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Mahogany, Diesel and the Weekend – March 7, 2010

Friday evening I had the opportunity to visit Mahogany on Walnut in Philadelphia. I had dropped my wife off at the Franklin Institute to see Philadelphia TV news legend Larry Kane give the first of a series of presentations on his time spent with the Beatles.  She said after that the lecture was outstanding.

Mahogany is a cigar bar conveniently located over top of Holt’s flagship store.  I arrived and found a seat at the corner of the bar with a view of the Flyers /Sabres game on the television.  I chose a Don Lino Africa Kifaro, which smoked very nicely.  Soon I was joined by my old friend Doc, who I haven’t seen in several years.  Doc and I have logged hundreds of herf-miles….we’ve been many places between the Jersey Shore and Las Vegas, from Buffalo to North Carolina,  it borders on the insane.  I think Doc and I “met” on a cigar IRC chat back in 1996.  It was great to get together with him again and share some cigars.  Doc had some very well aged goodies with him, one of which was a delicious un-banded petite corona which he didn’t know what exactly it was, and the other he shared with me was a Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure no.2.  Both cigars were at least 10 years old and both were outstanding examples of great cigars that you just can’t get around here.  Since Doc hasn’t been keeping up with all of the great cigars that have come on the market in the last several years, I gave him a Liga Privada T52, which he enjoyed.  I had selected this particular cigar because we are both acquainted with the blender of this line.  All in all a great evening except for losing my wife in the Franklin Institute, which worked out for her because she got to talk to Larry Kane one on one in the parking garage.

Last night, after a beautiful day here that made me get the bike out of the shed and take it out for a spin, I smoked a Diesel Unholy Cocktail on my evening walk.  This is a 5″ x 56 torpedo dressed in a dark, Pennsylvania broadleaf wrapper, made by A.J. Fernandez in Nicaragua.  This cigar started out quite spicy, and had an even burn and held the ash for almost half the length of the cigar.  The spiceyness eased up and delivered very dense mouthfuls of flavorful smoke.  If I had to rate this by my friend Doc’s scale, it gets a “I would smoke this again”, and I will since I have another in the humidor.  These are very reasonably priced at $4 for a single and around $100 for a box of 30. A very nice cigar and and proof that great cigars are being produced at a good price,although I think the name is kind of dumb.

Don’t forget to enter our contest by leaving your guess in the comments of my last post! There’s a whole week to go and there are some pretty good guesses.

Until the next cigar,

CigarCraig

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NUb, Hoyo de Tradicion Cigars and Contest Time! – Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Saturday’s cigar was a Nub Habano 460.  The Nubs are interesting cigars.  The creator, Sam Leccia, felt that a short, fat cigar took no time at all to develop flavors and burned for the same amount of time as longer, thinner cigars.  I’ve enjoyed these cigars for the impeccable construction and uniqueness.  The flavors in the Habano are OK to me, but I like the Cameroon wrapped version better.  I have yet to try the Maduro and Connecticut wrapped Nubs, but look forward to picking a few up some time.  I also see on the Cain website (another Sam Leccia/Oliva creation) that they will be making a Cain F Nub, which sounds like something worth trying.

Monday’s cigar was a Hoyo de Tradicion Epicure, another well crafted cigar that burned well and had a flavor that grew on me as the cigar progressed.  This was a solid, medium bodied cigar with fairly lush and savory flavors with a fairly long finish.  I’ve always enjoyed the Hoyo de Monterrey cigars (of which this is a line extension) especially the Excaliburs. It seems like Honduran cigars have taken a back seat to the Nicaraguan cigars lately, but there are still very nice cigars coming from Honduras.

Contest!

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It’s March already and that means it’s contest time!  This month’s prize is a really cool 5 pack box of Joya de Nicaragua Antaño 1970 courtesy of our friends at Drew Estate.  Many thanks to Drew Estate for sending a bunch of stuff for this months contest, as well as future contests!  This assortment consists of a Machito, a Gran Consul, a Robusto Grande, a Belicoso and a Churchill.  The contest is a little different this time.  For Christmas I received a 28″ tall glass vase, which was intended as a receptacle for my cigar bands.  I dumped several bags full of bands I’d been saving in to get it started.  My wife has counted the bands that are in the vase as of this writing and sealed that number in an envelope which will be opened on the day this contest ends, which will be Saturday, March 13, 2010.  Entries will be in the form of  reply to this post with your guess of how many cigar bands are in the vase.  The winner will have the closest number without going over. BONUS:  In the event that some guesses the exact number, the winner will also receive a Joya de Nicaragua cap and cutter!   Must be 18 yeas of age to win, one entry per person.  Good luck!

That’s it for now, until the next cigar,

CigarCraig

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