Tag Archives: Grimalkin

by | May 13, 2012 · 8:28 am

A Visit To Classic Cigar Parlor, an Emilio a NicaHabana and a J.C. Newman

Saturday was an absolutely stunning spring day, barely a cloud in the sky, and temps in the mid 70s. My wife had an event that she wanted to attend with one of her clients, the grand opening of Brad’s Raw Foods new facility in Pipersville, PA.  Neither my wife nor I are vegetarian/vegan/raw food people, but we like to try things now and then, and I must admit I like Brad’s Leafy Kale chips to snack on from time to time, weird as it sounds.  Anyway, that’s all beside the point.  I dropped my wife off and back-tracked a couple miles to Doylestown, PA, where I had stumbled across the Classic Cigar Parlor last year.  I wanted to get back to this shop and hang out and have a cigar, and this turned out to be the ideal opportunity.  The shop is reasonably small, but it’s in the second oldest building in Doylestown, dating back to the 1700s.  There are cabinet humidors lining the walls, and behind the counter is the original colonial style fireplace, and the ceiling has massive open beams.  It’s a cool looking place.  They have a hookah lounge upstairs, that I didn’t visit, as I just wanted to pick up a couple cigars and have a smoke.  Frank was working in the store and was a pleasure to spend an hour or so chatting with.  I shopped around a bit and decided to pick up a few Grimalkin toros, as I gave away my last Grimalkins a few months ago, and as I’m checking out, I see he last couple cigars in an Emilio AF1 box on the counter clearance priced at $5.00 each.  Temptation got the best of me, and I had to buy them all.  I fired up one of the AF1 toros and had a seat, enjoying the cigar, as well as talking with Frank and watching what the customers were purchasing.  The Emilio AF1 is a favorite of mine, rich, dark and delicious!  As I lit it I almost thought I was making a mistake, smoking this cigar in the afternoon, on a relatively empty stomach, but it turned out fine.  It’s a nice, strong cigar, but not overwhelming.  I did have to hold my tongue at one point, hearing Frank tell a customer who said he smoked Cohibas that they had the “original Cohiba family’s cigars that are involved in a trademark dispute” and showed him a box of Dominican, yellow band “Cohibas”.  Can someone please introduce me to someone named “Cohiba”, or, better yet, show me a pre-embargo Cohiba?  The word “cohiba” comes from the Taino Indian term for tobacco that Columbus heard them using 500 years ago, and the Dominican yellow band “Cohibas” have been a knock-off that General Cigar has been fighting with for, I’d guess, 15 years or more, and I’m surprised these still make it onto tobacconist’s shelves.  I suppose I shouldn’t complain about a cigar I’ve never smoked, but  I just don’t like to hear mis-information like that.  In retrospect I should have tried to educate Frank after the customer left, but I’ve tried to do that in the past and it didn’t end as well as I had hoped.  Still a nice visit to a cool little shop.

 

Earlier in the day we had met my brother-in-law for breakfast and he had just returned from a trip to Tampa, and gifted me a Robusto from Nicahabana Cigars.  From what I gather from their website, they roll cigars on site, not unlike Cigar Factory New Orleans, and have a wide range of sizes and blends.  This cigar was a pretty thing, with a nice, dark, oily wrapper.  I probably should have let it rest in my humidor for a few weeks, but I impatiently fired it up.  It was a beautiful evening and I just wanted to sit on my front porch and enjoy a cigar.  Enjoy I did, although the wrapper turned out to be very fragile in the middle of the cigar and flaked away in spots.  Still, the flavor had a nice zing and was pretty strong in flavor.  It was rich and satisfying.  Thanks to Jeff for thinking of me on his trip, it’s always fun to try a new cigar.  Along the same lines, earlier in the week I had smoked another unbanded Nicaraguan maduro robusto that I picked up at my local shop, JM Cigars in Exton, PA.  He had these enormous 100 count chests of cigars that I had never seen before, and Jeff, the owner, told me that they were made by J.C. Newman.  It was a nice cigar, very well made and even flavored. For $3.75 it was a very nice cigar, and he said he’d been selling them like crazy.

 

That’s all for now, happy Mother’s Day.  If you aren’t one, you probably have or had one, so do something special for one today!

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | February 8, 2012 · 7:02 pm

The Grimalkin Contest Winner Announcement, Maria Mancini and a Hoyo de Monterrey Cigars

I haven’t really smoked anything unusual this week, opting instead for some old favorites.  One of those was a Maria Mancini Robusto Larga from a couple of five-packs I picked up on a visit to JR Cigars in Whippany, NJ.  Anyone who has been following me for any period of time will know that this is a stand bye for me, if not this particular size, the marque in general.  I’ve had some of these in my humidor at all times since my first purchase of them in 1999.  They remain consistent,  usually burn well, and almost always taste great.  For a cigar that runs under $3, this is fairly remarkable.  The Maria Mancini won Cigar Journal‘s award for Best Value Honduran cigar at their award ceremony in Vegas at the IPCPR show last summer.  Great cigars for a little money.

 

Last night I need something small to just last me the mile or so walk to the convenience store and back.  I grabbed one of my favorite winter walk smokes, a Hoyo de Monterrey Sabroso Maduro.  This 5″x 40 petite corona fit the bill, loads of deep, dark flavor, well made, and just about the right size.  Again, this is not an expensive cigar, a couple bucks each by the box.  It may not be the most refined cigar, but on a cold winters night, hoofing it to the store, it satisfies.  It was a toss up between this and a Chateau Real Small Club maduro, which I really like, but are becoming quite rare.

 

Contest!

On to what you’ve been waiting for, the announcement of the winner of these super cool Grimalkin mugs, a Grimalkin robusto, and whatever else happens to fall into the box when I pack it up!  As usual, I’ve assigned a number to each comment based upon how they appear on the post, and utilized the Random Number Generator at Random.org.  The winner is comment number 9, which corresponds to George Satterfield!  Congrats George! Please send me your contact info so I can ship these goodies to you!   Many thanks to Gary Griffith for supplying these cool mugs, and making great cigars! Stay tuned, you never know when the next contest might pop up!

 

I’ll leave you with this political cartoon from a Philadelphia Inquirer in 1908.

Click to Enlarge

 

That’s all I have, so until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | February 5, 2012 · 8:49 am

A Cigar of My Own Blending, a 777 and a Grimalkin Contest!

In March of last year my son and I went to Nicaragua for Drew Estate’s Cigar Safari.  One of the many cool things we did on the trip was to blend a cigar at the Joya de Nicaragua factory. The exercise highlighted Nicaraguan tobacco, there were Seco, Viso and Ligero leaves from Condega, Jalapa and Estili to choose from, as well as Habano Criollo, Dark Corojo and Ecuador Connecticut wrappers and Habano Volado, Sumatra and Ecuador Connecticut binders.  It was quite the experience touching, smelling, looking at all these leaves, and watching how each leaf burned.  I selected the Dark Corojo wrapper and Sumatra binder, along with Condega Seco, Esteli Viso and a blend of Condega and Esteli Ligero.  The factory rolled five robustos for each of the attendees which were delivered to us on our last night.  I smoked one of these after about 3 months and was amazed, and the one I smoked Friday evening was no less amazing.  It burned perfectly, even burn, nice flat coal.   It was vaguely  reminiscent of the Antaño Dark Corojo, no surprise there given the wrapper I selected.  I have 3 left, and it will be fun to pull them out after another six months or so.  On this occasion my son, who had traveled with me, joined me with an Acid Kuba Kuba Maduro.

 

Yesterday, after napping through a near comeback by the Flyers (helpful hint, don’t get down 6-0 and expect to win…) I needed a pick-me-up so I grabbed a J. Fuego 777 Maduro Belicoso for an afternoon walk.  I have really been enjoying the cigars in the J. Fuego line.  So far I’ve loved them all, but the Maduro 777 has been my favorite.  Dark, rich, and savory, this cigar is always a treat for my taste buds.  Normally I’m not a fan of Criollo wrappers, but this one is done just right.  These aren’t priced too bad either.  I could smoke these all the time.  I will probably shy away from this shape in the future though, as it wanted to shoot out of my mouth easier than most figurados for some reason, maybe it’s oilier than most torpedos and belicosos I smoke!

 

It’s contest time again!

It seems like just yesterday I was in daily contest mode!  December’s 12 days of Spectacular Giveaways was a huge success (for the winners and the USPS for sure!).  Thanks again to all of the sponsors for taking part.  A few weeks ago I went to visit Gary Griffith of Emilio Cigars at the Peoples Plaza Cigar-ette City location and he gave me these two Grimalkin mugs for a future give-away.  The future is today, my friends,  so leave a comment on this post to enter and I’ll post the winner on Wednesday.  The mugs are magic!  they look like the one on the left until you put hot liquid in, then the eyes appear!  I’m also going to include a Grimalkin Robusto from my humidor, and you never know what else might fall into the box as I’m packing it up!  I will have to try to get some more of these before they change to La Musa.   Many thanks to Gary for providing me with these collectors items to give away!

 

That’s it for today!  Enter the contest, tell your friends and enjoy the day!  I understand there’s some sort of sporting event on today…oh yeah, the Flyers and Rangers game this afternoon!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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by | January 15, 2012 · 9:17 am

A Visit to Cigar-Ette City and Gary Griffith (and a Grimalkin)

Yesterday was a bit on the chilly side, so I figured I’d look for a nice, warm indoor smoking location.  I’ve been wanting to take a ride south of the boarder and visit Gary Griffith at his Peoples Plaza Cigar-Ette City store for a while, and decided the time had come.  I grabbed the GPS and hit the road, taking the 1 hour and 7 minute drive.  I got there a bit ahead of schedule and Gary greeted me warmly and we went into the enormous walk-in humidor. It was at that point that I realized the flaw in my plan: The State of Delaware frowns upon smoking indoors!  Here we have a store that sells cigars and other tobacco products, and you can’t smoke in it.  If you have been complacent in contacting your elected officials about the FDA issue, do it now.  Not being able to smoke in your local shop is only scratching the surface of the “inconveniences” we’ll face it the FDA is allowed to regulate Premium Cigars.

 

 

Anyway, all was not lost.  I wandered around the humidor for a while talking to Gary, and marvelling at the ridiculous amount of inventory.  He had all kinds of boutique brands that I don’t see a lot of in my local shops, but hear about everywhere.  The Viajes, Tatuajes, Illusiones, 262s, you name it.  Boxes stacked to the ceiling, I even saw a stack of the Para Japon cigars that La Aurora made to aid the Japanese earthquake relief. Of course the Emilio and Grimalkin lines were well represented, and I picked up a couple Grimalkin Robustos while I was there. The moral of the story is that one could leave a ton of cash behind in this store, and the prices were competitive with Pennsylvania prices given that the lack of a state sales tax offsets the cigar tax.

 

Here’s a little video I shot with Gary telling us about what’s coming down the line in 2012 for the Emilio family of cigars.  I know I’m excited to see what comes next.

 

httpv://youtu.be/VzeaLToxhR8

 

 

After I got home and fed, I still needed to smoke the cigar I set out earlier in the day to smoke, so I grabbed a Grimalkin Robusto and took a long and satisfying walk.  The cigar was awesome, although I believe more of the subtlety and complexity is apparent when the temperatures aren’t around freezing.  Still, this is an incredible cigar that everyone should try if they can.  My thanks to Gary for his hospitality, and for making dynamite cigars.

 

That’s it for now.  I used a new camera for the video this time, I’d like to know if you think the quality is better than my previous videos.

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | December 28, 2011 · 10:31 am

CigarCraig’s Top Cigars Of 2011

Once again I’d like to thank everyone for making the 12 Days of Spectacular Giveaways a huge success.   I certainly couldn’t have done it without stuff to give away and people to give it to and  the great support I had at home.   It was tons of fun but it was a loads of work and quite tiring.  I’ll plan on doing it again next year but will do a few things a little differently on the back end.  Congrats to all of the winners and thanks to everyone for making it a great year on CigarCraig.com!

 

Everyone’s publishing their “Top Whatever” lists, and I’ve avoided doing anything like that over the years since I don’t really have a quantitative method of reviewing cigars, if you even want to call it reviewing.  I know what I like, I know how a cigar works and I also feel that nobody sets out to make a crappy cigar, so there must be someone, somewhere who likes a given cigar, no matter how offensive it is to me.  Also keep in mind that I’m not the kind of guy who runs all over creation looking for the hip boutique cigars, I’m just as happy with a Partagas Black as I am with some limited edition cigar that only comes out on arbor day and had 7 bands on it (happier, no doubt) So with all that in mind, let’s take a romp through what tripped my trigger over the last year!

 

You’d be hard pressed to find a list without the Tatuaje La Casita Criolla on it, and I have to concur, this is one of the cigars this year that really made me happy.  Broadleaf.  That’s all it is, Broadleaf.  I love Broadleaf.  I only smoked the corona size, but to me it compared favorably with the Liga Privada Serie Unico Dirty Rat in flavor and balance.  Tasty, tasty cigar!  I purchased these at a local shop and they weren’t too much more than $5 or $6 each.

 

A group of cigars that have received favorable reviews everywhere and are on everyone’s lists are the Emilio and Grimalkin cigars from Gary Griffith.  The Emilio AF1 is a nice, dark, heavy, seriously yummy cigar, it’s sibling, the AF2 is different, perhaps a brighter flavor, but equally well made and delicious.  The Grimalkin is a different beast, subtle, complex, an orgiastic feast of the senses.  I have not had the occasion to purchase these, all of the samples I smoked were provided to me by Gary, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy them in a heartbeat.  Gary and his partners are producing exceptional cigars, and I’m quite happy to know him.

 

I have also been enamored with the La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especial and the CAO OSA Sol this year, both new cigars from General Cigar Co., and I’m not just saying that because I had the great fortune of visiting their Dominican factory.  One of the many eyeopeners on that trip, besides revisiting some of their classic cigars and finding them to be outstanding, was the time and passion that goes into making every cigar.  It almost has to be harder to make a million great cigars that are great year after year thank to make a batch of a couple hundred thousand that are gone when they are gone, right?  The La Gloria Retro has been excellent and tasty in all the sizes I’ve tried, cigar after cigar,  and the CAO OSA Sol seems to shine in the Lot 50, or robusto size, but is a nice enough cigar across the board.  Both are in the medium range with lots of flavor.

 

One of my favorite finds of the year has to have been Oja Cigars.  I met the brand owner, Luis Garcia, on my trip to Nicaragua, and we hit it off pretty good.  His cigars are made by Tabacalera Esteli, which is owned by Kiki Berger.  There haven’t been a lot of cigars from Cuban Crafters that have floated my boat, but the Oja line is really nice.  I think my favorite cigar of the year was a Connecticut Toro I enjoyed in the pool on a hot summer day, but that had as much to do with the circumstance as with the cigar.  The line is solid, full bodied (even the Connecticut) and tasty.  The Anniversary, with a Brazilian maduro wrapper outshines them all.  It’s a little more refined and complex.  I love the whole line and look forward to seeing them in stores in my area.

 

I should mention Adrian’s CroMagnon by Michael Rosales and Skip Martin, which is another cigar that’s been on everyone’s list.  I’ve only smoked a couple samples that Skip gave me, but they are definitely up my alley.  Also, for much different reasons, I really like the Berger and Argenti Mooch line, especially the Schnorr.  The name cracks me up, but the cigar is a solid, flavorful medium bodied cigar.  Also the Undercrown and My Uzi Weighs a Ton were on everyone’s list for good reason, and I enjoyed the samples I had.  Alec Bradley is making fine cigars, Toraño is making fine cigars, La Palina, El Primer Mundo, Oliva, everyone seems to be making fine cigars!  It’s a good time, there are so many choices!

 

That’s about all I can think of at the moment.  Honestly, there were a LOT of great cigars this year.

 

Until the next time, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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