Tag Archives: Contest

by | June 30, 2019 · 7:10 am

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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by | June 18, 2019 · 9:14 pm

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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by | June 16, 2019 · 8:41 am

Fathers Day, a Diamond Crown and Various Cigar Stuff

I didn’t smoke any new cigars this week, so this will be pretty short and sweet (every time I say that I end up running on or a few paragraphs!). I have to work today too, and I’m up early writing. It was another busy news week. I skipped a few items that I thought were less interesting, I doubt many of you are really that interested in Scandinavian Tobacco Group looking for a new president for General Cigar since Régis Broersma is leaving that post. I figure if you’re in line for that job you aren’t relying on this site to hear that news. Also Drew Estate had a few that I skipped over, one about Acid and Tabak Frenchies, which are cigarillos, which I care little about, and another about 60 ring Tabak Espeicales with I should have posted but I had already had a few news items that day and couldn’t fit it in. I actually would smoke a 60 ring Tabak Especiale. Another one I missed was the announcement of the Protocol Official Misconduct Corona Gorda. Cubariqueño has a history of following their releases with a corona gorda line extension, so this is no surprise. Plenty of other sites had the news, I’m sure. Anyway, I can only do so much, and, regrettably, it seems that every year at IPCPR time when all this news comes out I get some unsubscribes from the mailing list. Sorry for the barrage of e-mails. I guess I can see if I can adjust the e-mails to twice a week or something.

 

Anyway, there were a could great cigars I smoked this week, a few of which took me back twenty years or so into my cigar smoking history. I had a Fuente Don Carlos No.2, the 5.875 x 55 pyramid, was this one of the the original three vitolas in the line? I know the Robusto and the No.3 were original, but I can’t remember if the No. 2 was or if it came along later. Anyway, I have memories of smoking a Don Carlos Robusto in Vegas in 1997, many more over the years of course, but this is a cigar that has remained consistent in flavor over the years, an amazing thing. Same goes for the Hemingway line, consistent over the years. I like to have some of these in the humidor all the time, classics like the Don Carlos, Hemingway, and Añejo because they are just great cigars!

 

Another cigar I smoked that brought back some Vegas memories was a Diamond Crown (hey, another DC!). J.C. Newman was kind enough to send me a cool little four-pack of Diamond Crown No. 4s a week or so ago, so I had to light one up yesterday. Here is another cigar that hasn’t changed over the years. It’s a mild, complex Connecticut Shade cigar. There’s a couple interesting factoids about this cigar. When they released this cigar, it was only available west of the Mississippi. At the same time, Opus X was only available east of the Mississippi. These are two completely different cigars, but this caused a bit of a competition between the two, and some trading went on. Another interesting thing was that Diamond Crowns all had 54 ring gauges which was HUGE at the time. Anyway, The Diamond Crown remains a classic Connecticut Shade cigar, it’s rich and complex, it had a good flavor with a perfect burn and construction and is hard to beat. In the picture here from 1998 in Vegas I’m smoking a Diamond Crown No. 2, and my wife (also pictured!) is smoking one too!

 

Speaking of J.C. Newman, they have been running a contest here for the last few months, if you haven’t entered yet I strongly recommend doing so!  Click the ad at the top of the right sidebar, or right here, and enter to win a beautiful Brick House Humidor. It’ll be ending at the end of June, so get to it!  Many thanks to J.C. Newman for their continuing support. Please flood them with entries and make them give one of you a humidor so that they know that people are seeing their message here on CigarCraig.com!

 

That’s it for today. I’m going to get through the day at work so I can come home and smoke my traditional Father’s day cigar, one of my last two 1999 Esperanza para los Niños toros. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of my buying the box of them and the last cigar from that box will be smoked. It’s been a good run. If you don’t know about them, search my site, I’ve told the story several times.  Have a great day, until he next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | December 30, 2018 · 9:07 am

Happy New Year From CigarCraig and E.P.Carrillo Contest Winner Announcement!

Tomorrow is New Years Eve, and I hope everyone has safe and fun plans, and great cigars picked out. I have to work today and tomorrow, so tomorrow night will be a quite night at home. I’m going to select a nice cigar to relax with on the porch, much like any other evening. It might be something from the rare and unusual part of the humidor, this year has been a weird one for me on a personal level. I’m not quite sure how I want to celebrate it yet! Anyway, as I generally do around this time if year, I’ve spent the last week or so smoking cigars I’ve wanted to smoke with little regard for presenting synopsis’s here (is that the right word? plural of synopsis?), but last night I smoked my last Todos Las Dias from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust, and felt the need to mention it. Of all the cigars Steve Saka has brought to market, this one is one that it took me the longest to “get”.  I suppose the first few I had didn’t seem to draw as well as I’d like, or, more accurately, burned on the wet side, as in over-humidified. This was ironic since Steve was hand picking his IPCPR samples for the exact reason that the samples were still on the wet side from the factory, but the ones I had were in my humidor for some time, so I can only guess that it was my fault, and maybe this liga just needed to be kept as a lower RH. There was an earthy, mushroomy flavor I didn’t care for, and it’s a flavor I typically don’t like in cigars, I think it goes back to a bad mushroom experience I had in the ’80s, but that’s another story. I bought some of the Double Wide Belicosos and put them down for a while in a lower RH humidor. I love the size, Joya de Nicaragua uses the same molds for a couple other cigars in their portfolio and I really dig it. It’s 4¾” x 60 with a blunt, tapered head. With a dryer, open draw, I finally “get” this cigar, and, like the other cigars in the DTT portfolio, I can finally say that there isn’t a cigar in the lineup that I don’t like. It may not be my favorite in the bunch, but it’s certainly one I’d choose over many, many other cigars on the market.  It’s still earthy, but it didn’t have that off-putting (to me), mushroomyness, but more of a hearty Nicaraguan peppery flavor. I still need to try the Thick Lonsdale “Mas Fuerte” (Steve’s alleged mistake), and need to put some more Double Wide Belicosos in the humidor. Perhaps tomorrow night’s smoke will be a pre-release Sin Compromiso…or a Nacatamale, or something of that ilk. Or maybe not.

 

Thursday I posted a video review of the Herics Cigar Measuring Tape.  Please let me know if that’s a format you’d like to see more of, or if a little of me on video is enough! If there’s positive feedback, I might do more, if nobody cares, I might do more, if there vehement opposition, I’ll scrap the idea! and, as I alluded to in the last post, I’ll have another contest in the coming weeks which will include one of the tapes along with some other goodies. Speaking of contests, I have to announce the winner of the E.P. Carrillo Prize Package! I added a few cigars to the package, including an Encore Majestic, which was CA’s No. 1 Cigar of the year. These cigars are out of my humidor, it’s completely legal for me to give cigars to my friends! (that should hold off the black helicopters!).  So there’s the EPC Hat, the pair of tumblers and steel whisky cubes, lighter and cutter, the CigarProp Lighter Bleed Tool (Thanks Kevin!) and now a five pack of cigars (the La Gloria Cubana isn’t technically an EPC cigar, but it’s made at his factory and was blended with his help, along with Yuri Guillen of General Cigar Co. I’m counting it, it’s my contest. I don’t think the winner is going to complain, it’s a fantastic cigar! So, as per normal, I consulted the random number generator, and Andy Klueber‘s number finally came up. Andy has been lamenting the fact that he never wins for as long as I can remember, so now he can give it a rest!  Please send your address so I can send this out to you! Thanks to E.P. Carrillo and Cigar Prop for the goodies, and than you all for your support and participation over the years!

 

Happy New Year! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | December 23, 2018 · 10:31 am

Contest: CigarCraig’s Holiday Giveaways No.2!

It’s the Sunday before Christmas, and time to announce the winner of the Ventura Cigars travel humidor and assorted goodies. I scrounged through the humidors and found some cigars to include too! I let the folks at Kretek International know what I was up to and they were thrilled that I was doing it! The comment selected at random belonged to Victor Miller!  Please send me your address so I can ship you your goodies!  Thanks again to Ventura, and to everyone who entered!

 

Our second giveaway of the season really couldn’t have worked out better!  On Thursday of this week, Cigar Aficionado announced that the E.P. Carrillo Encore Majestic was their number one cigar of the year! People have mixed feelings on this list, and I really don’t understand why people get so worked up over it. Like any top whatever list, from any media outlet, be it print based, or online, it’s based on individual opinions, it has to be, as cigars ( and spirits, and food) are a subjective, non-quantifiable commodity.  Find someone who’s tastes line up with yours and follow their suggestions and don’t crap on other people’s tastes. Whoa, I kinda went on a rant there…people take things too seriously! Live and let live!  Lets get back to giving stuff away! This is another un-authorized contest, my friends at EPC don’t know I’m doing this, but I have been a fan of Ernesto’s work for a very long time. The first time I met him at an IPCPR just three years ago was about the first time I’ve been really star-struck meeting someone.  I’ve had the chance to hang out with him since and he’s a super cool guy, and I consider his VP one of my better friends in the cigar biz. I think the CA’s choosing Encore for their cigar of the year was spot on not only because it’s a great cigar, but because Ernesto and his company is deserving of the recognition and it’s a cigar that should be reasonably available (at least until last Thursday!). Anyway, I have some EPC goodies including a cool hat, a pair of rocks glasses and some steel ice cubes (I guess, I’m not a drinker, I have to assume that’s what they are, since they came with the glasses. It would be the hardest dice game ever!). There’s an EPC cutter and lighter too, and I’ve selected some cigars from my humidor, and some more might fall in the box when I pack it up!  Let’s not forget a handy Lighter Bleed Tool from CigarProp.com to keep that lighter working right for years to come!

Leave a comment (one comment please!) to enter. I think it’s fair to disqualify our previous winner, but everyone else is eligible to win. Must be of legal age in your jurisdiction as usual. I’ll select a winner sometime after Christmas, I have a funky schedule this week (again) so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance, but maybe I’ll leave it open all week and announce a winner next Sunday to give everyone a chance to enter.

 

To everyone who celebrates, a Merry Christmas to all! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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