Tag Archives: fuente

by | March 26, 2022 · 8:31 am

News: Smokin Tabacco Announces Second CF-CF Fundraiser

I was able to spend a little time with Matt and Nicole at the TPE in Vegas when I was there and they are doing good things. This is one of them! Of course, the CF-CF is a good cause, doing good work in the DR. I was quite amazed one year when my daughter bought me a Toast Across America pack for my birthday because of the charitable aspect. It’s not like her to buy me cigars! One day I hope to get back to the DR and visit the Fuentes, they make some of my favorite cigars, in the meantime, I’ll throw some support to the CF-CF whenever possible.

 

Smokin Tabacco is proud to officially announce the second Smokin  Tabacco Cigar Family Charitable Foundation Fundraiser. Last year, Smokin Tabacco raised  $7,000 for CF-CF and presented a check to Cynthia Fuente for the donation in May of last year.  This effort was made possible through a raffle system where raffle tickets were sold through  SmokinTabacco.com and numbers were emailed out. The raffle was then run and then numbers  were pulled live on The Smokin Tabacco Show announcing the winners as well as the final  amount raised. The show was The Smokin Tabacco Show’s One Year Anniversary episode and  featured guests such as William Cooper, Matt Booth, Cynthia Fuente, Kurt Kendall, Dan  Thompson and more with Jon Carney playing host. 

 

For 2022, we have set a goal to beat last year’s amount of $7,000. There will be some similar  raffle items and more this year although the final line up could change by the end as many folks  add prizes in while the raffle runs over it’s six week period. Additional prizes will be announced  as soon as they are available but so far you can win prizes from brands such as Arturo Fuente,  Room101, La Flor Dominicana, Micallef, JC Newman, Tatuaje, United Cigars and Drew Estate.  The raffle system will be a little different this year and it will be hosted via a third-party raffle  system called RallyUp instead of the Smokin Tabacco website. Tickets will be $5 a piece and as  always, the more tickets you buy the better your chances are to win. The tickets will go on sale  on Monday March 28th  at 9 AM and will run until Monday May 9th. The winners will be pulled  on a special May 10th live episode of The Smokin Tabacco Show. More information will follow  as the fundraiser proceeds.  

 

About Cigar Family Charitable Foundation 

The Cigar Family Charitable Foundation (sometimes referred to as CF-CF) began in 2001 when  long time cigar industry business partners, the Fuente and Newman families, formalized the  dream of improving people’s lives in the mountainous Bonao region of the Dominican Republic.  By focusing on families, they hoped to give the children in this cigar producing region an  opportunity for a better future. 

 

About Smokin Tabacco

Smokin Tabacco was founded in September of 2019 by Matt Tabacco. It is a cigar media blog  and news website which also includes two hit cigar podcasts known as The Smokin Tabacco  Show starring Matt Tabacco and Nicole Fantasia with occasional guest host and industry insider  Jonathan Carney of La Flor Dominicana and The Spare Notes Series with Matt Tabacco and  William Cooper of Cigar-Coop. For more information about Smokin Tabacco or to catch up on  what is happening in the industry, head over to www.SmokinTabacco.com

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by | February 21, 2021 · 10:47 am

The Humidity Cigars Subscription Pack

I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about monthly subscription services, and they seem like a great idea for the right consumer. Heck, they might even be good for someone like me who gets preconceived notions about what I might like or not like based on the blend, appearance, or even the bands or packaging. I know, it’s wrong, but it’s a reality isn’t it? You do smoke with your eyes first, after all, it’s part of the overall experience. That being said, I’ve never committed to a monthly subscription service, I know there are good ones out there, but I’ve always had a large enough stockpile of cigars here in the past and always seemed to have a steady flow of new cigars to try. That is until recently. I don’t know that I want to commit monthly, but I don’t mind putting up a given dollar amount now and then and having someone send me some cigars of their choosing, this model would appealed to me. Anyway, the folks at Humidity Cigars contacted me and sent me one of their monthly kits, and I’ve subsequently placed an order for another one. The one they sent included the Finch and Jackdaw Robustos from Blackbird Cigars, a Medrano Toro Maduro and an Arturo Fuente Chateau Fuente King B. It was a year ago this week that I posted about the Blackbird Cigars along with a video, which apparently you now have to go to YouTube to watch because YouTube won’t allow me to embed videos here anymore due to age restrictions. Nice. They also included one of their can cozies and masks, along with a nice pocket tasting notebook from tastejournal.co.uk. Now, I can’t guarantee that every months subscription comes with all the goodies, but the presentation was very nice. The cigars came in a sealed bag with Humi-smart packs in it and were in good condition as checked with my Humidimeter.

 

Of course, I smoked the Finch first, I’ve smoked this one before and enjoyed it, I like Sumatra a lot and this didn’t disappoint. It’s nice and sweet like I expect. Oddly, the Jackdaw Connecticut is one I hadn’t smoked, and still have one from the TPE show last year! This is a case like I mentioned above, Connecticuts are low on my “try” list. I like them enough, there’s just a select few I really like, and it’s not a genre that I get stoked about sampling. This one, however, it a very nice representation of the genre. It’s a flavorful Ecuador shade wrapped cigar. As with all of the Blackbird Cigars I’ve smoked, the construction is very good. In my area, this line is being distributed by Mark Weissenberger (formerly of Rocky Patel), who is also handling Danli Honduras Tobacco, who makes my favorites, the Don Juan Calaveras, Marchettis, and Clowns. I should be able to find them in my local shops.

 

I hadn’t heard of the Medrano cigar in the pack before. This was a dark Maduro with a foot band that had Five-Four on it. The website for the company gives little info apart from that it has a San Andrés wrapper, Honduran binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. It was a 6” x 54 (maybe that’s what the Five-Four means?) toro and was well made. It smoked well, had a nice flavor, very much what I expected a San Andrés wrapped cigar should taste like, and gave me a good smoking experience. Looking at the website, I’m not sure if they are a cigar company or an apparel company, as they have more clothes than cigars for sale, but perhaps they are just getting started. They need some background info about themselves on the site! Best of luck to them, they seem to be headed in the right direction.

 

The ringer in this pack was the Chateau Fuente King B. I don’t know if it’s my age, or the time I got started smoking cigars, or what, but for me, a Fuente with a Black or White band is always a special thing. When I want to smoke a great cigar, I reach for a Hemingway, Don Carlos, or Añejo, and I’m never disappointed. This King B seems to fit into that family somehow. It’s still in the Gran Reserva line, but has the black band. It’s a 6” x 55 Belicoso with a cedar sleeve, and has a Sungrown Ecuador wrapper. While this isn’t quite on the level of the aforementioned three cigars, it‘ s still quite a good cigar, and while I haven’t smoke a green banded Fuente in a while, my recollection is that it appeals to me more than most of those. It was a nice, coffee and woody flavored cigar. It’s one I wouldn’t mind having in my humidor.

 

Humidity Cigars seems to have a good model, two cigars for $20, four for $35, and they are in PA, not far from me, which is good for a small percentage of my readers :-). I appreciate their consideration, and I’ll let you know how the subsequent order ends up (I should have used and assumed name and address…but I’m not that sneaky…). Maybe I’ll get to Camphill one of these days and meet up with the owners (I have lots of maybes in a post-pandemic future).

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | June 16, 2019 · 8:41 am

Fathers Day, a Diamond Crown and Various Cigar Stuff

I didn’t smoke any new cigars this week, so this will be pretty short and sweet (every time I say that I end up running on or a few paragraphs!). I have to work today too, and I’m up early writing. It was another busy news week. I skipped a few items that I thought were less interesting, I doubt many of you are really that interested in Scandinavian Tobacco Group looking for a new president for General Cigar since Régis Broersma is leaving that post. I figure if you’re in line for that job you aren’t relying on this site to hear that news. Also Drew Estate had a few that I skipped over, one about Acid and Tabak Frenchies, which are cigarillos, which I care little about, and another about 60 ring Tabak Espeicales with I should have posted but I had already had a few news items that day and couldn’t fit it in. I actually would smoke a 60 ring Tabak Especiale. Another one I missed was the announcement of the Protocol Official Misconduct Corona Gorda. Cubariqueño has a history of following their releases with a corona gorda line extension, so this is no surprise. Plenty of other sites had the news, I’m sure. Anyway, I can only do so much, and, regrettably, it seems that every year at IPCPR time when all this news comes out I get some unsubscribes from the mailing list. Sorry for the barrage of e-mails. I guess I can see if I can adjust the e-mails to twice a week or something.

 

Anyway, there were a could great cigars I smoked this week, a few of which took me back twenty years or so into my cigar smoking history. I had a Fuente Don Carlos No.2, the 5.875 x 55 pyramid, was this one of the the original three vitolas in the line? I know the Robusto and the No.3 were original, but I can’t remember if the No. 2 was or if it came along later. Anyway, I have memories of smoking a Don Carlos Robusto in Vegas in 1997, many more over the years of course, but this is a cigar that has remained consistent in flavor over the years, an amazing thing. Same goes for the Hemingway line, consistent over the years. I like to have some of these in the humidor all the time, classics like the Don Carlos, Hemingway, and Añejo because they are just great cigars!

 

Another cigar I smoked that brought back some Vegas memories was a Diamond Crown (hey, another DC!). J.C. Newman was kind enough to send me a cool little four-pack of Diamond Crown No. 4s a week or so ago, so I had to light one up yesterday. Here is another cigar that hasn’t changed over the years. It’s a mild, complex Connecticut Shade cigar. There’s a couple interesting factoids about this cigar. When they released this cigar, it was only available west of the Mississippi. At the same time, Opus X was only available east of the Mississippi. These are two completely different cigars, but this caused a bit of a competition between the two, and some trading went on. Another interesting thing was that Diamond Crowns all had 54 ring gauges which was HUGE at the time. Anyway, The Diamond Crown remains a classic Connecticut Shade cigar, it’s rich and complex, it had a good flavor with a perfect burn and construction and is hard to beat. In the picture here from 1998 in Vegas I’m smoking a Diamond Crown No. 2, and my wife (also pictured!) is smoking one too!

 

Speaking of J.C. Newman, they have been running a contest here for the last few months, if you haven’t entered yet I strongly recommend doing so!  Click the ad at the top of the right sidebar, or right here, and enter to win a beautiful Brick House Humidor. It’ll be ending at the end of June, so get to it!  Many thanks to J.C. Newman for their continuing support. Please flood them with entries and make them give one of you a humidor so that they know that people are seeing their message here on CigarCraig.com!

 

That’s it for today. I’m going to get through the day at work so I can come home and smoke my traditional Father’s day cigar, one of my last two 1999 Esperanza para los Niños toros. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of my buying the box of them and the last cigar from that box will be smoked. It’s been a good run. If you don’t know about them, search my site, I’ve told the story several times.  Have a great day, until he next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | January 2, 2019 · 10:56 am

Last Cigar of ‘18 and First Cigars of ‘19

I wrapped up 2018 with a quiet evening on the porch. I worked all day, my wife was working, and there was a hockey game on the iPad. I selected a cigar that had been in the humidor since September of 2009, when I received it in a trade with an only friend who warned me that it might be tight or plugged (it was a trade heavily in my favor, I wasn’t worried). I knew this gentleman from the old Usenet days, he’s generous to a fault. One time he flew me to North Carolina for a cigar event in his plane for nothing, and wanted to trade me something when I tried to give him a gift for doing it! I think he even bought me lunch upon arrival. Your money was never any good around this guy. Anyway, the cigar in question was a Partagas Churchill de Luxe Havana. This is a classic 7″ x 47 Churchill, and was a beautiful looking cigar with a milk chocolate-brown wrapper. As advertised, even after the better part of a decade in the humidor, and one of my drier humidors at that, this cigar’s draw was on the snugger side. The upside of this was that it allowed for a slower smoking time, and more time to savor the delicate, floral flavor that this interesting Havana cigar brought to the table. This was a unique smoke, and it brought to mind a similar experience I had with a Cuban Punch Churchill a few years ago. It turned out to be a nice smoke to end a weird year.

 

To get 2019 started right, I went with a classic favorite, the Arturo Fuente Añejo No. 50. I’m fortunate to have a box of these 5.25 x 50 Robustos in the humidor and dip into it on occasion. The story is that the Añejo was born the year Fuente had a disaster and lost an Opus X wrapper crop and put Broadleaf wrappers on all the Opus bunches. Whether that’s the case or not, it’s a spectacular cigar to my palate and I’ll smoke an Añejo over an Opus X any day of the week. It presents cocoa and espresso with refinement and panache all day long. Just writing about it makes me want to smoke another one. I need to get my hands on some other sizes, I hear that Shark size is pretty good!

 

Last night I was invited to be a guest on A Facebook live show, and I smoked a La Sirena King Poseidon on the show. Of course, La Sirena is. woman owned cigar company, owned by Arielle Ditkowich, represented by her sister, Mariah, and run by her and her family. I’ve met all of them and they are a great bunch of folks. They are one of my favorite cigar brands, and I’m proud to have them as long time supporters of CigarCraig.com. The King Poseidon is the 6″ x 60 made at La Zona in Esteli and is just a darned good cigar. Flavor descriptors fail me at the moment, but I know when I want a delicious, satisfying cigar, I reach for a La Sirena, and that goes for just about anything in their portfolio, whether it’s the La Sirena, the Oceano made by Quesada, or the Merlin made at La Aurora.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | November 3, 2018 · 10:40 am

Some Mombacho Cigars, a Fuente Añejo and a CAO Nicaragua

Another full work week under my belt, getting in the swing of working an unusual schedule. This week I had Monday and Wednesday off. I should have announced the winner of the great Big Papi humidor from El Artista Wednesday, but I ended up posting a news item about Foundry Cigars reuniting with founder Michael Giannini and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters instead while smoking a really old  Casa Toraño Maduro Lancero. Congrats again to Matt Hopper! One other news item that I posted was that Drew Newman, General Council of JC Newman Cigar Co., spoke at the FDA Conference, which was actually the Tobacco Product Application Review: A Public Meeting, which was a multi day event with many speakers, the full agenda can be found here:  https://www.fda.gov/downloads/TobaccoProducts/NewsEvents/UCM622683.pdf.  I added this link in the comments of the original post, but the article could have been a little more specific about what the FDA meeting was all about.  Anyway, lets talk about a few cigars I smoked this week!

 

Last year I smoked a few Mombacho cigars, the Tierra Volcan and the Liga Maestro, and I remember really liking one, and not really liking the other, and I couldn’t recall which one was which.  I came across a pair of them in the humidor and decided it was about time to figure it out once and for all (and try not to forget this time!). Both samples were from the 2016 vintage and came from the 2017 IPCPR show. I started with the Tierra Volcan in the 5½” x 50 Classico size. this is a Nicaraguan Puro with a sun grown Jalapa Habano wrapper, criollo viso Condega Habano binder, and Condega and Jalapa tobaccos in the filler. I really liked this medium bodied cigar, it had a nice, sweet flavor that I appreciated, and it burned very well. This wasn’t the one I didn’t like!

 

I smoked the Tierra Volcan on Monday, on Wednesday I smoked the Mombacho Liga Maestro, and it’s sometimes hard for me to get excited about smoking a cigar when, in the back of my head, I think maybe I’m not going to like it. This was the 5″ x 54 “Gordo”, I think, it didn’t seem all that “gordo” to me…but it was certainly five inches long, that is for sure. this one is also a Nicaraguan puro, with a shade grown Jalapa Habano wrapper, Jalapa Criollo binder and Condega and Jalapa fillers. I enjoyed this cigar too! I just have to think that when I smoked one or the other of these two cigars before I must have eaten something that conflicted with the flavor of the cigar and put me off. While the Liga Maestro wasn’t as sweet as the Tierra Volcan, it was more on the savory side, it was still a very good tasting cigar, one I’ll happily smoke again. I really look forward to a time when circumstances are such that I can, one day, visit Grenada again and tour Casa Favilli, as I understand it’s a beautiful factory. My brief visit to Granada in 2011 was little more than a drive by.

 

I went back to a favorite, the classic Fuente Añejo No. 50, on Thursday. Sometimes one just needs comfort food, and this cigar is so good.  The barrel aged Connecticut  Broadleaf wrapper compliments the Opus X filler blend (or whatever the blend, I don’t care because it’s good) so well. It’s loaded with wonderful cocoa and espresso flavors that I love.  I am fortunate to have a box of these resting in the humidor and will try to keep my hands out of it long enough to let it age a while, it hasn’t even been in there a year yet. These are delicious cigars, I have some other classic cigars from the Fuente family that I will revisit in the near future, the Hemingway Classic is calling to me.

 

Friday evening after work, and before going out to the movies, I ran down to Old Havana Cigars south of West Chester, PA to have a visit with Ricky Rodriguez and finally smoke a CAO Nicaragua. I bought some Toros, as that’s my go-to size, and it’s the only size I saw there. They say this is the first CAO cigar that is Nicaraguan-centric in the blend, which I find hard to believe, but now that I think about it, I guess it’s true. The blend is a Jamastran wrapper and binder, and filler from Jalapa, Esteli and Condega. I love hanging out with Ricky, he’s an actual friend, I’ve known him a long time and try not to miss him when he’s in the area. He’s blended this CAO Nicaragua to be different from other Nicaraguan cigars, it’s not heavy, it’s medium bodies with a peasant sweetness and I really enjoyed it. Considering I smoked it before going out to a late dinner, it was a good thing it wasn’t a strong cigar! I actually wanted to smoke another one last night, but I got done work too late and didn’t feel like going out for a cigar when I got home. I’ll probably smoke one after work today!

 

That’s all I have for today, Hopefully you remembered to mess with your clocks if you live in a place that does that. I hate that it will be dark earlier for the foreseeable future! I really wish they’d just leave daylight savings time in place year round, but I probably say that every year! I can’t wait for spring! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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