This winter is flying by, it’s already the end of February. By this time last year I had been to Vegas for the TPE, and a beach vacation to Puerto Rico. It just doesn’t seem like there’s been time for any of that this year. Thankfully, the weather has cooperated here in PA, but there’s still a few more weeks of winter to go, so 
anything can happen. Anyway, I dug into the dwindling supply of Secret Santa cigars from Mitch (many thanks again!), and picked out this Anonymous, a perfecto which is one of the Smoke Inn Micro Blends, made by AJ Fernandez. The shape reminds me of the old Drew Estate Chateau Real Gran Cru Perfecto, or the Undercrown Shade Suprema. It’s 6″ x 54, with a Cameroon wrapper, and binder and fillers from AJ’s farms in Nicaragua. This was a delicious cigar. It smoked a little darker in flavor than I expect from a Cameroon, but had that sweet, nuttiness that it should have. I see that the box pressed version is still available at SI, this was the round, but I’m not clear if the format is the same or the box press is just a parejo, anyone know?
I had an ADVentura The Royal Return King’s Gold Robusto in the humidor for a little over a year, and Friday seemed like the right time to smoke it for some reason. Oddly, I remember when and where this came into my possession. I was at the TPE show after hours at the bar in the Sahara, and a friend, who at the time was a broker who handled Adventura, and is now the VP of a cigar company. To be honest, I didn’t know he was a broker at the time, I figured he was just a fellow cigar media guy. Anyway, I’ve smoked the Adventura King’s Gold before, in the toro format. On paper, I should love this cigar. It has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, San Andrés binder and Dominican, nicaraguan and Pennsylvania fillers. For some reason, I have yet to find a cigar from the Ventura factory that floats my boat. There was nothing wrong with this cigar, it tasted good, burned well, and I liked it well enough, just didn’t really stand out to me. There are certain factories that I don’t seem to gravitate to, this is one (oddly, Aganorsa is another). Weird, right?
Speaking of AJ Fernandez, I had sent some cigars to my friend Phil over at Comedy, Cigars, Music, with the instruction that no reciprocation was necessary. Much like I would have done, he didn’t listen, and sent me a bunch of cigars I hadn’t smoked before. One of them was the AJ Fernandez New World Dorado toro. This was my favorite cigar of the week, and I had some other great cigars this week. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the New World line, but obviously this one is special, as it comes in a ten count box. This was a 6″ x 54 Toro (I see this also comes in a Figurado very similar to the Anonymous! Interested!). It’s a Nicagaruan puro, with the Habano wrapper grown on AJ’s Dorado farm, and Nicaraguan fillers and binder (obviously). This cigar had some spice to start and then had some really nice, tangy fruit and nuts sort of flavors. This was a really tasty smoke!
That’s all for today. I need to take a ride today and pick up a couple of the new Fratello cigars I didn’t get last weekend, a fairly local shop has them. Perhaps after I get some stuff around the house done. I’ve had a series of migraines the last couple of days that have sapped my energy, I suspect they are weather related, but might be Chinese Food related, now that I think of it. Anyway, until the next time,
CigarCraig
