Tag Archives: Foundry

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways Day 3: Monte Pascoal Cigars

The first three days have started with technical difficulties that threatened to drive me insane!  If you are seeing this, then I guess everything is back to normal.  It seems that I ran out of room in my database, bad timing, eh? I threw money at the problems and got it fixed, so we are back in business! By the way, I’ve seen a couple entries that looks like they may be duplicates (same IP address, different name).  Let’s keep it to one entry per person please?  Anyway, the winner of the box of Foundry Wells cigars on Day 2 of CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways  is chekk12. Congrats! Send me your info so I can ship this box along to you!

 

Day 3 features 11 delicious Monte Pascoal cigars courtesy of Wes Genzel of Tabacos Mata Fina USA, LLC.   Wes is making his second appearance in as many years (I know, this is only the second year…), and I always enjoy seeing him at the annual trade show.  He’s a super nice guy and the Monte Pascoal cigars are super nice as well.  The winner of today’s contest will receive 11 cigars, there’s a 5 pack of Robustos, a 5 pack of Minutos and a Belicoso.  I’ve personally smoked all of these sizes and they are all excellent!  I really like the 5 pack packaging that is new this year as well, very handy!

You know the drill, leave a comment for a chance to win and check back tomorrow to see if you won and see what tomorrow’s prize will be!

 

Until tomorrow,

 

CigarCraig

Rules

Here’s how you enter: leave a comment.  That’s it, plain and simple.  Tweets don’t count, but feel free to spread the word, only comments on this page count as an entry.  Each day there will be a different prize and the winner will be drawn from that day’s comments. The winner will be announced on the next day’s post. The contest is open to everyone, even if you’ve won one of my contests in the past six months, but once you’ve won, you are ineligible to win again in this series of contests. All prizes will be mailed as soon as I get a chance to go to the post office, or whenever the sponsor decides to ship, whichever is the case, so don’t make me chase down your address!  Please e-mail your contact information to 12days@cigarcraig.com as soon as possible!

Share

52 Comments

Filed under Contest

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways Day 2: Foundry from General Cigar Co.

Yesterday’s response was outstanding! Thanks for all of your comments and support. Please remember to visit the sponsor’s sites, they went out of their way to provide goodies for us. The winner of the Stogieboys.com prize pack on day 1 of CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways is The Commish! Congrats and e-mail me with your details!

 

Today we are featuring what I think is one of the most unique and interesting cigars to come out in quite a while.  Here is some background info:

FOUNDRY is a stark juxtaposition between the old and the new. This visually-arresting collection was inspired by the art form of “steampunk,” which is both a retrospective and futuristic interpretation of innovation.

Visual considerations aside, FOUNDRY’s avant-garde approach extends to its masterfully balanced synthesis of flavors. Featuring an indulgent collection of five proprietary tobaccos from four different countries, each aged between three and six years, Foundry’s foundation is amplified through an eight year old wrapper developed by General Cigar. Called H-47 Pleno Sol, the lustrous wrapper imparts a deeply complex, layered smoking experience like no other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The four-cigar collection is accessibly-priced, and will make its mark on tobacco retail starting in late-October. Foundry features these new cigars: Wells (6”x 50, SRP per cigar is $7.95); Lovelace (6 ¼ ” x 54, SRP per cigar is $8.45); Talbot (5” x 60, SRP per cigar is $8.95) and Cayley (6 ½” x 60 x 56 x 43, SRP per cigar is $9.45). Each frontmark is presented with a unique box design and features both a traditional paper band and a steampunk-inspired metal gear band.

I happen to find this cigar really delicious, considering that none of the four countries that are mentioned above are Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras or Mexico.  I found myself enthralled with the different flavors. For what it’s worth, this will probably make into my top cigars of 2012. Today’s prize is a box of the Wells size, a 6″ x 50 Toro. Thanks to Victoria and Michael and everyone at General Cigar Co. for providing this awesome box of cigars.

 

You know what to do: leave a comment for a chance to win.  If you are The Commish you aren’t eligible to win this time, but make sure you send me your address so I can ship your prize!

 

Until tomorrow,

CigarCraig

Share

66 Comments

Filed under Contest

Some New Cigar Offerings From General Cigar Co. – Foundry, Macanudo and CAO

For the end of the week I decided to base my cigar selections on a theme, and I had some lovely samples from General Cigar Company that have been taunting me from the humidors.  I started off on Thursday evening with the new brand that debuted at the IPCPR show, the Foundry.  The example I smoked was the 5″x60 Talbot.  This is the brainchild of Michael Giannini, the Marketing Director/New Product Developer/Evil Genius at General Cigar.  I’m not entirely sure what his current job title is, but he’s a heck of a guy with a brilliant imagination.  His fascination with the “Steampunk” art movement inspired him to create this cigar which doesn’t use any tobacco from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua or Honduras.  The cigar was an amazing smoke for me.  It was mild, but loaded with interesting flavors that captured my attention for the entire length of the smoke.  I realized that 60 ring gauge cigars hardly phase me anymore, which is odd from someone who would sooner pick up a 42 ring cigar (or a lancero).  I’ve enjoyed quite a few cigars with a 60 ring gauge lately, and I think I liked this particular blend better in the larger format than the 6½x54 Lovelace that I had smoked before.  There were so many unique and interesting flavors, and I’m not one for nuance, that I found it to be a refreshing change, very clean and bright.  This is a winner in my book!

 

Friday evening I went with the New Macanudo Vintage 2006. This cigar has a flawless Connecticut shade wrapper from the 2006 crop, which was reported to be grown under ideal conditions.  I really loved the Vintage 1997, which had a delicious maduro wrapper and was quite fairly priced at around $7 a stick all things considered.  The 2007 is completely different, of course.  The boxes and the shiny metal bands are similar, but the cigar is lighter, with the bit of grassiness you’d expect from the Connecticut wrapper. This cigar brought back memories of some Macanudo panatela seconds I had bought back in the ’90s, maybe it was the firm draw,  or feeling the need to draw harder to get a satisfying mouthful of smoke, I don’t know, by that’s just what went through my head.  I enjoyed the cigar, it was certainly well made and pleasant enough, but my palate enjoys the maduro in this blend the most.  I love the Vintage ’97, and really enjoy the regular old Macanudo Maduro line quite a bit.  This Vintage 2006 will likely be a terrific smoke after year or two in the humidor.

 

Saturday I decided to finish the Trifecta with a CAO Concert Roadie.  This is the latest release in the CAO line, following up the OSA Sol from last year.  Where the OSA Sol was bright, the Concert is a little heavier in body.  The Habano Rosado wrapper is rich and beautiful, and the band is guitar pick shaped, flanked by guitars with the necks wrapping around the cigar.  The boxes are in the style of a Marshall amp, and they even have humidors in the same style, only with working speakers and a jack for an MP3 player (and a volume knob that goes to 11).  The line is a tribute to Nashville, where the CAO brand was headquartered originally.  The cigar was extremely well made, surviving an unfortunate fumble by me resulting in a 3 foot drop to the pavement.  The cigar suffered no ill effects, save for a wrapper split which never really caused a problem.  I think the broadleaf binder added that little something special to the smoke.  It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  Rick Rodriguez will be going “on tour” to promote this new release, so check out the schedule and try to get to an event.  Rick is a cool guy, definitely fun to hang out with.  I hope to catch up with him when he visits here in November.

 

Editorial

 

Yesterday (Saturday 10/6/2012) I made an appearance on Kiss My Ash Radio, Abe from Smoke Inn in Florida’s weekly radio show.  It was my second appearance on the show, and I was honored to be asked back.  The “Bloggers Corner” segment features a cigar review by the featured blogger.  Regular readers will understand that this isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, I’m not one to write flowery, loon-winded third-by-third cigar reviews.  Yesterday I actually had prepared a better review, actually it was included in last Wednesday’s post.  Unfortunately, I started to go on a tangent about how appearance is important to me when I’m smoking , but it kind of got derailed and really sounded like I just took a complete left turn.  The point I was trying to make (doing a play on words on the “blind review” phrase) was that I like to look at a cigar while I’m smoking it, and smoking in the dark, as I’ve found myself doing lately, takes away from the experience.  I just wanted to get that off my chest for anyone that may have heard it and thought I was a yammering idiot.

 

That’s it for today, I still have a couple of the new La Gloria Cubana Trunk Show samples to smoke, but they are pretty big cigar and I have to find the right time to devote to them.  I also need to figure out which ones are which, since they didn’t have samples with the unique tobacco paper bands on them. So, until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

Share

4 Comments

Filed under Editorial, IPCPR, Review

IPCPR 2012 – A La Sirena Merlion and Someone Wins Some Cigars!

Friday evening, the start of a holiday weekend, the (sigh) end of summer, all good reasons to spark up a good cigar.  One of the cigars I’ve really been looking forward to smoking from the IPCPR show is the Merlion from La Sirena and Miami Cigar and Co.  The sample I smoked was the Toro size, measuring 5½” x 54, which is a nice size for a late summer evening.  The cigars are made at the La Aurora factory with Ecuadoran Corojo wrapper, a Brazilian Sumatra binder and Dominican Corojo, Dominican Criollo, Nicaraguan ligero and Brazilian Mata Fina fillers.  It’s a very nice cigar.  I could certainly taste the influence of the La Aurora factory in the blend, there’s a signature flavor that I’m familiar with that stands out.  It performed perfectly and was a nice, satisfying smoke. Another winner from Arielle Ditkowich and the folks at Miami Cigar and Co.  Arielle took a few moments to talk to me at the show, here’s the video.

 

 

Thank you, Arielle, for being one of my first few interviews at the show. Keep making tasty smokes!

 

Contest

 

I know, nobody is interested in video of me talking to a lovely lady about cigars, you just want to know who won this weeks contest!  I was pretty amazed by the response, especially considering I was pretty vague about what the prize was (and I’m sorry, there will not be a Taboada in the prize pack! I had one and that was it).  What is in the package is a pair of Tortuga LE 2011 torpedoes from Victor Vitale, along with a selection of General Cigar Co. goodies, including some new releases and special cigars that are only available at special events. I also threw in a few favorites from my humidors.  As usual, I’ve consulted with the Random Number Generator at Random.org which has produced the number 15, which corresponds to Christian Logay by my figuring.  Congrats Christian!  Please send me your contact info so I can get this in the mail to you!   Again, thanks to everyone for reading along and making the last 3 years very special for me.

 

That’s it for now!  Have a great Labor Day weekend.

 

CigarCraig

 

Share

4 Comments

Filed under Contest, IPCPR, Review, Video