut, I learned something today!). I just smoked the 20th Anniversary Connecticut a few weeks ago and loved it, and that lighter is super cool. 

So, leave a comment to enter! I’m going to post this on Instagram, and I’m going to include comments on that post as well, just to make my life more difficult, so you can get two chances. I slipped an obscure movie reference in above, so amuse me by pointing that out for extra credit.  As usual, you must be of legal smoking age in your jurisdiction to win (and even that’s getting to be a PITA these days!), one entry per person  (per site). I’ll select a winner next Wednesday, July 31, 2019. Thanks to Rob at Fox Cigars

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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A Couple of Shop Visit, a Couple of Cigars and a Contest Winner!

Happy Sunday! I suppose it’s the end of a holiday weekend for a lot of people, I had Thursday off, and stopped into the CigarCigars shop in the King of Prussia Mall and picked up a couple cigars, one of which I smoked later to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Sure, I have plenty of natural Padron 1964 Anniversary Exclusivos, but I hadn’t had a Maduro in quite some time, so I picked one up. My wife spied a Foundry Compounds, Elements and Musings Uranium box with two cigars left in it, so I bought them and got the box. I’m pretty sure I’ve smoked Uranium before, although I don’t smoke many 7″ x 70s. The artwork is cool and I’ll rig a light in the box and it’ll be a nice shelf piece. Gotta give Mike Giannini credit for creative design!  So my wife got a ring from Tiffany, and I got some cigars, it was a good day. The Exclusivo was exceptional, of course. I remember smoking my first one probably 20 years ago and they haven’t changed. 

 

Friday evening I took a ride up to Suburban Cigar Lounge in Mount Penn, PA, which is near Reading. This is a really nice lounge run by Gary, over top of what is, by all reports, a very nice restaurant, which, if I’m not mistaken, his wife runs. I went to meet up with Boston Jimmie, of Stogie Press fame, who took his sweet time showing up. If you advertise that you’re going to be someplace from 7-10, showing up at 8:30 is not acceptable, I don’t care how things are done in Florida.  😜Anyway, Gary has a nice lounge with a friendly clientele, and his humidor has a modest but diverse selection from which I purchased some Alec Bradley Magic Toast Gordos, and RoMaCraft Aquitaine Mode 5s, and lit up a Magic Toast.  I love this Magic Toast, it’s my kinda smoke. The dark, oily Honduran wrapper is beautiful, and the flavor is equally dark and lush. I smoked a Mode 5 next, and while I prefer the CroMagnon, the Aquitaine is damn tasty. This is a great example of how the wrapper can completely change the flavor of a cigar, as the wrapper is the only difference between the CroMagnon and Aquitaine lines. Jimmie finally showed up and hung out for a while. I hadn’t seen him since the 2017 IPCPR show, so it was nice seeing him again. Suburban Cigar Lounge is a great place to hang out of you find yourself in the area. I’m sorry I didn’t let long time reader Corey know I was going!

 

Last night I smoked the 2Guys Smokeshop exclusive Pistoff Kristoff Firecracker. Every year they do a special Firecracker release, last year it was the Mi Querida, prior to that it was the Fratello. I’ve managed to smoke a bunch of them, except for the original ones. It’s a small format, 3½ x 50, in a stronger blend. This was the second Pistoff Firecracker I smoked and I thought it was very good. I’m OK with the Pistoff blend to begin with, so I figured I’d be OK with this, and if I wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be a large time commitment. I do, generally, get an hour out of the Firecrackers, smoking them slowly. Because of the closed foot, a trademark of Kristoff, and usually a Firecracker trait, it starts with a blast of wrapper flavor, and some concern that the draw will be tight, once the wrapper burns, this one opens up to a perfect draw and has a good, bold flavor. It was strong, but well balanced. It looks like these are sold out, as is the case with most of the limited Firecrackers, but often the have second runs, and I would recommend these and others if you like small, strong cigars. They have all been exceptional in my opinion. 

 

Contest

It’s time to select a winner in last weeks contest.  To recap, I am giving away some great, in my opinion, Don Juan Calavera cigars from Danli Honduras Tabaco (from my own humidor, to protect the innocent), a Herics Cigar Tape, and a Cigar Prop and Light Bleed Tool from CigarProp.com. It’s possible some other goodies could fall into the box while I’m packing it up.  There were 42 entries, and according to the random number generator, the winner is Bob Langmaid! I seems like Bob wins everything all the time, but I could only find one instance of him winning one of my contests, and that was almost 4 years ago. I’d rather have someone who hasn’t won before win, but Bob’s name came up, and he’s been fanatically religious about entering my contests for many years, so fair is fair!  Please send me your address Bob! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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CigarCraig Contest! Don Juan Calavera Cigars, Cigar Prop and Cigar Tape, and a Rant

Since IPCPR is in full swing (scroll down for the rant), and I have a full physical inventory at work tonight that has been taking up a lot of my time this week, I figure it would be a great time to have a contest. I also was anxious to share some of these Don Juan Calaveras cigars, and I always like sharing my buddy Kevin’s Cigar Props and Lighter Bleed Tools. Now, the Cigar Prop and Lighter Bleed Tool are Cigar Prop’s legacy products!  Kevin has been expanding his product offerings with some really unique and different materials lately, but I’m old school and love the traditional materials. Read on for the contest details:

 

Included (for now, you never know what else I might add), are two each of the Don Juan Calavera in Sumatra and Maduro from Danli Handuras Tabacos. You can read my thoughts on these cigars here. They have recently added an English translation to their website, and Their cigars run $175 a box of 20 and can be bought directly from them by contacting them through their website or Facebook page. So you can check to see if they are definitely 6″x52, I’m including a Herics Cigar Tape measuring tape to use to measure cigars. I reviewed this handy item here.  Of course, you’ll want to Give Your Cigars the Props they Deserve© with an original Cigar Prop from CigarProp.com, and you’ll also want to treat your butane lighters right by using the CigarProp Lighter Bleed Tool every time you fill your lighter. I use the Bleed tool all the time, it’s preferable to jamming some foreign object like a screwdriver into the fill valve of your expensive lighter and risking damage to it and ruining your lighter as it’s purpose built to do the job. I can’t fathom not using one of these. I think Kevin would have sent me more stuff to give away if I’d have asked him, maybe for the next giveaway 😉, but I had these here and I don’t like to ask.  So, leave a comment on this post for a chance to win, and I’ll select a winner at random next Sunday, July 7, 2019. Muchos Gracias to Danli Honduras Tabacos, Cigar Prop, and Herics for the goodies in this contest! 

 

A Little Rant

I have to do a little IPCPR rant.  I relinquished my IPCPR Media membership several years ago for a couple of reasons. I was a member in good standing for five years, which means I paid my dues, which were the same as the dues would be if I owned a retail store. A retail store owner received more benefits for that membership, and the trade show admission is always positioned as free with your membership. Given that there are no real benefits of membership to the media other than trade show admission, this translates to me as an expensive trade show ticket. Travel expenses, time off work, I spent a lot of years busting my ass running around for very little return on investment, and quite a bit of frustration from the organization I was spending time, money and effort trying to promote. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself to some extent, and love spending time with a great many friends I’ve met in the cigar industry, but it wore me down so I no longer felt the desire to spend my vacations covering the IPCPR show. I still receive e-mails from the IPCPR, and the day before the show started I receive an e-mail addressed to “Our Valued Media Members” asking that we (the media) make appointments and limit interviews and try to do interviews outside of the show hours. Basically they are saying that the retail members are there to do business with the manufacturer/distributor members, so we don’t want the media members getting in the way of that. OK, now, if the IPCPR were issuing press passes to the media for free entry to the show (like many other trade organizations), I wouldn’t have a problem with this request, a day before the show is stupid, we’re supposed to make appointments now?. The time for that was months ago, when, by the way, those of us who have done this before had already made our appointments. They are now asking paying members to not do the only business that they are able to do on the show floor. There is zero chance to do interviews after the show floor closes with any but a few cigar people. After a long day on the show floor, the exhibitors just want to go to their rooms and decompress, clean up and get ready for the long night ahead, and maybe get some rest for the long next day. They aren’t looking forward to a group of camera wielding cigar media people swarming the exits ready to pounce TMZ style because they are discouraged from doing the business that they are paying to do on the show floor. I know a few manufacturers who look forward to the show specifically to connect with the media. It’s just one more blatant slap in the face of media by the IPCPR, who hasn’t wanted them there from the get go, and only tolerated those who ponied up the cash, as long as they toed the line. I was a proud member for several years, and fought with them for a lot of privileges, but none of it was worth the aggravation, it seems. It might be just as valuable for me to go to Vegas while the show is underway and hang out at the Circle Bar in the Venetian after show hours, or go to the Tobacco Plus Expo next year.  I guess that wasn’t that little of a rant…

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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News: Fratello Cigars Introduces Fratello Piccolo

I just mentioned the Fratello Firecracker earlier today. I’m not a big fan of “little cigars”, but I recognize that they have their place, and these do sound tasty, and Omar hasn’t missed yet as far as I’m concerned. Despite the name, I’m quite sure these done have holes in them!  

 

INTRODUCING FRATELLO PICCOLO

Omar de Frias is proud to announce the company’s latest blend, the Fratello Piccolo.  Different from the Fratello Classico, the Piccolo uses an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper with the same binder and filler as the Classico. “We used a different wrapper on our Classico blend and picked up some great flavors! The combustion and aroma were absolutely incredible.”  said de Frias.  

Fratello Piccolo will debut as a 4 x 34 in 100 count boxes.  The MSRP for this cigar will be $3.30 per cigar and will begin shipping in August.  

 

The Fratello Piccolo is being made at Joya de Nicaragua.  

 

Please visit www.fratellocigar.com/thecigar for a description of ourcigars.

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