In the week leading up to our trip to the IPCPR show in Vegas I’m losing track of what I’ve smoked! I had to go back and check twitter and Instagram to refresh my memory. My wife is right, I need to take a note book along this time to write things down along the way. 
I’m certain to forget something in the information overload that is the IPCPR show. Case in point: I smoked a couple cigars on Sunday, I think a CAO Concert and a Gurkha Seduction. Both are cigars that are on my “go to” list when I want to smoke something, enjoy the heck out of it, and not have to worry too much about it. The Concert went very nicely in the pool, and the Gurkha was perfect after a end of the weekend rainstorm complete with a double rainbow. These two cigars capped off a pretty great holiday weekend for me. I had to go look up what I smoked!
Monday evening I grabbed one of the Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Maduros I had picked up recently. I was in the mood for something new and I really don’t smoke a ton of Perdomo cigars for whatever reason. I’m not sure if it goes back to the 90s when I had a string of bad luck with the brand or what. This cigar was pretty darned sublime. The flavor was right up my alley, chocolatey and espressoey and well balanced. Well worth the $5.25 I paid for it. It was a lovely smoke and I’ll certainly have to pay a little more attention to this brand. Yes, I know that chocolatey and espressoey aren’t real words (I already had that argument with the spell check…).
Last night I selected a Four Kicks robusto that was gifted to me a few months ago in New Jersey by Alex “StogieCop” Martinez. I’ve enjoyed a few different sizes in this line, and they are nice cigars to be sure. I kind of wanted to get some older (ie. last years) cigars smoked before going to the trade show and being inundated with new stuff. This was a worthy smoke, although I just can’t get as excited about it as some do, perhaps it doesn’t suit my preferences as much as some others. Still a terrific smoke, thank you Alex for allowing me to revisit this one.
Changing gears, tonight I wanted to preview a cigar that I gather is being released at the show this year. In the past few weeks I’ve smoked some NicaRoma cigars from Villiger,the Nica Puro from Alec Bradley, so I thought I better smoke the Nica Rustica that’s coming out from Drew Estate. I was given a sample a few months ago when I visited the factory and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit intimidated by this stick! Will at Cigar-Coop.com posted a nice write up on this last week, where he notes that the blend includes a Nicaraguan Rustica tobacco grown in Esteli that is among the most potent of tobaccos it’s wrapped in a San Andreas binder (yay!) and a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper (another yay!) and will be offered in a 6″x52 toro shape. The example I smoked had an unfinished foot and a pigtail head. It certainly was a rustic looking cigar, and had a wonderful syrupy sweetness on the wrapper. You an feel the tingle of the nicotine in the mouth, and there is a ton of flavor. This is like a Liga Privada on steroids. I have yet to find anythig remotely subtle about this cigar, it’s just loaded with great, in your face flavor and strength. I’m sitting on the deck finishing this off as I type, and I already look forward to smoking another one. Now, I have to admit that I don’t know if this is the finished blend or not, but I hope it is close. I remember Steve Saka saying that production capacity was holding this release back, apparently they made some room to produce a bunch of these. At the reported under $7 price tag, this is a no brainer for anyone who doesn’t mind having your ass kicked around the block a few times. Highly recomended and anticipated!
That’s it for tonight. The next post will probably be from the IPCPR show. I’ll do my best to get some interesting and entertaining video here, assuming I can get some WIFI connections here and there.
Until the next time,
CigarCraig
