It was a rough week for me, as the last week of August always is. Not to complain or anything, but growing up having an end of summer birthday sucks almost as much as a Christmas birthday, at least for me. It signals the end of summer, and as the years progress time passes faster and faster, so summer went by in the blink of an eye. I guess if you don’t like summer, it’s not a big deal, but I love summer. On top of all that, I was plagued by migraines for some reason. So it wasn’t a great week, no reason to dwell any further on that, it’s time to move on. I managed to smoke a couple great cigars this week, and I need to pick a couple 
winners of the Big Papi by David Ortiz cigar prizes. So, for my birthday I was conflicted, should I smoke a known favorite cigar or smoke a “special” cigar and risk disappointment? I took the risk and went with a Partagas Serie P No. 2 Havana that probably came home with me from a wedding we attended in London in 2006 (this very weekend, actually, (Happy Anniversary Karyn and Mitchell!). The Hunters and Frankau rep was handing these out, and the grooms father stuffed a few in my jacket pocket. So this Havana cigar had been in my humidor for 11 years, should have been plenty of time to recover from its journeys! I was quite surprised by the floral qualities this cigar had, it was really delicious and entertaining to smoke as it was never boring with the interesting flavors that it presented. It burned perfectly too, with a great draw, which is a plus. It turned out to be a great choice and a very good smoke, quite different from my regular fare as well as being different from what I remembered and expected.
Yesterday I was migraine free for the first time all week, so I dug into the IPCPR samples and found the new Alec Bradley Black Market Esteli, their newest edition to the Black Market line. This cigar comes in Churchill, Gordo, Robusto, Toro, Torpedo sizes, of which I smoked the 5″ x 52 Robusto. It has a Nicaraguan wrapper, a double binder of Nicaraguan and Honduran and Nicaraguan fillers. I need to further explore this line, but this just might replace the Nica Puro as my favorite Alec 
Bradley cigar. It was very rich and satisfying, the burn and ash were simply beautiful, and it had unique and interesting flavors that appealed to me. There was a sweet spice that I rarely taste in a cigar and it makes me smile when I do. I smoked a few other cigars this week, a little CLE corojo from 2014 that wasn’t appealing, and a Mombacho Liga Maestro that was very leathery, too much so for my taste, I’m afraid. These are both lines that I feel like I should explore further, on the CLE side, even though I’ve known Christian for 20 years, the cigars I’ve smoked from CLE haven’t tripped my trigger, the Asylum line I like, but I guess I just haven’t smoked enough of the CLEs. I’m late to the party with Mombacho and need to smoke more of their cigars. As far as the Alec Bradley Black Market Esteli, that’s a winner for me! See below for some pictures from IPCPR of their latest offerings.
Alec Bradley has added some nice accessories this year too, as well as some small format cigars. I’m looking forward to checking out the new Prensado Lost Art as well.
Contest!
OK, it’s time to wrap up the series of contests featuring cigars from El Artista Cigars, we had a huge Exactus Super Colosus, the Pulita 60 Aniversario and finally, the Big Papi by David Ortiz, which I’ am about to announce the winners! Thanks to Carolyn and Keith for making all this possible! We will have two winners, one gets a five-pack of Big Papi cigars and a lighter, and the grand prize is a box of 20 Big Papi cigars! The runner-up is Matt Hopper! The grand prize winner is (drumroll please)… Randall Simon! I’ll need both of you to send me your addresses so we can get these out to you! Thanks to all who followed and congrats to the winners! Stay tuned for more contests coming up!
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
