We had a really beautiful Memorial Day weekend here in South-East PA, so we did some fun stuff. Sunday my wife and I took a ride out to Valley Forge National Park and walked around for a few hours, giving me time to enjoy a couple robustos, a Perdomo 10th Anniversary Maduro and an Illusione Rothschild, both really good smokes, and, surprisingly, not a comment or sideways glance from any of the people we passed. I expected someone to make a snide remark, but I was left along to enjoy my walk and smokes. I smoked a nice Rocky Patel Olde World Maduro Lancero after dinner to top off the day. I don’t smoke a lot of Rocky Patel cigars, but I enjoy this one. The burn and draw were good and it had a nice flavor.
Monday we decided to take a family trip to Cape May, NJ for lunch via Lewes, DE. There’s a ferry that runs regularly from Lewes to Cape May, and we thought it would be fun to spend some time out on the water on a beautiful day. Of course, I formulated a cigar plan. Since I had just picked up a set of the Foundry Compounds, Elements and Musings H2O cigars on Saturday, it seemed appropriate that these be smoked on the water. The H, 2 and O are small perfectos, 4″ x 48ish, closely resembling the iconic Arturo 
Fuente Hemingway Short Story, or the more obscure El Titan de Bronze Hemingway. They come in a box of thirty-six, with twelve cigars in each blend. Consistent with the rest of the line, which I’ve been doing my best to find and sample, there is little information about the wrapper, binder and fillers. Sadly, these were on a buy one/get one free table, and I’ll have to get back to that shop and pick up some more!
Being that I have borderline CDO (that’s OCD in alphabetical order like it should be), I started with the “H”. The “H” had a chocolate brown, almost rosado wrapper. This was my first cigar of the day, before lunch even, and was very tasty. I quite enjoyed the sweet and leathery flavor. The cigar was perfectly formed, easy to light, and burned well. It had a little bit of a tunnel issue about half way thorough, but re-lit well and wasn’t a problem. Obviously, being out at sea, it was a bit windy, which may have been a contributing factor. We saw a bunch of dolphins frolicking, which was pretty cool. This is a cigar I’d like to have a few more of. It had a very nice, unique flavor.
We drove into the town of Cape May, NJ for lunch, and settled on a little place called Angelo’s Restaurant, which used to be Beach House. It was right on the beach so we sat in the covered outside deck area and had fish and chips (my son had a pizza burger, has to be different!). We did a little shopping and headed back to the ferry terminal. The trip back was a lot windier than the trip over, but I was undeterred. I lit up the “2” cigar for the ride. This one had a dark chocolate colored maduro wrapper. It also had the semi-sweet chocolate flavor to go along with it. This turned out to be my favorite of the trio, with the “H” being a close second. It also had the same burn problem, tunneling about half way through, but, again, I attribute that to the wind. I saw a couple dolphins again, a treat for me as I had never seen them in the wild before. They seemed to be having fun.
Who would have thought there’d be traffic from the shore inland on the last day of a holiday weekend? It took us three hours to get home when it only took two hours to get there with no traffic. By the time we got home I was ready to sit out on the deck with the “O” cigar and relax. This cigar had the lightest wrapper of the bunch, but only slightly lighter than the “H”. It had finer veins and was very nice looking. This cigar burned perfectly and didn’t have the tunneling problem I had with the other two, although the conditions were far more conducive to relaxing with a smoke. I found it to be a dry smoke, not quite as rich in flavor as the previous two. This was my least favorite, although still quite good. As I said, I’ll have to try to get some more of these, at $2.50 a piece they were a bargain. It’s too bad the shop is 50 minutes away or I’d grab some more.
I amused myself (and probably annoyed others) by taking some video documenting this trip and the cigars smoked.
httpv://youtu.be/mW9esQNkEtA
Of the Compounds, Elements and Musings line, this selection is a limited release, so I imagine they will be hard to find. I know they sold out at last years IPCPR show. There’s a few in the line that are regular production, the Carbon and Uranium. I really liked the Carbon, and I haven’t smoked the Uranium yet because it’s 7″ x 70, but I do have one in the humidor. These are fun to try because they aren’t really very expensive, and they use some very unique tobaccos and have flavors that you don’t get in other cigars. Of course, the packaging is over the top and pretty neat. You’ll recall I bought a box of the Vanadium because of the V shaped box, which sits on the top of the bookcase, good thing I enjoy the cigars!
Contest
You may recall we had another contest in the last post, that was two in a row! Far from my record of 13, but not bad having two in a row. We had 55 entries….no, wait, 54, Brian Impson left two, but I only count him as one. It makes things a little harder for me, but I’ll figure it out. I consulted Random.org once again, and it gave me the number 17. Steve McHenry, please send me your address so I can ship this stuff out to you. Stay tuned for more contests coming up!
That’s it for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
