Cubanacan | CigarCraig's Blog

I was wandering through one of the humidors and came across a few cigars leftover from the 2020 TPE show that I had forgotten about. I had run into Lawrence from Cubanacan and he had given me a few cigars, and, for whatever reason they had gotten buried. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what’s up with Cubanacan. Over the years they seem to come and go. Lawrence is a great dude, but I see him here and there (not that I get around a lot), for instance I remember meeting him at one of the Delaware Cigar Festivals in 2012 maybe, then I might not have seen him again until last year. It’s highly likely we just miss one another. That being said, I just don’t hear a lot about Cubanacan cigars, and the last thing I think I heard wasn’t particularly great. I don’t judge based on things I think I might have heard though. I smoked a Cubanacan Maduro in a Lonsdale size. This must be special, because it only comes in a ten count box, per the website. This has a San Andrés wrapper, Ecuador binder and Nicaraguan fillers. After 18 months in the humidor it smoked very well. It tasted pretty much like I expect a cigar made from those tobaccos would taste like, some earth, spice and espresso. I like the lonsdale size, and it was quite satisfying. I suppose I need to dig around and see what else is in there that I might have forgotten about!

One I hadn’t forgotten about, but had recently bought in a sampler from Fox Cigars. I can’t remember why I got this sampler and what all was in it. I added it on to the purchase of the Plasencia sampler, and Maybe this was in it that I wanted, or it priced too good to pass up, or something. For some reason when I received it I set this cigar aside as I had already smoked the rest of the cigars. They all must have been oned I liked. I don’t know, I make strange purchasing decisions some times. It’s CAD, Cigar Acquisition Disorder, and it’s real. The support group meets here every Sunday and Wednesday. Hello, my name is CigarCraig. The cigar in question is the Aganorsa Leaf Signature Selection Robusto. For whatever reason they choose to cover up this nice looking caramel colored Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper with gold foil, a nice, yet unnecessary presentation. This seems to use all Aganorsa grown tobacco with the sevres sauce being some Media Tiempo, the rare top, top priming above ligero. This was a nice cigar, medium bodied, with some richness, with a feeling that the wrapper was grown under shade. It was creamy with some leathery kinda notes. Good cigar, which nicely filled my afternoon. I wish I could remember what else was in that sampler!

I wrapped up last night with a CAO Amazon Basin Orellana. This was the fourth cigar in the Amazon Basin trilogy, wait, that’s not right. I thought it was a trilogy, then they goofed it up by adding a fourth! I wasn’t overly fond of the original Amazon basin, although some people lost their minds over it. Didn’t hit me right. The Em Corda, and Anaconda hit me right, I loved them. I don’t like the name of the Anaconda, because I hate snakes, but I get it with the whole Amazon theme. I originally thought the Orellana was closer in flavor to the original Amazon Basin, and I still think it probably is, but I like it more with some age. I still like the other two more, but this has matured, whatever sour notes that I didn’t care fr aren’t there any more. It was a rather enjoyable cigar, although, in retrospect, I should have chosen a shorter cigar, and I’ll elaborate. I got off to a late start, and, hence, a late end. The Orellana is a toro sized cigar, and since I finished late, I had a hell of a time falling asleep. This means I’m going to have to take a nap today, when I could be smoking a cigar! Then I might be up late again and the whole cycle continues!

I bought a bike yesterday to ride to work, maybe I’ll ride to the cigar shop today. If it stops raining, that is…I made sure to buy one with an ashtray holder. That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

I did some wandering through the humidors this week and came across a few older cigars that I smoked, but first I selected a cigar that came from the TPE show, a Cubanacan Habano Toro. Interestingly, Eddie Tarazona introduced me to Cubanacan at a Delaware Cigar Festival back around 2013 or 14, I guess (as will be a recurring theme in this post, dates are fuzzy for me today). I’m not sure what his involvement was at the time. Lawrence Miltenberger, who is a principle at Cubanacan, was also at that Delaware Fest, but with another company, so I’ve known him for a while, so when I saw him at the TPE, he laid a few samples on me to try. Now, it seems to me I’ve heard some not great things about Cubanacan’s business practices, but I can’t confirm those rumors and have no first hand knowledge. It seems to me that they’ve had a rough time over the past several years. I’m sure someone will let me know one way or the other if I’ve crossed a line. I smoked the Habano Toro, and it was pretty spectacular. The construction was right, it burned straight as an arrow and the draw was perfect. The flavor was really nice with some sweet notes and nuttiness. I dug it and would smoke it again.

Speaking of cigar companies that have had issues, Gurkha seems to have crapped where it eats over the last week. I’m not going to recap the incidents, check Halfwheel, Coop or other sites for the blow by blow, but I have a few observations. First, Gurkha has always been polarizing. They have a side that has cheap, bundle cigars that are marketed like they are super-high end cigar that are the best deal ever in the catalogs, on the other hand, they have some really nice cigar that are good quality, made in the same factories that a lot of other great cigars are made in and are perfectly good. Heck, they have a new cigar (that I haven’t smoked) that’s made by Aganorsa that is supposed to be great. There have been quite a few of their cigars that I really liked, Cellar Reserves, Ghost, Seduction. The first mistake they (the Company and Kaizad Hansotia, and I’m not convinced the two can be separated) made was claiming that the Kaizad’s social media account was “hacked” and the racially insensitive posts were not his own. They should not have made that claim. When that BS wasn’t bought into, they went with the distancing tactic. Kaizad steps down and removes himself from day to day operations of the company, and they even go so far as to claim he’s selling his interest in the company. I’m going to be so bold as to speculate that if he owns 50% of the company, the other 50% is owned by a company that’s owned by him. Conspiracy theory: he sells his 50% to a holding company that is owned by one of his other companies. I doubt I’ll be getting any more cool Gurkha swag. He’s a smart guy, he’s built a large, successful brand that sell a ton of cigars and has a large following. Here’s the other thing, for as many people saying they won’t buy another Gurkha cigar because of the perceived racism, there’s a whole opposite side that is giving up on them because they “caved in to the liberals”. Gurkha had a diverse following, apparently they alienated two sides. The positive side of this is that only a small percentage of cigar smokers pay attention to what’s going on on the internet, so maybe this won’t really hurt the bottom line too much. There are good people who work for Gurkha, I’d hate to see them suffer.

I have a shelf in the NewAir humidor that has a bunch of coffin boxes, and one that’s been there for a while was a Lighthouse Special Edition that came from an IPCPR show back in 2014 0r 15 (see above about the dates). All I can remember about this interaction was being approached in an aisle while walking by, as happens at trade shows, by a salesman who thought I was a retailer. Small outfits sometimes don’t read badges, and I always explain to these guys that I’m media and I’m not buying and it’s probably not worth their time talking to me. However this interaction worked, I ended up with this cigar and no information about it or the company survives. I’ve just been moving it around all these years until I finally decided there’s no reason not to smoke it. I hoped it was going to be a decent cigar and not a waste of my time, while also hoping it wasn’t going to be a great cigar that I was going to regret never being able to smoke again. It was a darker cigar, 6″ x 50ish, and as you might imagine, the flavors were predominantly cedar. Not a big surprise after five or so years in that little coffin. I’m thinking now I should pay attention to some other cigars on that shelf, and making a note to date cigars like that moving forward. I’m not a huge fan of the mostly woody flavors in cigars, it’s OK, I like a sweeter profile. The cigar was well behaved, it smoked very well, and was pleasant and satisfying, leaving me neither disappointed, nor wishing I could find more. I wish I had more information, and I don’t think this had anything to do with the cigar store in New Jersey.

Finally, last night I smoked a Serino Royale Medio Robusto Gordo last night. Serino was up-and-coming a few years ago and I haven’t heard much about them lately, but they seem to still be available. I’ll be honest, when I posted this on Instagram and tagged Serino, I trolled them a little for comment on whether they were still in the premium business. I didn’t get a bite. I’m not sure how this one escaped my notice for the last four years, as it came with it’s three siblings in June of 2016 in a sampler. This cigar has an Ecuador Habano Claro wrapper, very light, it almost looks like a Connecticut shade. The size was 5½” x 60, which is a strange size, so I guess Robusto Gordo is an appropriate name. Sadly, when I looked at the one retailer I knew carried these, this particular line wasn’t listed. This was a very tasty smoke. It was rich and creamy, almost like a shade cigar, with more body, less grassiness, and a nice sweetness. It burned perfectly and was a pleasure to smoke. I actually was looking for a milder cigar when I selected this and chose wisely, it wasn’t mild, but it was perfectly medium and suited me just fine. IF you run across one of these, give it a shot, and if you find the Maduro XX, definitely try it!

If you partake in Instagram, and follow @cigarcraig, please follow @cigarcrag1. I’ve been unable to log in to the original account for some reason, and IG’s support system sends me in circles. Until I get it sorted out I’ve decided to rebuild. Any help in this area is appreciated. I’d love to get my millions (or 1700ish) followers back! Anyway, that’s all for today, until the nex time,

CigarCraig