I don’t get away much, but when an opportunity comes up to take a quick vacation and slip in some cigar stops, we have to take it! I’ve wanted to have a vacation where we just spend some time doing nothing but relaxing on a beach for years, and we spent a few days doing just that. Having a cigar on the beach in the morning was nice, although it was windy, which created some challenges! We stayed a block from the beach in Miami Beach, so it was a quick walk, and the water was warm! On Friday we took a drive and dropped in on Joe Gro at Drew Estate’s offices, which had an “out for lunch” sign on the door, which was initially disappointing, although we did just drop by. We were hoping to surprise CigarProp Kevin and Jessica there, but they ran ahead of schedule and left just before we arrived. We finally gained access and caught up with Joe, who gave us the tour. The warehouse there is enormous, loaded with racks of pallets of cigars. The offices are as you’d expect, decorated with all of the great DE swag. As I said, many were out to lunch, so it wasn’t buzzing with activity, but there were a few familiar faces there!… Continue reading
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CAO Flathead V19, Acid 20 and Coyaba Natural Cigars and CigarCraig’s 10th Anniversary
You may recall that last Wednesday I had typed a brilliant post and lost it. I posted an abbreviated, yet almost as brilliant post, but I wanted to try to recap two of the cigars that I had written about. The first of which was the new
CAO Flathead Camshaft V19, the 5½” x 50 line extension to the Flathead line. The Flathead line is one of my favorites in the CAO range. I enjoy all of them, although the largest of them is the least smoked just because the 70 ring gauge is just too large, but the square press does make it a little more manageable. The flat cap gives me a chance to use my favorite Adorini punch, which has two sides, one of which is 13mm, which makes a nice, large opening in the cap of the 50 ring V19.… Continue reading
The Tale of Two Archetype Axis Mundis and News: Ventura Rolling Event at Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival
I’m going to tie these two things together, because they are directly related! Last month I had the pleasure of attending Michael Giannini’s rolling event at the PA Barnsmoker, and I applied the wrapper on an Archetype Axis Mundi toro. To be honest, Henry from Drew Estate jumped in and over my protestations, helped a little more than I would have liked, not understanding that I had done this before and really wanted to just have advice and not as much help. I didn’t want to be rude and say “dude, back off”, but I did make remarks like, “sorry, I haven’t done this since Willy showed me in 2013”. Anyway, I applied the wrapper and it came out pretty good, but it wouldn’t win any beauty contests. I struggled throughout the process to figure out which side of the leaf was the outside and which was the inside… Continue reading
ScrewPop’s MagPulse Cutter and the Acid Kuba Arte Cigar
For a year I’ve been looking forward to ScrewPop’s guillotine cutter, the Magpulse. They teased it in July of 2018, then announced it this July, and it intrigued me from he get-go. I have no idea why. ScrewPop has some really nice keychain tools, and they have some good quality cigar devices in their line-up, obviously they like cigars over there. They’ve missed on a few things, but made up for it in re-designs. I like to think my suggestions led to the punch cutter design being what it is today. They have a cigar scissors sort of device, the Chopo, which works quite well. All of their tools have traditionally included a bottle opener, with the exception of the ashtray, and the Magpulse cutter. The Magpulse is a premium accessory, certainly not a keychain accessory. it’s priced at $149, with an introductory price of $99, so it has a premium price tag too. So far as I can tell, there’s one little spring in this thing, and that’s in the button which releases the blade. There are two strong magnets on either side which are mounted in opposition to one another which force the blades apart, and give resistance when applying the cut. … Continue reading
Drew Estate Pennsylvania Barnsmoker 2019 Recap
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my second Drew Estate Pennsylvania Barnsmoker, and I think it was my favorite Barnsmoker so far. For those unfamiliar, the Drew Estate Barnsmoker events are educational parties that Drew estate has in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Florida and Louisiana, all highlighting tobacco processing unique to those areas, on the farms that are actually doing those processes. In Pennsylvania it was held on a farm in Strasburg, Lancaster County, which grows some broadleaf tobacco which they sell to Lancaster Leaf, which sells to Drew Estate, as well as other cigar companies, AJ Fernandez comes to mind. It’s my personal belief that Connecticut Broadleaf grown in Pennsylvania will gain popularity in the near future as the farms in the Connecticut river valley shrink and sell out to development. This is only my own speculation, but I’m pretty sure the Amish and Mennonite farmers in Lancaster County aren’t selling their family farms any time soon. I digress. The Barnsmoker is a great way to learn about all of the work that goes into the making of premium cigars in one day. It’s the Cliff Notes version of Cigar Safari, which is a crash course into the process in itself. … Continue reading
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