Tag Archives: JC Newman

by | December 4, 2022 · 7:00 am

El Reloj Cigar Factory Tour and FSG Farm Visit

Friday I found myself in Tampa, Florida, my first time visiting this area.  I came down for the Cigar Heritage Festival on Sunday, but I really wanted to visit J.C.Newman’s El Reloj factory.  They have spent the last few years remodeling the building, and it’s beautiful.  The entrance has a company store, the mechanism for the clock in the tower for which the building is named, and a museum.  We went upstairs and had some coffee and pastries for breakfast (delicious), and a vintage Diamond Crown Robusto  No. 2. This cigar brought me back to the first time I smoked one in 1998 at a cigar party in Vegas.  The cigar had held up well, for a Connecticut Shade cigar.  We then got the tour, they have some treasures in the basement, old packaging, cigars, and a “vault” filled with a selection of boxes of cigars from the company’s history.  They also do some of the long filler  tobacco preparation in the basement. We went back upstairs to the production floor, where they manufacture and package machine assisted cigars on antique machines. The difference between machine assisted and machine made is that the former, used here, involve the operator placing a leaf on a die, and using pedals to advance the machine.  Machine made cigars are more of a “push a button and a thousand cigars start spitting out”.  I saw similar operations at General Cigar’s facility in the. DR.  It’s mesmerizing  to watch.

On the third floor they have a gallery for hand rolling cigars. This is where the American and Angel Cuesta are rolled. We saw wheels and wheels of Angel Cuesta cigars in the basement aging room, they are hoping to ship them in the coming weeks. We watched a gentleman, also named Angel, finishing salamones, amazingly skilled hand work. This looks like it will be a wonderful cigar.

 

The next step on this tour involved going to visit the Florida Sun Grown farm, where Jeff Borsyiewicz greeted us. I skipped the bus ride and rode with Kevin and Jessica (CigarProp/TrashPanda, etc.). After a delicious Barbecue style lunch, we checked out the farm where tobaccos in the American, and other cigars is grown.  Jeff gave a very informative talk on all the trials and tribulations of growing tobacco in Florida, as he’s the only one doing it. The leaf in the field looked beautiful, and we saw the barn, with some more vintage machinery. It was a beautiful day, sunny and 80, a nice break for me from the fall weather back home.  We ended the day stopping in to Corona Cigars in Tampa. Nick Perdomo was there doing an event, and we ran into some friends from home, in town for the weekend. It was a good day. Thank you so much to Sydney, and everyone at J.C. Newman for a great day! If his were the only reason I came on this trip, it would have been  worth it.

 

 

Today is the Cigar Heritage Festival in Ybor City.  I’m not sure what to expect with this as it’s my first time, but I expect to see a few people I know.  More on that in the next post.  Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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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 | March 6, 2022 · 10:54 am

Perla Del Mar Connecticut, Bolivar Cofraida and Aganorsa Leaf Cigars and the Contest Winner

As I mentioned in my Friday news post, the last half of my week was disrupted with some unexpected drama. This has thrown me off my game a little, I missed my Friday night shift at Son’s Cigars just because I was exhausted from the previous evenings ordeal with the pain and the morphine and all, I was passed out at home well before the shop closed. I came home to some Chinese take-out, smoked a Punch Fu Manchu (which isn’t a bad inexpensive cigar, by the way! I ‘m not sure I get the marketing of  Punch line with the Chinese food, but they are good smokes at a great price) and crashed. Hard. For the sake of my CDO though, I’m going to rewind a bit to Tuesday when I smoked the Perla Del Mar Connecticut Toro. This is a relatively new rebranded Perla Del Mar Connecticut from J.C. Newman, made in Nicaragua. I really like this line, although I can’t say I’m a fan of the PDM on the band. I liked the old bands better, this new one could have been better. I get it, it’s a budget brand, it could easily be presented in a bundle insead of a box, so I’ll take it as it is. These are fantastic cigars. Even for someone who’s first choice isn’t a Connecticut shade, this is a solid cigar. It’s creamy, with a lot of flavor. There are a few shade cigars that make my “rotation”, this might sneak in there. It has a richness without being grassy. I like it. I like the Corojo and Maduro better, but this Connecticut is very good, I’d reach for it over a lot of other shade cigars.

 

Yesterday I got around to the Bolivar Cofraida Lost and Found EMS Toro that I had on deck for Thursday evening. I had picked this up, along with the Punch, when I stopped in to the CigarCigars store in Downingtown, PA to drop off a bag of cigars for OP:Cigar For Warriors, as they are a collection point. I’m not sure why I didn’t get the Oscuro, seems out of character for me, perhaps they only had the EMS, I really don’t remember. This line is a collaboration between Justin Andrews of Forged/Scandinavian Tobacco and Robert Caldwell, where the marketing materials say they blended the cigars from bales of tobacco that they came across in the HATSA factory in Honduras. So these aren’t “found” cigars, but “found” tobacco, in this case. This is another reasonably priced cigar, in the $7-7.50 range, I think. Ten years ago I’d find that to be a fairly pricey cigar. Now it’s cheap. Anyway, I remember the Bolivar Cofraida cigars that JR Cigars used to sell were on the strong side, this one not so much. It was well balanced, medium bodied, with some pleasant, fruit notes. Nice afternoon smoke while I refilled the hot tub and sat around waiting to see if my kidney stone was going to cause me trouble.  

 

Last night I took a look in the tray of cigars I put the cigars that I got at the TPE show that I hadn’t smoked yet, the “new to me” tray. I settled on the Aganorsa Leaf Aniversario Robusto that Terence Reilly gave me at the show. This is the 5″ x 52 box pressed Nicaraguan puro with a Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper. The paper sleeve isn’t there to hide anything, the wrapper is really pretty. This was another really tasty cigar. I was in one of my rare moods for a shorter smoke. I was tired, a hockey game was on during nap time! This cigar falls into the leather and nuts flavor category for me. It’s not a sweet coffee, cocoa cigar. It burned perfectly, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Smoking more of the Aganorsa cigars is on my todo list, oddly it’s one of the brands that I don’t get around to as much as I should. I’ll fix that. Good smoke, less of what I personally look for, but good nonetheless.

 

Contest

OK, it’s time to select a contest winner! To recap, the giveaway this time was for a cool Drew Estate 20 Acre Farm case with five (5) 20 Acre Farm toro cigars. It’s possible some other goodies could fall into the box before it leaves the CigarCraig.com offices! It’s been known to happen! The winner is Xolotal! Send me your coordinates so I can get this out to you. As always, thanks to the folks at Drew Estate for their support! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | November 21, 2021 · 11:07 am

Alec and Bradley Blind Faith, Perla Del Mar Corojo Toro and Platinum Nova Corona Cigars

While we were driving home from South Carolina a few weeks back we took a rest stop at the JRs in Selma, NC. It’s been a few years since we were there, it’s downsized a bit. We were expecting to shop for some bed linens, alas that part of the business is gone, and it’s just a tobacco store. Right inside the door of the cigar department was a large area of stuff marked down 50% off. I immediately rescued a partial box of Sobremesa, and a box of RomaCraft Intemperance. I was told that it was stock from another store that had closed. Upon catching wind of my purchase, Saka (who, by the way, for some reason hasn’t bothered to share any of my Stillwell Star posts, while sharing other content creators work, I thought we were friends…I’m not mad, just disappointed) put his people on JRs about this. My assumption is that he has an agreement with his accounts that he’d rather buy back inventory than have it discounted. I just wanted to spare him the indignity of having it on the discount rack (and get a killer deal on some Short Churchills!). This is all a lot of words leading into talking about the Alec and Bradley Blind Faith. My wife was actually suggesting I buy a box of these, and I didn’t want to without having smoked a few. I know it’s a ridiculous problem to have, and sounds like bragging, but I’m pretty strapped for storage space. I had to shoehorn the little box of Intemperance in, no way I’d fit a box of A&B. Anyway, I bought a couple singles, and I smoked one this week. It’s weird, you know, I went into it hoping I didn’t love the cigar and kick myself for not listening to my wife! When your wife tells you to buy a box of cigars you should do it, right? Anyway, this has a Honduran wrapper, Honduran/Nicaraguan double binder and NIcaraguan fillers, made at Raices Cubanas in Honduras. I would have tolerated having a box in the humidor, but I’m not kicking myself for walking away, let’s put it that way. It’s a good smoke, tasty. Nothing wrong with the burn and draw, nice presentation, and it’s a shame that these were on the discount rack. Honestly, there was a LOT of stuff that was in that area that shouldn’t have been. I could have gone broke, but I’d have had to go back to using coolers for storage. 

 

Last year J.C.Newman re-packaged the Perla Del Mar line, and introduced the Corojo to the mix. Late this year they added the Toro to the Corojo family. I’ve long been a fan of the Maduro, but the Corojo might be my new favorite.  This line is another great example of how the wrapper changes the flavor of the cigar. They use the same blend across all three lines, with only the wrapper changing, so smoke all three to get an idea of what the wrapper adds. In the case of the Corojo, which covers Nicaraguan binder and filler, by the way, it adds an almost candy sweetness, as opposed to a dark chocolate sweetness in the case of the maduro. It’s a terrific cigar, well made, nicely box pressed, I just wish they had been a little more creative with the band, the old one was prettier, the new one makes me think of another cigar company. It’s a great cigar and well priced, so screw the band, I’m a fan.

 

Last night my wife and I went to the movies, probably the first time in nearly two years. The dine-in feature was sub-par, had to order at the bar and food was served in takeout containers, whether that’s life in the pandemic world or life in the short-staffed world, I’m not sure. Call me old fashioned, but if I’m asked to put a gratuity on my check up front without knowing what kind of service I’m going to get, I’m going to tip conservatively. Maybe that works against me? I have no way of knowing. The food was pretty good though, and the movie was entertaining (discount tickets). We got home and I hung out on the porch to watch the last period of the Flyers game with a Platinum Nova Corona from the 2020 TPE. I’ve been passing by these because they are fairly small for me, but it was late, and I didn’t want to be up all night. This is a (ridiculously) expensive cigar, at $23, it’s a pigtail capped 5″ x 43 Ecuador H2000 wrapped cigar with Dominican Piloto Cubano binder and Dominican fillers. The cigar ended up being good for nearly an hour and a half, but I had to relight it a few time. It had a definite floral flavor, nearly perfumy. I rarely get this flavor, it’s not one I’m particularly fond of. I smoked an Undercrown 10 earlier in the day that was more to my liking, much less flowery. It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s just that it’s not one I’d gravitate to on a regular basis. not offensive, not bad, just not me. 

 

That’s more than enough from me today. What do you all think about doing a CigarCraig.com Secret Santa again?  Weigh in in the comments. If we get more than one person I’ll make it happen! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig 

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by | September 26, 2021 · 10:26 am

J.C. Newman’s Yagua and Oscar Valladares 2012 Maduro Cigars

My least favorite time of the year arrived this week, Autumn.  Summer flew by, I feel like I didn’t get to do many of the things I would have like to have done, for one reason or another, and now it’s another long, cold winter ahead to look forward too. One can only hope that these months pass as quickly as the summer did. Here I am, wishing my life away! Time really needs to slow the heck down. On the one hand, I have a humidor full of cigars and not enough time to smoke them, on the other hand, I have a humidor full of cigars! On another subject, does anyone know how many consecutive Sundays I’ve managed to publish a blog post?  It’s gotta be some kind of record.  Anyway, I smoked a bunch of cigars this week, a couple were new. The Yagua, while not necessarily new, is the 2021 version. J.C. Newman makes this at the PENSA factory in Nicaragua, using what they call and under fermented US Broadleaf wrapper. I suppose the idea is for it to finish fermenting while aging in the bundles wrapped in the royal palm leaves. The one I smoked came from the center of the bundle so it had a hexagonal shape, these definitely are reminiscent of the Henry Clay cigars of the 90s in shape, and they had Broadleaf wrappers as well. They too were bundled wet and you never knew what shape you were going to get. I really enjoyed the flavor of this cigar, it’s got something a little different than other broadleaf cigars. Maybe there’s a meatier flavor, it’s not as much the expresso or cocoa that I usually get. It’s very different than, say, a Triqui Traca, which Saka confused this for on a Facebook group (I admonished him to wear his glasses!). I think there’s a lot of reasons to try this cigar, I might try another one today! 

 

Yesterday afternoon I was looking for a shorter cigar and remembered I had an Oscar Valladares 2012 Maduro Short Robusto which I had picked up a few months ago as I was walking out of the humidor at the Wooden Indian. I certainly had enough cigars in my hands already, but these caught my eye, and I hadn’t yet sampled anything from this line. This is a 4″ x 50 box press cigar, good for and hour or so. It has a San Andrés wrapper, Honduran binder and nicaraguan fillers. These looked really good when I walked by them, like little chocolate bars, which is what made me pick them up. Smaller cigars tend to age in my humidors as I tend toward toro and larger cigars. I need to make a concerted effort to smoke the robustos on the weekends when I smoke more than one cigar, I guess. If I smoke a larger cigar I don’t have time for a nap! This was a delicious cigar, it was heavy on the black licorice, which I don’t taste much in a cigar. I found it intriguing. I guess it’s time to check out some more of the Oscar Valladares line. I think I know the broker in my area. 

 

Please join me in extending Happy Birthday wishes to my friend, and long time reader and friend of CigarCraig.com: Kevin Shahan!  You might know Kevin better as Mr. CigarProp, from his cigar accessories, and wildly popular YouTube and other social media properties.  I’m not sure how Jessica puts up with him, but he’s all right in my book!  Happy Birthday Buddy!  (pictured here with myself and Sandy Cobas at El Titan de Bronze a couple years ago in a photo taken by Jessica).

 

Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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