Tuesday was my day off, so after doing some yard work, I went to Cigar Cigars in Downingtown, PA to hang out with Kevin, the manager there for a little bit. My friend Greg had been after me to try the Esteban Carreras Mr. Brownstone for a while, and I’ve been meaning to, so I figured it was a good time to do it. It seems Kevin is Greg’s dealer for this particular cigar, so it just seemed fitting. I 
love a good Broadleaf cigar, and this certainly is a good broadleaf cigar. In addition to the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, it had an Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan fillers from Jalapa and Condega. I smoked the Toro, and the store signs these as “toro”, “robusto” and “gordo” instead of the given names, which is where this line goes off the rails for me. It’s a great cigar, the build was great, it burned straight, the draw was great, the flavor was great, everything about the experience was perfect, and I wanted another one, I totally get it. However, in this day and age, where the FDA, and governments and health organizations are actively trying to eliminate tobacco entirely, I find it irresponsible to name a cigar and it’s sizes after illicit drug slang names. Mr. Brownstone, and the size names Smack, Speedball and Mainline, are all heroin references, and heroin is a big problem (I probably wouldn’t know this if I hadn’t read Slash’s biography). There are stores that won’t carry this line because of the name. The anti-tobacco people are looking for anything to try to tie tobacco use in with addiction and drug use, and things like this, however benign you and I know them to be, don’t help our cause to the casual observer. It’s a great cigar, I just wish it were named more responsibly, and I wish I didn’t have to waste bandwidth ranting about the name and spend more time on the experience, which was awesome!
I left Cigar Cigars before they started their Kristoff event, but not before meeting Bill Coyne, the Kristoff sales rep. Bill is a super nice guy, knowing Glen Case, I expected nothing less. I had picked up the Kristoff Vengeance in a Toro, since I hadn’t tried that yet, and Kevin recommended it, so I lit that up for my evening walk. Sidebar: since my new job has me on my feet a large part of the day, and its been so friggin cold lately (it’s been so cold, the politicians have had their hands in their own pockets! ) my walks have been shorter than normal. That’s where the enclosed back porch comes in handy! The Vengeance, like the Brownstone, has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Indonesian binder, and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. It’s funny, I like Kristoff cigars OK, but I’m not overly wow’d by many of them, which is funny, because I really like Dean Parson’s Epic Cigars, which are made in the same factory. All the Kristoffs have the unfinished foot and pigtail cap, which differentiates them, and I like the flavor blast of the unfinished foot, but you have to be careful of the mess factor, and the only time I’ve ever burned a hole in a shirt has been lighting a cigar with a shaggy foot. Anyway, I liked the Vengeance a great deal, it had the sweet and savoryness that I look for in a Broadleaf wrapped cigar and I found it satisfying, although I would have liked to have let it rest a little longer in the humidor. I’ll certainly smoke this cigar again.
I reached back into the archives for an old Leccia Tobacco Luchador cigar this week. Back in 2014 Sam Leccia had a year-long distribution arrangement with General Cigar Co, and during that time released the El Gringo line extension to the Luchador line, made at American Caribbean Tobacco S.A. in Nicaragua. American Caribbean Tobacco is the factory that makes a lot of Gurkha cigars as well as Toraño. I selected a Squared Circle, the 6½” x 64 box pressed pyramid. Only as I am writing this am I realizing that this was a 64 ring gauge at the foot, with the box press it didn’t seem that large. This represents a missed opportunity to try out a new tool I got, the Cigar Measuring Tape from www.herics.com. Not that I’ve smoked this cigar, and I probably won’t see another one again, I’ll have to find another cigar to try out this measuring tape out on, which I think will be a useful tool for determining the ring gauge on a box pressed cigar. I think I have some El Gringo Frog Splash’s left in the humidors, that’ll work. Anyway, I’ll do a video about the Measuring tape real soon. In the world of the Leccia Luchador, the El Gringo blend was never my favorite, I always preferred the sweet and spicy San Andrés wrapped original Luchador over the El Gringo, however a 
few years of age on the El Gringo has been good to it, and it was a very nice smoke. The El Gringo has a Nicaraguan oscuro wrapper, Nicaraguan habano binder and ligero fillers from Pennsylvania and Nicaragua, but it wasn’t all that strong originally, and mellowed a bit over the years. I remember buying this at CI when we went to see Sam when he hosted a wrestling event there featuring little people, which was both hysterical and uncomfortable.
Finally, I have enjoyed the newest La Gloria Cubana Esteli in the 4½” x 52 Robusto, so I picked up a few of the Toros to test them out. This is the Esteli, not the Serie R Esteli. I can see where there might be some confusion. This has a Nicaraguan Jalapa Ligero wrapper, Honduran binder from Jamastran, and Honduran fillers from Jamastran and La Entrada. Basically, the only thing Esteli about this is that it’s made in the factory in Esteli, the only tobacco from Nicaragua is that Nicaraguan wrapper, and that from Jalapa. Weird. Apart from that small criticism, the cigar is good, although this is another cigar that will benefit from some rest in my humidor to knock off some rough edges in the final third. There’s some earthiness and a little sweetness and spice. The Toro is only 5½” x 54, but by the time I got a bit past the half way point it started smoking like it had a little too much humidity in it, which will go away after some time. I had just brought these home from the store a few days prior and while the other cigars I bought smoked fine, every cigar is different and this one needed some rest. We’ll see how this is in a few weeks, so far, I really enjoy the little robustos. One interesting note: The bar code sticker calls it “LGC Esteli White”, and I don’t see the “White” anywhere else in the marketing. Will there be and Esteli Maduro on the horizon called the “Black”, like the Serie R Esteli Maduro? It’s not a stretch to speculate, I suppose.
That’s all for today. I was going to write a whole rant on top-whatever lists and their relative merits, but I have some fine-tuning to do…it seems they are a valuable marketing tool for retailers and manufactures, so it wouldn’t make any sense to crap all over them (if that’s what I were going to do, not that I was or anything…). Anyway, until the next time,
CigarCraig
I know, I know, it’s been way too long between episodes. I finally got my act together and recorded one, and I have Bill Coyne, the area Kristoff Cigars rep, to thank. He reached out to me and suggested we meet up for a smoke at Pairings Cigar Bar in Media PA. I’ve been itching to get to Pairings, but, as someone who doesn’t drink, bars aren’t really my thing, so it hasn’t been at the top of my priority list. I’ve been hearing great things about their cigar selection in the last year or so, and I figured it was high time I check it out. A Sunday afternoon was a good time, and I had met Bill briefly and wanted to get to know him better. I understand Pairings has some great events, and they have a DJ there on Friday nights, so I guess it gets pretty rockin’ there! I’m old, I like quite places to relax with a cigar…and we had a nice quite chat about Kristoff cigars, Pairings and Hockey.
