Tag Archives: davidoff

by | December 27, 2020 · 10:06 am

Holiday Weekend Cigars and the Big Contest Winner!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday, it was another quiet one around here. We prepared a nice feast and delivered some food to Mom and our daughter’s family, remaining socially distant. I tend to smoke some good stuff around the holidays, and more times than not, my version of “good stuff” is classics. In this case I smoked an Ashton VSG Belicoso #1 on Christmas Eve. I’ve been nursing a box of these for a few years and they are extremely delicious. Every time I smoke one I am reminded of how much I like them and could smoke them all the time. I guess it’s why it’s a treat. Earlier in the day I had a Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve Robusto which was a generous gift from a  Secret Santa that I took part in this year. That’s another great cigar made by Drew Estate. I almost liken it to a highly refined Kentucky Fire Cured, as it does share some commonalities.

 

Christmas Day brought a little Davidoff  702 Series 2000 Corona between doing some cooking and waiting to leave on the aforementioned rounds. Another tasty cigar that had been in the humidor for some time. This is a 5 1/16” x 42 medium bodied cigar that was smooth and creamy. Oddly, Davidoff’s website lists smoking times for each vitola, and they list this one at 25 minutes. Perhaps they are going by Zino Davidoff’s habit of only smoking half the cigar, because I smoked this for about an hour, and all of the smoking time they list are easily 30 minutes or so short. Later in the day I went with about Fuente favorite, the Arturo Fuente Añejo No. 50. This is another box I am rather miserly with. Originally the Añejo was born when a fire destroyed (or a hurricane?) the curing barns where the Opus X wrappers were curing, ruining the crop, and they put Broadleaf wrappers on Opus bunches. I gotta tell ya, I’ll take an Añejo over an Opus any day of the week. It’s a delicious cigar, especially for desert. It’s sweet chocolate cake. Like the VSG, it’s tough to keep my hands out of the box. Last night I wrapped things up with a new classic, and a cigar that easily keeps up with the other great cigars I smoked this weekend, a Sobremesa Short Churchill. While it doesn’t have the Pedigree of the Fuentes or Davidoff, it certainly has the construction and flavor to compete. It was absolutely delicious and too short. It was a great cigar weekend, but aren’t they all!

 

Contest!

OK, Since you’ve probably already scrolled here, I’ll get to the point! Last week I had a giveaway for a whole bunch of great swag and cigars! Stuff from Montecristo, Drew Estate, Villiger and Foundation Cigar Co, and the Humidors of CigarCraig! I’ve consulted the Random Number Generator (Google has one now, I don’t have to go to Random.org anymore), and between my randomization of the entries, and using the random number generator, it’s the digital equivalent of mixing slips of paper in a fishbowl. The selection process came up with Joseph as the winner! Please email me with your contact info and proof that you’re old enough. I hate to chase people and I tried to make it easy to email! I’ll see if I can come up with something else in the coming weeks! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig 

 

 

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by | December 15, 2019 · 10:08 am

New Undercrown Shade and Flor de Cesar Cigars and an Editorial

I have been looking forward to smoking the Drew Estate Undercrown Shade Suprema since it’s announcement last summer, and finally had my chance this week. This large perfecto is 6″ x 50-54 and uses the same molds that the old Chateau Real Gran Cru Perfecto used. I smoked a bunch of the Chateau Reals in Maduro before they were discontinued in 2010 or thereabouts. I love the format, an I actually have a couple of the Chateau Real Maduros left from the box I bought in 2010, and a Connecticut as well. So I was looking forward to smoking the Shade in this size, and I really like the Undercrown Shade anyway. I’ll start out saying I think this is the best representation of the Undercrown Shade blend to date, in my opinion! It was slightly underfilled, which was which was OK, I just needed to slow my draw so as not to overheat it, after having a few overfilled cigars this week, I appreciated the effortless draw and the abundance of smoke! The smoke was rich and creamy and loaded with the flavors I expected from the cigar. It had me wondering if we might expect a limited edition of this shape in the Maduro and Sungrown versions of the Undercrown? What the heck, how cool would a Liga Privada be in this shape? Willy? Joe has my address, I’m between jobs, I have time to sample  😁.  The Undercrown Shade Suprema is a wonderful smoke!

 

Editorial

It was a funny week with lots of news! One interesting controversy that arose was the Avo Unexpected line being revealed to actually be the Avo core lines repackaged on Cigar Dojo’s Smoke Night Live. I’ll admit that the Smoke Night Live show hasn’t been on my podcast playlist until now, I have too many to possibly listen to as it is. But I had to listen to this one, and I was rather surprised to hear four prominent members of the Davidoff team reveal this news. Important to the story is that these four cigars were positioned as limited releases with a higher price point, and then were revealed to be the exact same cigars as four of the regular production Avo line. This prompted a rather visceral response from some very prominent retailers, one with especially close ties to Avo Uvasian himself, prompting him to sell off said stock as cost. I have smoked a few Avo cigars, they are OK, not a huge fan but I don’t dislike them, and I don’t have any ties to Davidoff at all, other than the fact that they make some great cigars and have been nice to me a few times in the past. I don’t think that the marketing plan behind this was a good idea at all, and it ended up tarnishing a prestigious brand. In all honesty, the repercussions probably don’t reach the rank and file Avo consumer so much as the few retailers that bought in to the Limited Editions and felt like they got burned, and maybe lost sales on something else because they had basically eight boxes taking up the shelf space where it normally would be four. Someone thought it would be clever, someone went about it the wrong way, and someone should apologize to the retailers who feel betrayed. That’s my unsolicited two cents. 

 

Last week when I was at BnB Cigars in Chestnut Hill, PA (which is actually within the Philadelphia city limits), Vince there implored me to sample a few of their exclusive Flor de Cesar cigars, which I’ve enjoyed in the past. I managed to smoke the “lancero” last night, and I put  “lancero” in quotes because it’s actually 7″ x 42, so it’s not really a lancero technically. It’s actually a whole four ring gauges larger than a lancero, maybe it’s a super corona, or something. Call it what you will, if you put it next to a Gordo, it’s a lancero. The Flor de Cesar line is made by James Brown at Fabrica Oveja Negra, but, in my experience, it’s very different from other cigars I’ve smoked from that factory. First, I’ll say that this format, whatever you want to call it, was very comfortable to smoke. It didn’t need quite the babying that a 38 ring lancero needs, yet it still had that elegant feel. You know I think that small ring, wrapper to filler ration bullshit is poppycock, it all has to do with combustion, so the 42 ring strikes a nice balance for me, slow draws to not over heat and it’s a nice cool smoke. I loved the flavor. This had that rare flavor of spiced hard candy that I like, I gotta get a bag of grandma candy and figure out what exactly that is, but I love it and when I find it in a cigar I really dig it. I believe this was the 2019 Flor de Cesar Silver The Novin Lancero to be technically accurate, and it was delicious. I kinda want to try the Corona Gorda now! 

 

Well, that’s all for now, it’s coming up on Christmas all of the sudden. It’s occurring to me that I don’t have much in the vault for giveaways this year! There were a few years there were giveaways were going crazy this time of year, sadly no longer. I’ll see what I can do to put something together! Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

 

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by | April 24, 2019 · 9:43 am

Camacho American Barrel Aged and Corojo Maduro Cigars

I went into the Camacho stash fir the first couple of cigars this week, and the first one that caught my eye was an American Barrel Aged Perfecto Gorda. This was in a Sampler from the IPCPR a few years ago, so I’m not entirely sure it’s a regular production size, hang on, let me go look. OK, It’s available, and it’s a terrific size. It’s a hair under 6” x 52, and lit easily and opened up to a perfect burn and draw. This is an all US Broadleaf blend, PA Broadleaf wrapper with broadleaf fillers, aged in bourbon barrels and made in Davidoff’s Dominican factory.  I found myself mesmerized by the sweet, medium-bodied flavor of this cigar. I’ve smoked this blend before, but I don’t recall enjoying it as much as I did in this shape. Perhaps it was the several years of additional age? As my regular readers know, if there’s any bourbon flavor from the barrel aging, it’s lost on me. If I ever even had bourbon it’s been over 30 years, and it wasn’t good, I’ll tell you that.

 

Last night was another late start, and I was tempted to go with the Nicaraguan Barrel Aged, but a Toro was more cigar than I wanted. I happened across a lonely leftover from a Camacho event I attended back in maybe 2011. It was a Camacho Corojo Maduro in the Monarca (robusto) size. Camacho Monarca is actually one of the first documented cigar reviews I did back in 1997 in Steve Saka’s Monthly Officious Taste Test, which can be found through some searching through CigarNexus.com via archive.org. It wasn’t even close to this cigar, except in name, but interesting to me at least.  The Corojo Maduro came out of an amber cellophane sleeve, and was not the powerhouse it once was. It was still quite rich in flavor, with some punch, but had mellowed. Oddly, I always regretted not just sticking with the natural Corojo as opposed to the Maduro in this line, as I think the darker wrapper somehow overshadowed the great flavor of the original Corojo line. I’ll likely never see another one of these old Corojo Maduros anyway, and it was an enjoyable smoke. Maybe the Nicaraguan Barrel Aged will be on the mine today.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | November 18, 2018 · 11:18 am

La Palina, BG Meyer and 1881 Perique Cigars

I was just grabbing random cigars this week, although a bit of a theme seemed to develop.  I had a few cigars with what I would call glassine paper decorative wrapping, and two with names referencing the 1880s. Strictly coincidence, But one of those things I noticed as I went back over the weeks smokes. As I mentioned in Friday’s post highlighting the latest podcast episode, I had the pleasure of meeting up with the professor, José Blanco at Goose’s Montecristo Lounge in Limerick, PA, and smoked  an EP Carillo Seleccion Oscuro Especial No. 6.  The cigar was delicious, and the company was  exceptional as usual. It also snowed this week, too early in my opinion!  We’ve had winter weather in autumn, I have the porch winterized, but I can’t get my propane heaters working, so I have to figure out how to get at least one of those working. I miss summer!  Anyway, allow me to highlight a couple of cigars I smoked this week.

 

Last year I really enjoyed the La Palina El Año 1896 Oscuro.  Since I last smoke this cigar in 2017 they have moved the production from PDR in the Dominican Republic to Placencia’s factory in Honduras. I believe the original had a San Andrés wrapper and Dominican binder and filler, while the new version has a Costa Rican Oscuro wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. It’s box pressed, and the cigar I smoked, and I smoked two this week, was a 5″ x 50 (maybe 52, hard to tell with a box press) Robusto. Basically this is a different cigar from the original El Año 1896 Oscuro from last year (and allegedly the 120 Anniversary I smoked a week or two ago!) I enjoyed it, it was a very good cigar in its own right, but in my mind I wanted to compare it to the cigar I smoked previously in the same bands and presentation and it wasn’t the same to my recollection, and how could it be? I don’t want to be negative, because this version of the El Año 1896 Oscuro is an exceptional cigar, if you never smoked the former version, you are going to be very happy smoking this cigar. Either way, you can ‘t go wrong with this cigar!

 

The other cigar with the glassine paper wrap that happened to smoke this week was a BG Meyer Standard Issue Toro.  This was a Camacho “Board of the Bold” line, which was something Davidoff had going with brand ambassadors Mike Ditka, Matt Booth and Rob Weiss, the last of which headed the BG Meyer line. Rob Weiss was the guy behind the HBO show Entourage. There’s some debate over whether this line is even available anymore or not, I tend to believe it’s discontinued,  I’m sure there are still cigars floating around in the wild. This cigar was probably an IPCPR sample from a few years back, and I did smoke this back in 2015 and liked it. This one burned very well, had a nice, savory flavor and was quite enjoyable. I’d say this aged well, if you can find these around snatch them up and smoke them, even better if you find a close out deal. Everything I see points to this being a Nicaraguan Puro made in Honduras.

 

Friday night I got home from work late and went looking for a short smoke, and spied a short, squat torpedo from Tabacalera Incorporada in the Philippines, an 1881 Perique Torpedito. The 1881 Perique line is really interesting, it uses Philippine and Louisiana Perique tobacco and is rolled in their factory in Manila, not the usual combination one finds in the premium cigar market. Perique is generally used in pipe tobacco, and it’s usually on the strong side by itself. so the combination of the Filipino tobacco and the Perique throws a bunch of red flags for me, but in the case of the 1881 Perique, it comes together to make a really tasty cigar!  Usually when I have a cigar this late, I’m up all night having weird dreams, this time wasn’t the case for whatever reason. I couldn’t find a size listed, but it was probably a 4″ x 54ish torpedo and burned perfectly, and had only spend maybe two hears in the humidor, enough to be properly rested, but not enough that I would consider it “aged”.  It was smooth, had a savoryness, with a hint of a sweetness, and some spice from the Perique. I have some of the Maduro and “Bold” floating around that I need to revisit now that smoking this little Torpedito.  I’m not sure how widely these are distributed in the US, I know that Daughters and Ryan is the distributor, and I also know that Tabacalera sells them directly on their website.  If you are in the mood for something different and interesting, these are worth a try, don’t be scared off by the perique or  Filipino tobaccos, they work well together! Don’t forget to keep an eye on CigarProp.com and Amazon for the new, super-cool CigarProp ashtrays when they become available (as seen in the picture)!

 

That’s all for today, it’s a day off and the end of the week starts the busy season!  I need to try to line up some goodies to give away for the holidays! Any manufacturers, brand owners or retailers can reach out to me at craig@cigarcraig.com if you’d like to get in on CigarCraig’s annual holiday giveaways! They always generate a lot of interest!  I know the FDA doesn’t allow companies to give away cigars, but I’ve been known to give away my own cigars from time to time! I have workarounds!  Anyway, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | May 5, 2018 · 9:18 am

News: Avo Improvisation 30 Years

 

Some news from Davidoff, it’s a few days late though. They originally sent the release in German, and I toyed with the idea of posting it that way, but I didn’t want to be a complete ass…Oddly I’ve been eyeing some Avo cigars in the humidor lately.

 

“Celebrating 30 Years of AVO Cigars”

AVO Cigars, the globally renowned brand, is celebrating a remarkable milestone – 30 Years of AVO Cigars. To commence this special year, AVO Cigars is proud to announce the sixth release of the prized AVO Improvisation Series, a limited series inspired by unexpected combinations of music and cigars that create rich noteworthy experiences for all to celebrate: The AVO Improvisation 30 Years.

 

The AVO Improvisation 30 Years makes its debut as the first release in the highly anticipated AVO 30 Years Collection. Limited to only 3,400 boxes worldwide, this special release emerges from an improvised blend based on the renowned AVO Classic No. 3. The blend utilizes the same wrapper leaf from Ecuador, but the Dominican binder and filler tobaccos differ from the original blend, allowing for a remarkable progression in both flavour and complexity. Further building exclusivity the stunning white packaging is inspired by the textures from Avo Uvezian’s hallmark hat and white linen suits.

 

“As we celebrate 30 Years of AVO Cigars throughout 2018, there is no better way to honour the brand and its legendary creator, Avo Uvezian, than to offer this special improvised blend of the AVO Classic No. 3 for all to experience,” states, Scott Kolesaire, Sr. Brand Manager at Davidoff of Geneva USA. “The AVO Improvisation 30 Years release strikes two major chords: it commemorates the foundation of the AVO brand and builds on its mission to continue delivering harmonious and noteworthy cigar experiences consistently, as it has for the last 30 years.”

110996_AVO_2018_30y_LE30_dbl_cor_25s_US_001.tif

 

CIGAR INFORMATION
Length: 7 1/2”
Diameter: 50 RG
Format: Double Corona
Wrapper: Ecuador
Binder: Dominican Republic
Filler: Dominican Republic

 

LAUNCH AND AVAILABILITY
The AVO Improvisation 30 Years will arrive in US stores on March 22, 2018 with a limited production of 3,400 boxes. It will launch in  European and other markets from June 2018 onwards.

ABOUT AVO CIGARS
In 2018, we celebrate a remarkable milestone: 30 Years of AVO Cigars. It all began when the brand’s founder, Avo Uvezian, a legendary jazz and cigar composer of global fame, met the cigar master blender Hendrik Kelner in the Dominican Republic. A fruitful collaboration between cigar pianist and cigar composer began to develop, resulting in the 1988 launch of the AVO Classic Series. It was an almost immediate success. Two creative masters joined forces with one purpose: to help aficionados “SAVOUR EVERY NOTE” in life through delightful cigars. For the next three decades, the AVO brand went on to compose cigars that are meant to be savoured individual note by note. AVO Cigars is honoured to invite fans throughout the world to celebrate 30 Years with us.

 

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