Thursday had turned into a stressful day, and when my wife suggested a walk into town, I knew I wanted a terrific cigar to take along. So many choices, so I came across a pre-release sample of the new cigar from Emilio Cigars and Gary Griffith, the Draig K. This dark, oily toro just looked like it was the cigar I was looking for. I had actually just about settled on a Liga Privada T52 when I was distracted by the Draig. Made in the Placencia factory, the only details I recall are that it features some Colombian tobacco in the filler. I love a maduro, and I loved this cigar. It was exactly the rich, satisfying smoking experience I had hoped for. There were a couple points where it stopped wanting to burn and needed a relight, and there was a small tunnel about 4 inches in, but the flavor and texture of the smoke kept me relighting it down to a ¾” nub. Yummy cigar. Yet another cigar I’m going to have to get my hands on when they hit the streets! Thank you, Gary, for the opportunity to sample this fine cigar.
Friday night finally rolled around and I was in an experimental mood, so I reached for the IPCPR show sample of the Diamondback robusto from Altadis. First, from the department of cynicism, one can’t help but draw a comparison between this cigar and another 5″ x 54 shade wrapped cigar with “diamond” in it’s name. Pre-conceived notions aside, this was a very nice cigar. It was solidly constructed, burned even and cut cleanly. If you like shade wrapped cigars, you may want to try these out, considering you can get them by the box for under $50. Not a bad cigar at all. My only complaint was that the draw was a little tighter than I’d prefer, making me have to work a little harder than I’d like.
Saturday was another beautiful spring day. Showers were in the forecast for later, so I hit the back deck with a San Lotano Maduro lancero. I’ve very much enjoyed past San Lotano maduros, so expectations were high, as I love lancero format as well. This was a terrific cigar, although comparing it with its fatter brethren is a little unfair. Certainly, smoking the lancero is a little different experience, one cannot expect the same flavors as a toro or robusto due to the difference in the filler proportions. Where I find the larger ring gauges in this line to be rich and creamy like smoking a chocolate bar, the lancero was more like bittersweet chocolate. In no way do I mean to imply that this is a bad thing, as the lancero was a fantastic smoke. I spent nearly 2 hours nursing every last bit of tasty smoke from it, awfully sad to put it down when it decided it’s time had come. I had picked this up several months ago when I visited Gary Griffith at his People’s Plaza Cigar-ette City store.
News
I’m sure most of you have already done this, but if you haven’t, please head over the the White House website and sign the petition that’s there. Here’s a terrific video from Bill Spann outlining the importance of this fight to keep the FDA out of our humidors.
httpv://youtu.be/7bfqIFGu9WM
It looks like there should be no problem getting to 25,000 signatures, but I think we often over-estimate the number of internet cigar nuts out there. If cigar smokers are a small subset of the general population, and PREMIUM cigar smokers represent a very small subset of those, then those of us who carry our passion for cigars onto the internet are a VERY small part. It’s important to spread the word and get others on board with this. It will not be a happy day if the FDA is allowed to regulate premium cigars!
That’s all I have for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
