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by CigarCraig | October 23, 2016 · 9:01 am

Some Tatuaje Cigars, a Cromagon, an Event and a Disappontment

Thursday evening my wife and I went into Philly for a show, and stopped into Holts for a quick cigar before hand. I picked out a Tatuaje Verocu No. 5 and we hung out in the lounge and watched the beginning of the Flyers home opener. The Verocu No. 5 is a 4″ x 40 little guy, with tons of flavor. It has an Ecuador wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler and is a terrific little treat. It went great with a cup of black coffee, and a relaxing hour in Holt’s lounge. It had that great cocoa and strong, black coffee flavor I love, with a hint of spice. These are very good cigars. Pete Johnson happened to be doing an event at Holt’s other location the same night, and was going to be in the downtown store Friday. I was sorry I didn’t catch up with him, but we had a nice evening anyway.

Friday I decided to give a reasonably new cigar a second chance, since to first one had some construction issues. I’m not going to name names in fairness to the cigar, as my experiences may have been atypical, but I will talk about the experience. Clever readers who folow me on social media will be able to connect the dots. This cigar has been resting in the humidor, along with all the other cigars I regularly smoke, since it came home from the IPCPR back in July. Basically, it burned and smoked like it was wet. Perhaps this particular wrapper, which is touted as a new hybrid leaf, just holds a lot of moisture and needs to be dry boxed or stored at a lower humidity. It just seemed wet to me. It wouldn’t stay lit, and when it was it had that steamy quality to the smoke. It was one of those rare cigars that makes me wish I carried a back-up on my walks. When I got home I did something I rarely do and abandoned it and lit up a short robusto from Dunhill, their new Aged Maduro. This just looks like a delicious cigar, but it had a funky flavor that I wasn’t expecting. I’m going to give this one a second chance as maybe my palate was out of whack from the first cigar, it’s not fair to make a judgement under those circumstances.

Yesterday I went up to Cigars International in Hamburg as they were having a big Drew Estate event, and it was a rainy, ugly fall day. The CI store there is a destination, and adult Disneyland, and it’s hard not to spend five hours there. I went up with Mike C., and met an old friend there, and said hello to a bunch of my Drew Estate friends. I couldn’t decide on a DE cigar to smoke, it seems I’ve smoked everything I wanted to smoke from them, and had plenty in my humidor at home, so Mike and I went off the menu and picked out a couple Tatuaje Avion 11, a 6¾ x 52 perfecto. This was a beautifully crafted cigar with an Ecuador wrapper again, and Nicaraguan binder and filler much like the aforementioned Verocu. It started off with a blast of spice, settled into a rich espresso and cocoa flavor, and finished of with some more spice. I noted that the burn was just about perfect, with a nice, flat ember that I really enjoy, as it shows the care that went into blending a cigar in a way that all the components burn at the same rate, a rare feat. After that I picked up some RoMaCraft Cromagnon Fomorian candela robustos, to finish off the afternoon. While this probably should have come before a full-bodied cigar like the Avion, it still has the horsepower to keep up, and I like the refreshing kind of feeling the candela wrapper gives this cigar. Of course, Jonathan Drew was scheduled to be at this event, and hadn’t shown by the time we left. It was nice to see a lot of my DE friends though, and we had a nice afternoon of conversation and cigars.

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

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review

Tagged as Avion, cigar, cigar store, cigars, Cigars International, Cromagn, drew estate, Dunhill, Fomorian, holt's, tatuaje, Verocu

by CigarCraig | April 17, 2016 · 7:40 am

Avo Syncro, RoMaCraft Cigars at SMoKE Manayunk and a Tatuaje

There are so many cigars out there, it’s really hard to smoke them all, yet I keep trying! I’ve smoked the Avo Syncro Nicaraguan in the Short Robusto and Toro size and, like many Avo cigars, I found them enjoyable, but isn’t really get what the hype was. Perfectly good cigars, but nothing particularly special to me (I really liked the XO though). A couple of weeks ago my friends at Famous Smoke Shop send me some of the Avo Syncro Nicaraguan and I was excited as I really want to like these and appreciate the opportunity to try them in another size. The robusto is a box pressed 5″x 50, with a milk chocolate-brown wrapper, which is actually Ecuador Connecticut, and it has some Nicaraguan Ometepe, Dominican and Peruvian fillers. It’s a solid smoke, medium bodied with some balanced and interesting flavors. So far, this might be my favorite in the bunch, it’s got a little sweet, and a little spice, quite entertaining. I may try to sneak another one of these in today, the Short Robusto might fit my walk today from the Philadelphia Art Museum to the Kimmel Center for the Philly Pops concert. Thanks, once again, to Cory at Famous Smoke Shop for sharing the Avo Syncro Robusto with me.

Friday evening we went down to SMoKE Manayunk to visit with Skip and Mike of RoMaCraft Tobac as they have been on a tour of Philadelphia cheesesteak purveyors and have been taking breaks to have cigar events. First, a little about SMoKE and Manayunk. Manayunk is a very hip main street area in Philadelphia, with loads of bars and restaurants, so there were a ton of younger 20-something folks around, and it was pretty impressive how many came in to hang out and smoke cigars. SMoKE is BYOB, so many people brought in their own beer, wine or liquor and they have refrigerators behind the bar. Kosta is the owner, and has a very good staff headed up by Spencer McGuire, who recently left his post as brand manager of Emilio Cigars. The staff is attentive, constantly emptying ashtrays and seeing to the customer’s needs, as well as helping people in the large and well stocked humidor. The lounge is 3000 square feet, has a very industrial, distressed feel to the decor, and is welcoming and comfortable. The only downside is the parking. I found out the hard way that on street parking can cost $26 if you exceed the 1 hour limit, which I guess I was supposed to know without signing close by (oddly, the “Parking Enforcement” vehicle was parked a car ahead of me and was there longer than I was…I hate double standards!). So the $10 lot nearby would have been a better deal it turns out. It was starting to get crowded when we left, which is pretty cool for a cigar lounge.

So I perused the selection of RoMaCraft cigars they had, and settled on a couple of the Candela Fomorians (I spelled that wrong elswhere), a Neanderthal Shallow Gene Pool, and a couple of CroMagnon Atlatl lanceros, since I like lanceros and Kosta has probably the best selection of that vitola in the area, so when in Rome…anyway, I lit up a Fomorian (along with Mike and Skip) and proceeded to hang out. I’ve known these guys since 2011, which is about when they launched the CroMagnon line, and they make some outstanding cigars. The Fomorian is the CroMagnon blend of Cameroon binder and Nicaraguan fillers, with the Broadleaf wrapper replaced with a fragile Candela wrapper in the 5″ x 56 EMH size. The combination is really quite amazing, there’s the sweetness of the Cameroon, the depth of the Nicaraguan, with that refreshing flavor of the Candela. Along with the long ago discontinued Camacho Candela, this is the best representation of a Candela cigar I’ve had the pleasure of tasting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed a few, but this one has some giddyup to it, great cigar. I followed that with a little Neanderthal Shallow Gene Pool, the smaller (4½ x 52) sibling of the Neanderthal HN, which I absolutely loved. This cigar has a San Andrés wrapper and a Pennsylvania Double Ligero, which is unusually high in nicotine. You wouldn’t know it, the cigar is very smooth with a great flavor. If these weren’t in the $11+ range, I would smoke these all the time, so good. Interesting to note, lots of nicotine before bedtime makes for a restless night with crazy dreams, at least that was my experience. It could be that, as Skip pointed out, I’m the oldest young guy he knows, which I took as a compliment since I’m pretty old…anyway, it was a great night, smoking great cigars and hanging out at a great place with great folks.

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day, and after getting some things done around the yard, I relaxed on the porch with a Tatuaje Reserva J21. These are made in Miami with a Habano Ecuador wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filer. This is a 5″ x 50 robusto and is quite an attractive cigar, listed as a full strength offering. This was exactly what I needed after working in the yard and running errands. It started out with some spice and moved to espresso, which we all know I like. It was refined and elegant, and I really liked it. I smoke fewer Tatuajes than I really should, because whenever I smoke one it’s a treat. For some reason, in my mind, it’s a cigar that’s special, in much the same way an Opus or Padron Anniversary is. I don’t why I feel that way, but it’s in my head for some reason, and I don’t end up picking them up as often as I should. I’ll work on changing that.