Tag Archives: general cigars

by CigarCraig | October 23, 2013 · 7:59 pm

An Ora Vivo, a Macanudo, a Padilla and the Gurkha Cigar Contest Winner!

Wow. Monday was a huge day as far as website traffic and comments went. It actually eclipsed my best day ever, last December when I was giving away a bunch of Drew Estate cigars and swag! I seem to have severely underestimated the Gurkha Nation, they are a force to be reckoned with! We have a crazy number of entries, stay tuned for the winner announcement after we talk about a couple cigars I smoked this week!

Sunday afternoon I took a really long walk with a Ora Vivo Armand Assante 7½” x 58. This is a cigar that was released that the 2013 IPCPR show by Victor Vitale’s Legacy Brands. I published a story and video about it here. This example was a gift from my dear friend Mike Perry up in New York State, and I’ve since purchased a robusto while I was in New Hampshire a few weeks ago. Who would have thought I would smoke this great big cigar before the much more manageable 5” x 54 in October when it’s getting cooler and the days are getting shorter! The one word which comes to mind with this cigar is “elegance”. The band is beautiful, the wrapper is flawless and the smoke is smooth and tasty. It’s an expensive cigar, but I smoked it for two-plus hours and enjoyed every bit of it. Another winner from Victor Vitale. This would be incredible in a lancero!

Monday evening I stepped out of my comfort zone a little and selected an IPCPR sample from the General Cigar booth. Macanudo Estate Reserve is the new ultra-premium offering commemorating the brand’s 45th anniversary. Most Macanudos have a Mexican binder, this one has a Dominican binder that’s 8-10 years old, covered with a Connecticut Shade wrapper. The cigar is beautiful to look at and burned perfectly, with an equally perfect draw. The No. III I smoked was a standard 5″ x 50 with a perfect round head. It was mild and smooth and not without very nice flavors. At $14 a piece, it should be perfect, as far as I’m concerned, but I’m a picky bastard. These are presented in boxes of ten in individual coffins at retail. It would make a spiffy gift for the guy who likes milder cigars, that’s for sure. It’s one of those cigars that I’m thankful to have the opportunity to smoke.

Tuesday afternoon we settled on our old house, which had been on the market for the last year. To celebrate, after my wife and I went out to a nice dinner, I pulled out a Padilla Studio Tobac Figurado which had been given to me by my favorite local cigar rep, Oliva‘s Mike Staiber. This is a 6″ x 60 perfecto which was a joint venture between Padilla Cigars and Oliva’s Studio Tobac arm. It uses an Ecuador Habano wrapper and Nicaraguan fillers. To be honest, I expected to have my head blown off, but this cigar bordered on mild. I’m not complaining, mind you, it was great fun to smoke and super tasty. I never had to touch it up, and really had a hard time putting it down. It was awesome. This is another once in a lifetime smoke for me, probably, and it was worth the time spent smoking it for sure. It was later than I usually go for a smoke, usually in that case I’d pick something smaller, but this was a celebratory smoke and I wanted something special. I got something special, it was delightful down to the tiniest nub (and I think I’m officially allowed to use the word “nub” since I’m talking about a cigar from the same manufacturer of the Nub line!) Thanks Mike!

Contest Winner

OK, I know, everyone just wants to know who won the Gurkha prize pack I put together. As I said earlier, the turnout was awesome. We had 193 entries, almost doubling up the previous best showing. If this is any indication, this Christmas contests is going to be pretty rough (for me!). Anyway, I plugged 193 into the Random.org random number generator and it spit back the number 65. Give me a while to figure out who that was…..OK, I’m back. The winner is Gabriel!
I need you to e-mail me your contact information so I can get this out to you. I don’t want to have to chase you down!! Thanks to everyone for entering! Contests are always a lot of fun, which is one of the reasons I torture myself and my family every December for 2 weeks! Many thanks again to Gurkha for making this possible.

That’s enough for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

4 Comments

Filed under Contest, IPCPR, Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, Contest, general cigars, Gurkha, Legacy Brands, macanudo, oliva, Ora Vivo Armand Assante, Padilla, Studio Tobac, Victor Vitale

by CigarCraig | June 26, 2013 · 8:36 pm

A Bunch of Cigars: UF-13 Dark, Reinado, Draig, NicaRoma and a La Gloria Cubana

I’ve had a good cigar week so far! It started Sunday afternoon when I decided to treat myself to one of my rare Liga Privada Serie Unico UF-13 Dark. I know when I want to have a really outstanding cigar experience I can rely on something Liga Privada or one of it’s cousins from Drew Estate, an Undercrown or a Chateau Real (maduro). So I hit the back deck with the UF-13 dark and clipped off the fancy fan tailed cap. An aside, I always feel a little bad lopping off fancy caps. I love the look, it really ads to the presentation, but it’s such a waste of the roller’s time making something that’s going to get cut off right off the bat. I know, they are sitting there all day making things that have the sole purpose of being burned away to ashes, but that’s the way my twisted mind works. Always thinking in terms of practicality. Anyway, the UF-13 Dark is a fabulous example of the art, and is a tasty cigar. Loads of lush, full flavors and tons of smoke. It ranks up there with my favorites in the the line.

After a special dinner out with the family at a fairly new Italian restaurant up the road from us (I had a chicken parmigiana the size of a dinner plate, which I also enjoyed for dinner Monday night) I pulled out another sure thing cigar, a Reinado Grand Empire Reserve in the original robusto size. this cigar was given to my by brand owner Antonio Lam when we met up in New Jersey a few months ago. Once again, a perfect cigar. the draw and burn were dead on perfect, and it was loaded with flavor. Like the earlier cigar, it was full and lush and satisfying. I’m glad these are coming out in more sizes, because the toro I smoked a while ago was great, more of a good thing! As often happens, I was sad when this cigar was done! If you can get your hands on these do it!

Monday evening after some running around, a corona was going to fit into my evening walk rather nicely, so I thought I’d give the Emilio Draig K corona another shot. I was less than impressed with the first corona I smoked, but I recall really digging a pre-production toro that Gary Griffith had given me last year. I had hoped some humidor time would help, and this had been in my humidor over 6 months. I likened this cigar to an over roasted coffee (who’s brand will remain nameless due to their recent smoking policy) with dark, almost burnt flavors. The jet black Columbian maduro wrapper was reminiscent of the original Habano2000 wrapper that came out in the late 90s that was often compared to Nomex, which is a flame retardant material often used on electrical wiring. This wrapper didn’t want to burn and required frequent touch ups and relights. I can safely say that this is just about the only cigar in Gary’s stable of cigars, and brands he distributes, for that matter, that I really have trouble with. That’s not to say I didn’t burn my fingers nubbing it, I’m the eternal optimist when it comes to cigars, and I almost always find some little thing to enjoy. Often it the time relaxing with a cigar that makes me forgive a lot. Oddly, I’ll continue to try these when I have the opportunity.

Tuesday was “something new” night, and I went with a cigar from the folks at Villiger that I hadn’t tried yet. The NicaRoma line is a Nicaraguan cigar that is 60% long filler and 40% Grade A Picadura, Picadura being a fancy word for scraps or chaveta cuts left over from the rolling tables. I’m certainly no snob when it comes to cigars, and I like a budget cigar as much as the next guy. This line comes in Ecuador Connecticut, Habano and Maduro wrappers and is on;y available in a toro size. Guess which one I had to try first? Of course, the maduro, which is Mexican San Andreas, do I have to say it’s my favorite wrapper? Anyway, I gave this the V-cut and it drew and burned perfectly. This is a very nice smoke to my palate, not complicated, but plenty of medium bodied flavor that has those dark coffee and cocoa notes I like so much. the website lists the MSRP on these at $3.99, certainly well worth it and deserving of a try. It wasn’t until the very end of the smoke that I got any sense that it has short filler. I look forward to trying the other two wrappers, and thank you to Anne at Villiger for sending these along. I’ve already shared a few and hope to be able to include a guest review in the near future.

Finally, this evening I decided to smoke a La Gloria Cubana Rabito de Cochina, which comes three cigars to a little plexi-topped coffin box. These cigar have been around since the 2011 IPCPR show where I was first introduced to them. They are a 6½ x 46 cigar with a curly pig-tailed cap, wrapped in a ribbon. I picked up the box of three on a visit to Cigars International’s store in Hamburg, PA on my last visit, I think they set me back about $10, putting them on a par, price-wise with the NicaRoma, which is astounding. The construction is what I’d call a Cuban style, as it’s a loose roll, with a very free draw. I have mixed emotions about this cigar: on the one hand, I’m glad I still have two left, on the other hand I’m sad that I only have two! This was a terrific cigar, as long as you smoked it gently like one would a lancero. It had nice, well balanced flavors and was an excellent representation of the La Gloria brand. Considering you can get three excellent cigars for, basically, the price of one, these aren’t just a great way to spend an hour or so, but very good value. I have been keeping these in the Adorini Cedro Deluxe Humidor from HumidorDiscount.com which has been working very well. I’ve only had it a few weeks, and it was very quick to get set up and ready to go. So far I would have no problem recommending this humidor. It’s not a cheap humidor, it’s certainly well made and works quite well! My thanks to HumidorDiscount.com for letting me try this humidor out.

I’ve rambled on long enough here! Sunday’s post will undoubtedly have something to do with the Cigarnival at Famous Smokeshop’s location in Easton, PA on Saturday. I’ve never been to an event of this kind, so I’m not sure what to expect, but I hope to see a few friends there!

Until then,

CigarCraig

3 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Adorini, cigar, cigars, Draig, drew estate, Emilio, general cigars, La Gloria Cubana, liga privada, NicaRoma, Reinado, UF-13, Villiger

by CigarCraig | June 9, 2013 · 9:43 am

A La Musa, a Wicked Indie, a Chinnock Cellars and a Prototype

Thursday turned into a rainy evening, and I would have liked to have gotten to a fairly local shop for an event, but I couldn’t manage the energy to get out the door. I took the dog for a quick walk and then settled into my chair in the garage and fired up a La Musa Robusto from Emilio Cigars. This is the first of the re-named version of this cigar I’ve sampled, and it’s every bit as good as the numerous Grimalkin cigars I’ve enjoyed. You may recall that this was re-branded last year, but it remains a terrific smoke. There’s a complexity and subtlety in this cigar that I appreciate, bright flavors dance around the palate. This was a very enjoyable, finger-burner that really hit the spot.

East India Trading Company is the oldest trademark in the world. It was purchased a a few years ago by Gurkha Cigars, under which they’ve released some wallet friendly marques, the first of which being the Wicked Indie. This has been out for a few years and I just got around to picking a few up on my recent visit to Señor Juan‘s in Belmar, NJ. This was a very enjoyable cigar for me, it was right up the middle as far as strength goes and had nice flavor. I enjoyed this one while sitting in the garage watching it pour rain. Sorry, it’s just too much work walking the dog with an umbrella and a cigar. The dog got a brief walk then I sat down for my smoke.

Saturday afternoon the rain had stopped and I hit the pavement with a Chinnock Cellars Terroir torpedo which was a gift from @MattSRoss81 when I met him a few months ago. This is a nice looking cigar from a California wine company of the same name. It has a neat pewter looking metal band that slid off with a little effort so as not to damage the wrapper. These were blended by Willie Herrera and manufactured at El Titan de Bronze in Miami. The cigar is nicely built with a light Ecuador wrapper and burned dead even and drew perfectly with only a small snip off the torpedo head. This is a buttery smooth cigar, and it was a very nice companion for a nice, although overcast afternoon. Thanks again Matt!

After a nice dinner of some big ol’ barbecue ribs and corn on the cob, I flossed and decided one Willie Herrera blended cigar wasn’t enough for one day, so I dug out a cigar that I received on my recent Cigar Safari trip. This was a prototype of a box pressed cigar Willie’s working on, and I have to say it’s a winner. I hope this one makes it into production because as good as the Herrera Esteli is, and it’s very good, I think I liked this better. The cuadrado press on this 6″ x 50 cigar was very comfortable to smoke as it was rectangular as opposed to square, but not quite tongue depressor thin. The V-cut I gave it was about perfect for the available real estate on the cap and I got a great draw down until I burned my fingers. It was buttery smooth and loaded with flavor. Considering my penchant for stronger cigars, this, along with the Chinnock Cellars, were medium bodied, smooth cigars that I really, really enjoyed!

Humidor Update

I filled it. I probably could have given it another week, but it looked and felt right so I loaded it up with a selection of La Gloria Cubanas, some Foundrys, a few Macanudo 1968s and a handful of OpusX (just to mix it up a little). I got at least 40 large cigars in there and it appears to be holding steady humidity. So far, I’ve taken the hygrometer at face value, I may drop a digital unit in just to check it. I will leave it alone for a couple of weeks and smoke something out of it and really get an idea how its working. I remain impressed with the Adorini humidor. I like everything about it so far. One interesting features of this humidor is that it came with plastic label holders that snap on the dividers so one can identify ones inventory. I suppose this would be handy if you had various unbanded cigars, but the dividers, in my opinion, are too short. I have cigars stacked three deep, and the dividers only come up to the second layer. The system is clever with the slotted interior that not only allows for flexible placement of the dividers, but also increases the airflow by providing channels around the cigars. More to come.

That’s it for today, time to get out there and enjoy this nice Sunday.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

2 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Chinnock Cellars, cigar, cigars, Emilio, general cigars, Gurkha, humidor, La Gloria Cubana, La Musa, Wicked Indie, Willie Hererra

by CigarCraig | February 26, 2013 · 5:10 pm

A Couple La Gloria Cubana Cigars and One That Used To Be a Favorite…

Sunday afternoon turned out to be a fairly nice day, so I thought I’d pick something on the larger side. I have been enjoying a box of La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especiale Cubano for about a year and a half, and hadn’t had one in a while. This is a 6.5 x 58 parejo with a lighter colored wrapper that is a special cross bred Connecticut grown in Honduras. The idea behind this cigar was to have a fairly neutral wrapper that doesn’t overshadow the blend. I took a late afternoon walk with the dog and enjoyed the heck out of this smoke. It’s a smooth and flavorful blend that was very enjoyable. The quality of the tobaccos and the construction is obvious, it’s one of the reasons that the La Gloria Cubana line has been among my favorites over the past 15 years or so. Certainly there have been changes, and there have been a lot of line extensions, but there have been very few LGCs that I haven’t enjoyed over the years.

One of the first cigars to explore the world of large ring gauges was La Gloria Cubana back in the early part of the ’00s with the Serie R line. Sure, there was the Casa Blanca Jeroboam and Half Jeroboam as well as the Puros Indois Chief (10×66, 5×66 and 18×66 respectively), which were the early pioneers in big ring gauge, but the Serie R brought the format into the mainstream. By today’s standard, 52, 54 and 56 ring aren’t overly large, but at the time it was quite a big deal. I picked up a 5-pack a bit over a year ago on a visit to Famous Smoke Shop‘s retail location in Easton, PA in the No.5 maduro, a 5½ x 54 robusto. This was my Monday evening smoke. The dark brown Connecticut broadleaf wrapper is nice and oily. I have to admit the first couple I smoked out of this 5er were disappointing, I thought they were pretty flat and flavorless. Perhaps the humidor time has helped, but this was a nice, medium bodies smoke that burned perfectly, and had one characteristic that I really appreciate, a nice, flat ember. It’s a thing of beauty when you tap off the ash and it’s perfectly flat. I love that. This was a nice smoke. I was in the mood for a Serie N actually, and am sadly out of those, but this was a very acceptable alternative. Different, but tasty.

Later in the evening I had to run to Philadelphia to unlock a car. In an effort to simplify things, and instead of having to rush home after work and run out to the Flyers game, I sent my two sons to the game. I had to make a 50 minute or so drive, so I grabbed a cigar. Last year I picked up a five pack or two of Maria Mancini Robusto Largas when I last visited JRs store in Whippany, NJ. This is a cigar that I’ve really enjoyed over the years and always had in my humidors. I met up with Peter, from ACigarSmoker.com and recommended these, and was a little surprised that he wasn’t impressed. I think the one I smoked Monday may have been the first from that batch, and I now understand his reaction. These used to be a very rich and flavorful cigar, they had a distinctive flavor that I appreciated. This one was off. It burned very well, considering it’s an under $3 cigar, but it was a shadow of what it used to be. It’s a shame that the blend changed, I guess I was lucky to have an inexpensive cigar that I really liked for as long as I did. I may still have some older ones floating around. It’s not that it was a bad smoke, it just wasn’t what it should have been.

So that’s it, three cigars that I’ve smoked a bunch of in the past. Nothing new or unusual. Sometimes when it’s winter, things are a little crazy, and life gets busy, it’s nice to take comfort in some old friends and not have to think too hard and just enjoy a cigar for what it is. Believe me, When I smoke a cigar it’s for the sheer enjoyment, and whatever I write on these pages is off the cuff, pretty much from memory impressions. I enjoy something about just about every cigar I smoke.

I’m off to yet another Flyers game, until the next time,

CigarCraig

5 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, general cigars, JR Cigars, La Gloria Cubana, Maria Mancini

by CigarCraig | February 20, 2013 · 7:10 pm

A Couple of Thurman Thomas Cigars, A Macanudo and CRA News

Since it’s a new legislative session in Washington D.C., there is a new bill in the house to exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation. It’s more important than ever to write to your representative and ask him or her to co-sponsor the bill.

“The premium cigar industry supports about 85,000 jobs – from manufacturers to small retailers – throughout the United States,” said Congressman Bill Posey. “Washington bureaucrats should turn their attention to promoting private sector job growth and protecting our rights, not chipping away at our freedoms through bureaucratic overreach.”

Cigar Rights of America makes it very easy to e-mail your representatives. Go to their site or the IPCPR site to send an e-mail. Just fill in the blanks. Do it. Now. I’ll wait. 🙂

A few weeks ago I received some samples from StogieBoys.com of their Thurman Thomas Hall of Fame line of cigars. I’m not a football fan, so at first I had Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in my head, and former senator Strom Thurmond, and even Thurman Munson’s name made an appearance I come to learn that Thurman Thomas was a Hall Of Fame Football player who likes cigars and for whom this cigar is named. I suppose it would have been more appropriate to feature these a couple weeks ago when the game with all the hyped up commercials was on, but I had just received them and I wanted to let them rest. Here’s one of the problems I face here in the blogosphere: a handful of bloggers receive the same samples so everyone is featuring the same cigars on their sites. I like to give new arrivals a couple weeks rest in the humidor so often I am a couple weeks late smoking the cigars that everyone else reviewed already. I’m sure you’ll have seen a handful of reviews of these, and the Arandoza and Cuenca cigars are recent examples that spring to mind (both excellent smokes, by the way). Anyway, I received Toro sized samples of the natural and maduro versions of this cigar. The cigars are very nice looking, the wrappers are both nice and clean, and they are rolled in the telltale style of General Cigar Co., they have the rounded head that all of the GCC products have. Of course, I chose the maduro first and it lived up to my expectation. It was a nice, smooth, tasty basic maduro. Consistent in construction and flavor from start to finish. The natural version had a familiar flavor, I know I’ve smoked something very similar before. It was a reasonably mild smoke, but the flavor was very nice, leathery kind of flavor. It was pretty smooth, like it’s maduro sibling. These were both very nice cigars for the $3.95 price point. I wouldn’t say they were particularly surprising, but good, no-nonsense cigars that were satisfying and easy to smoke. Thanks to the folks at StogieBoys.com for their support and for sharing these smokes.

Last night I reached in the humidor and came out with a Macanudo 1968 Robusto. I figured I’d keep with the General Cigar Co. theme. This was different from the Thurman Thomas cigars by quite a bit. First, it’s actually stronger and spicier, which sounds strange for a Macanudo. I recall back to my first premium cigar experience back in the mid 1990s. A buddy and I picked up a couple of Macanudo Duke of Devons to smoke on our lunch break to see what the fuss was with the premium cigars. We had been enjoying our Gacia y Vegas and Backwoods at lunch time every Friday and were ready to take the next step. Of course, we didn’t have cutters, so we pierced the caps with knives or whatever we had, and lit these babies up. It’s actually a wonder I went any further with premium cigars after that, as I remember it being kind of a non-event. I really didn’t get the flavor I thought I would. I was a cigarette smoker at the time, so obviously that had something to do with my need for more flavor. I can honestly enjoy a regular old Macanudo nowdays, but it took a long time to get to this point. I’ll stand by my assertion that there’s not a damned thing wrong with a Macanudo Maduro, it’s a tasty smoke. I digress. The 1968 has some strength and is a nice smoke that I’ve enjoyed on many occasions and under varied circumstances. It’s one of those cigars I pick up when I can’t decide what to smoke and I’m quite happy.

I just wanted to throw this out to anyone who is looking for embroidered or printed stuff, I’ve had amazing luck with Queensboro.com lately. I’ve gotten four polos embroidered for around $36 delivered. Try buying plain polos for that! The link is my referral link, I’ll get $25 credit if someone uses it. That’s my shameless plug of the day. You should use E-Bates too, it puts a couple extra bucks in your pocket every quarter.