Tag Archives: La Gloria Cubana

by | March 14, 2012 · 7:34 pm

A Para Japon, a La Gloria, a Gurkha, a Padilla and Some News

Sunday afternoon I was remembering a year ago walking into my room at Drew Estate Cigar Safari and seeing the news coverage of the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  I decided that the lone Para Japon I had in my humidor was the appropriate cigar to smoke.  I think nearly year’s age has done this cigar well, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Thanks to Tony at CasasFumando.com for the opportunity to try these (and check out their contests currently under way to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the site.  Keep up the good work, Tony and Daniel!).  The Para Japon was made by La Aurora with the proceeds benefiting the relief efforts in Japan.  I remember seeing a few boxes of these at Cigar-ette City in Newark, DE the last time I was there, so there may be some still in the marketplace. (late addition: Bonita Smoke Shop has them)

 

Monday I decided to walk to the shop to retrieve my car from it’s annual state inspection.  For those unfamiliar with the process, many states requite safety and emissions inspections every year in an effort to produce revenue for the state and the shops that are approved by the state to perform these inspections.  I manage to ease the financial impact a bit by having my cars inspected at the local Monro, which is attached to my local BJ’s Wholesale Club, where I work part time and get a healthy discount!  Ha! Anyway, the place is nearly three miles away, so a substantial cigar is in order for the walk.  I selected a Gurkha Cellar Reserve  Churchill, at 7″ x 54, due in part to it’s size, and the fact that my brother-in-law said that it was the best cigar he’d smoked out of a handful I had given him.  I had smoked one previously and it was pretty good, and this one was pretty good as well.  It certainly lasted to the shop, then back home for a good thirty minutes on the porch.  Burn was perfect, it could have been a little freer in the draw, but gave me nearly two hours of smoking time.  It was in the 60s and a beautiful evening for early March in PA.

 

Tuesday night I was visited by a high school buddy of mine and introduced him to taking a cigar for a walk.  Greg is a fellow cigar nut so I opened the box of La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especiale Cubano that I brought back from my visit to the DR and we fired them up.  This is another large cigar, 6½” x 58, with a golden Honduras/Connecticut wrapper.  These are a recent favorite and bring back a lot of fond memories of the trip where I smoked a fair amount of these.  It had been over a year since Greg and I last met up for a smoke, so we got caught up and enjoyed another terrific evening with temps around 70.  My wife teased me that it was a play date, but we just talked about mutual interests, cigars, drums, cycles, stuff like that.

 

As I’ve been typing this, I’ve been smoking a cigar that I picked up at Cigars International on Saturday.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a Padilla cigar, and the Habano Artisano intrigued me when I saw it on the shelf.  I have a hard time spending $8 on a cigar, what can I say…I’m cheap.  When I saw this cigar priced at $8 I wondered aloud how that can possibly make this for that price.  This perfecto shaped cigar starts out like any “barber pole” cigar, but they take it a step farther and adorn it with additional stripes of tobacco.  This has to be time consuming to do, and makes for a stunning presentation.  Much to my delight, it’s a delicious cigar!  It’s smooth, tasty and surprisingly even burning.  It’s nice, cool looking cigar, a fun smoke that’s tasty and satisfying!  The only complaint is that the ash is a little flakey.

 

In the News

News From the IPCPR and CRA:

Milestone Alert: IPCPR/CRA team achieves 160th co-sponsor for Traditional Cigar Manufacturing Small Business Jobs Preservation Act as Rep Jim Costa [CA-20] joins us!!

Sincerely,

Bill Spann, Chief Executive Officer, IPCPR

Please use the “Write to Congress” widget on the top left of this page and keep asking your elected officials to get behind these bills.  Our enjoyment of cigars depends upon the FDA not having regulatory control of premium cigars!

 

On a related note, I received this press release today:

Midwest Smoke Out partners with Cigar Rights of America for exceptional evening

March 13, 2012—Hammond, Ind.–Midwest Smoke Out and Cigar Rights of America (CRA) are partnering for an evening of luxury, gourmet foods, live entertainment—and of course, cigars— Thursday, April 19 from 5-10 p.m., minutes from Chicago at The Venue at Horseshoe Casino, in Hammond, Ind.Since Illinois legislation banned smoking in Chicago, Midwest Smoke Out (MSO) is the only exposition to give cigar aficionados an evening of cigars and indoor smoking. Every year, MSO provides a free one-year CRA membership or renewal with every ticket, meaning that in only a few hours, CRA gains over 1,000 members whose average income is more than $160,000. These new members are often opinion leaders in their communities.“We at Midwest Smoke Out are privileged to partner with Cigar Rights of America,” said Andrea Pearman, Creative Commander of Diversified Marketing Strategies, Inc., which organizes the event. “At a time when so many cigar smokers have to gather—literally—out in the cold, we’re happy not only to welcome them inside but also provide them with the luxury experience of the year.”With FDA regulation looming and states still legislating, MSO is a key event for CRA membership growth, though the evening isn’t all business. It’s pleasure, too, with ticket-holders having the opportunity to meet Lou Rodriguez of the eponymous cigars, Tony Gomez of La Flor Dominicana, Cigar Master Alejandro Turrent, Victor Vitale of the Cigar Agency and Clay Roberts of A.J. Fernandez. Cigar god Carlito Fuentes is scheduled to greet all ticketholders. MSO is for everyone who enjoys luxury, with attendees receiving deluxe giveaways, complimentary massages, experiencing the latest in gaming, being dazzled by live entertainment, and enjoying gourmet food, wine, beer and spirits.

For tickets (and your paid membership to CRA) contact event director Jo Sutton at jo@3dms.com or 1-888-226-0330. For more information, visitwww.midwestsmokeout.com, like on Facebook, connect on LinkedIn, or follow on Twitter at @MidwestSmokeOut
.

Join the Cigar Rights of America, write to your elected officials, and save the cigars!

 

That’s all I got, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | March 7, 2012 · 8:43 pm

A La Gloria Cubana, a CAO and a Murcielago – Cigar Weather is Returning!

We left off on Sunday having had a nice Camacho Havana with my son and brother-in-law, and it seemed like a 2 cigar day, so I selected a La Gloria Cubana Artesanos de Tabaqueros Rothschild that I got last December when I went up to Famous Smoke Shop in Easton, PA to hang out with Michael Giannini.  This was the version that starts our with a delicious Connecticut shade wrapper, then transitions to the Ecuador Sumatra wrapper.  These are tasty little buggers, and I like them.  This is a size that I believe is only available at their events, and it’s a shame, because it’s a great size and fit the time I had available perfectly.  This unusual presentation really highlights the effect the wrapper has on the flavor of a cigar.  I normally wait to remove the band, but with this one I took it off before I started, since it’s located so close to the foot.  Expertly crafted, perfect burn, great smoke!

 

Monday evening I grabbed a few year old CAO Brazilia Gol.  A few years back my wife got me several samplers of CAO cigars, and this is about the last of them.  Really nice, dark, oily, sweet Brazilian wrapper surrounding tasty Nicaraguan fillers.  There’s a handful of CAO cigars that I have enjoyed over the years, and this is one of them.  Smoked this to a finger-burning nub.  This one pre-dated the acquisition of CAO by General, but I’m sure that the current offerings are just as tasty, something I will explore the next time I see these in the shop.

 

Today we had temperatures in the 60s, making for a fine evening to smoke a cigar without gloves, cold toes or shivering.  It was a very pleasant night for a walk with a nice, big cigar.  A few months back I won a beautiful Griffin’s humidor from a Facebook contest that I either forgot, or didn’t realize I had entered.  This is a lovely box, and I recently loaded it up for convenient upstairs storage, mostly with gifts, samples or singles purchases.  I had pretty much been smoking out of the coolerdors for the last bunch of years, which are kept in the basement.  I’m now fortunate enough to have two gorgeous desktop humidors, the first of which my wife had made for me for our tenth wedding anniversary, and it holds all those “special” cigars and doesn’t get opened very often.  I’m rather enjoying going to this new humidor to pick a cigar, and will keep rotating singles out of the coolers for daily smoking.  Tonight I selected a Murcielago Toro Grande that was basically a gift from my amigo Barry Stein on the DR trip last October.  I had given Barry a Hoyo de Monterrey when he was without a cigar, and he later responded with this cigar.  It’s among my favorite maduro cigars.  I can’t think of a San Andreas Maduro wrapped cigar I don’t enjoy, and this one has all the components that I enjoy, a little bit of strength, sweet where it needs to be sweet, with a fine balance.  Perfectly made, a great cigar.  I know this is one of Eddie Ortega‘s favorites, which is the reason I so look forward to trying his new Serie D line.  The Murcielago is a cigar well worth sampling.

 

In the News

Click to Enlarge

Just for fun, here’s another clipping from the archives of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  This article is from the June 28, 1835 edition.  It’s not easy to read, so click on the image to make it a little bigger.  If only this attitude continued today!

 

 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | January 29, 2012 · 10:22 am

Some Thoughts on Taste and A Tortuga 1950

My wife and I took the train into Philly yesterday to go to the Reading Terminal Market.  We have both lived in this area pretty much our whole lives, and had never been there.  This is a huge, indoor farmers market with produce, meats, fish, ethnic food, just about everything one would want.  One of the first stalls we came across was a candy counter.  I’m a nut for black licorice, so I purchased a mixed bag of “salty” licorice.  I had never had salty licorice and was curious.  Some of it wasn’t bad, some of it had a distinct ammonia flavor, which I can’t say that I enjoyed, I mean….who would?    It seems that this is a common treat in Nordic countries and Northern Germany, and is flavored with ammonium chloride, which explains the ammonia flavor I got.  This all got me to thinking of the way everyone’s tastes are different and how that translates to cigars.  This is no great revelation, we all know that we have different tastes, that’s one of the things that makes life interesting, but it reinforced the point to me when I thought ” who in thier right mind would enjoy this flavor?”  It seems that somebody does, and the same is true with cigars.  I’ve smoked some cigars that I consider to be vile, nasty tasting cigars that I can’t imagine anyone would want to smoke.  Obviously, the guy who makes the cigar likes it, and, let’s face it, considering all of the work that goes into making a cigar, who’s going to waste all that time and energy making a crappy cigar?  I know that as someone who apparently has a voice in the industry, it’s my responsibility when I talk about a cigar, to not denigrate a cigar just because it isn’t to my taste, and to allow for the myriad of variables in construction and storage that could cause a less than ideal cigar experience.  That same candy counter did have some chocolate cigars!  I passed since I can get a real cigar for the same price and have an hour or so of pleasure instead of the few minutes the candy variety would give me.  This bag of unusual licorice will last me a lot longer than a similar bag of sweet licorice would, as I can’t stop eating it once I start.   It’s one of my many failings…

 

Upon my return, I selected a Tortuga 1950 torpedo for an afternoon smoke.  This lovely dark cigar was sent to me by Victor Vitale, cigar maker, importer & distributor, along with a 1948 Connecticut and an Edicion Limitada 2011 in the same vitola.  There isn’t a lot of specifics on the website, but I assume that this is made in Nicaragua, based upon the “America Central” on the band.  According to information that I received with the samples, the cigar has a Mexican broadleaf wrapper, Nicaraguan,  Honduran and organic grown wild “jungle” filler leaf exclusive to this cigar.  The wrapper on this is beautiful, deep, dark brown, like dark chocolate, and the seems were virtually invisible and the veins were very fine.  The flavors appealed to me quite a bit.  They were dark and decadent, lush and satisfying.  There was an underlying flavor that intrigued me that I can’t put a finger on.  It was different from many maduros that I like, but really kept my attention down to a finger burning nub.  I’m really looking forward to the  other two in this line now, as this was a terrific smoke.  Besides the lack of details on the make-up of this cigar on the website, they also do not list a torpedo, so your mileage may vary when shopping for these.  Certainly a cigar I’d like to smoke more of. The Short at 4½” x 44 looks like a great winter cigar walk size.  I’ve been underwhelmed with Victor’s other cigars, but that’s just me, and, as I said above, taste is a subjective thing and no two palates ate the same.

 

I smoked some other cigars this week, notably a Macanudo 1968, a J.  Fuego Sangre de Toro Original, and a Gurkha Seduction.  All cigars I’d talked about before, and the only thing that bears repeating is how much I like the Gurkha Seduction.  I’ve been seeing a ton of reviews on this brick and mortar exclusive cigar.  I think Mike at MikesStogies.com is currently having a contest featuring these cigars, so check out his review.  I’ll feature these in a contest at a later date assuming I can keep my grubby little mitts off of them long enough!  I also noticed that the Seduction is Doc Stogiefresh‘s cigar of the week for his podcast episode 303.  Also of note was a La Gloria Cubana Artesanos de Tabaqueros with Sumatra and Broadleaf that I got from my visit to Famous Smoke Shop.  Delicious cigar, if you have an opportunity to go to a La Gloria Cubana Retro event and meet Michael Giannini you will be in for a double treat as these cigars are special and Michael is a heck of a guy!

 

One last thing:  Please let me know if you have any problems viewing the site.  I’ve had some feedback that there are still some glitches and some operating systems or browsers, or some connections speeds still have problems.  I want everyone to be able to see the site the way I do, so please let me know if there’s a problem or complaint.

 

That’s all I have for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

 

 

 

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by | December 28, 2011 · 10:31 am

CigarCraig’s Top Cigars Of 2011

Once again I’d like to thank everyone for making the 12 Days of Spectacular Giveaways a huge success.   I certainly couldn’t have done it without stuff to give away and people to give it to and  the great support I had at home.   It was tons of fun but it was a loads of work and quite tiring.  I’ll plan on doing it again next year but will do a few things a little differently on the back end.  Congrats to all of the winners and thanks to everyone for making it a great year on CigarCraig.com!

 

Everyone’s publishing their “Top Whatever” lists, and I’ve avoided doing anything like that over the years since I don’t really have a quantitative method of reviewing cigars, if you even want to call it reviewing.  I know what I like, I know how a cigar works and I also feel that nobody sets out to make a crappy cigar, so there must be someone, somewhere who likes a given cigar, no matter how offensive it is to me.  Also keep in mind that I’m not the kind of guy who runs all over creation looking for the hip boutique cigars, I’m just as happy with a Partagas Black as I am with some limited edition cigar that only comes out on arbor day and had 7 bands on it (happier, no doubt) So with all that in mind, let’s take a romp through what tripped my trigger over the last year!

 

You’d be hard pressed to find a list without the Tatuaje La Casita Criolla on it, and I have to concur, this is one of the cigars this year that really made me happy.  Broadleaf.  That’s all it is, Broadleaf.  I love Broadleaf.  I only smoked the corona size, but to me it compared favorably with the Liga Privada Serie Unico Dirty Rat in flavor and balance.  Tasty, tasty cigar!  I purchased these at a local shop and they weren’t too much more than $5 or $6 each.

 

A group of cigars that have received favorable reviews everywhere and are on everyone’s lists are the Emilio and Grimalkin cigars from Gary Griffith.  The Emilio AF1 is a nice, dark, heavy, seriously yummy cigar, it’s sibling, the AF2 is different, perhaps a brighter flavor, but equally well made and delicious.  The Grimalkin is a different beast, subtle, complex, an orgiastic feast of the senses.  I have not had the occasion to purchase these, all of the samples I smoked were provided to me by Gary, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy them in a heartbeat.  Gary and his partners are producing exceptional cigars, and I’m quite happy to know him.

 

I have also been enamored with the La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especial and the CAO OSA Sol this year, both new cigars from General Cigar Co., and I’m not just saying that because I had the great fortune of visiting their Dominican factory.  One of the many eyeopeners on that trip, besides revisiting some of their classic cigars and finding them to be outstanding, was the time and passion that goes into making every cigar.  It almost has to be harder to make a million great cigars that are great year after year thank to make a batch of a couple hundred thousand that are gone when they are gone, right?  The La Gloria Retro has been excellent and tasty in all the sizes I’ve tried, cigar after cigar,  and the CAO OSA Sol seems to shine in the Lot 50, or robusto size, but is a nice enough cigar across the board.  Both are in the medium range with lots of flavor.

 

One of my favorite finds of the year has to have been Oja Cigars.  I met the brand owner, Luis Garcia, on my trip to Nicaragua, and we hit it off pretty good.  His cigars are made by Tabacalera Esteli, which is owned by Kiki Berger.  There haven’t been a lot of cigars from Cuban Crafters that have floated my boat, but the Oja line is really nice.  I think my favorite cigar of the year was a Connecticut Toro I enjoyed in the pool on a hot summer day, but that had as much to do with the circumstance as with the cigar.  The line is solid, full bodied (even the Connecticut) and tasty.  The Anniversary, with a Brazilian maduro wrapper outshines them all.  It’s a little more refined and complex.  I love the whole line and look forward to seeing them in stores in my area.

 

I should mention Adrian’s CroMagnon by Michael Rosales and Skip Martin, which is another cigar that’s been on everyone’s list.  I’ve only smoked a couple samples that Skip gave me, but they are definitely up my alley.  Also, for much different reasons, I really like the Berger and Argenti Mooch line, especially the Schnorr.  The name cracks me up, but the cigar is a solid, flavorful medium bodied cigar.  Also the Undercrown and My Uzi Weighs a Ton were on everyone’s list for good reason, and I enjoyed the samples I had.  Alec Bradley is making fine cigars, Toraño is making fine cigars, La Palina, El Primer Mundo, Oliva, everyone seems to be making fine cigars!  It’s a good time, there are so many choices!

 

That’s about all I can think of at the moment.  Honestly, there were a LOT of great cigars this year.

 

Until the next time, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | December 24, 2011 · 9:22 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways – Final Day Winner and Thanks!

We’ve come to the end of a historic two weeks on CigarCraig.com!  A marathon of daily posts, untold thousands of dollars worth of merchandise (and postage!).  We gave away 167 cigars, 4 cutters, 2 lighters, 2 caps, 2 cigar tubes, a cigar case, a magazine subscription, a gift certificate and a humidor! That’s a bunch of stuff!  Also significant was the all time high numbers of unique visits, as well as comments!  Until last week I didn’t even know if you got to 50 comments it went to a second page.  Pretty crazy!  In addition to everyone who came back day after day religiously for a chance to win fabulous prizes, I want to give my sincere thanks to the cigar companies who made this madness possible!  They are, in no particular order:

La Gloria Cubana

Villiger Stokkebye

Brothers of the Leaf, LLC

Miami Cigar and Co.

Oliva

CAO

Cigar Journal

Pipes and Cigars

C-Gars Ltd. 

Tabacos Mata Fina USA

Oja Cigars

AJ Fernandez 

Emilio Cigars

 

This was an ambitious project.  What started out with the idea of giving away a cutter here and a cap there morphed into something huge.  The generosity of the companies listed above was amazing, as was their willingness to put up with my neurotic and obsessive compulsive tendencies!  The one other person I absolutely could not have done this without is my lovely wife, Jennifer.  You may have noticed her mentioned in the comments here and there, seen her tweets and re-tweets, as well as handling moderating all of the comments while I was at work every day.  Thanks for everything you’ve done for me!

 

Editorial

Now, before I announce the winner of the humidor from Pipes and Cigars, please take a moment to write a nasty letter to the NCAA and The Orange Bowl pointing out their hypocrisy.  David Savona sums it up perfectly in his blog on CigarAfficianado (here).  Head on over to FaxZero.com and send a fax to the OrangeBowl at 305-341-4750.  I saved Mr. Savona’s article as a PDF and faxed it to the attention of the CEO of the Orange Bowl committee.  You can fax twice a day for free using FaxZero.  You can also send them a tweet using @orangebowl or find them on Facebook and voice your displeasure.  You can also e-mail Larry Wahl, VP of Communications and Community Outreach at lwahl@orangebowl.org .

 

Time to announce the winner!  I have been presented with the number 41 by the Random Number Generator, which means that MarcB is the winner! Please send me your contact information!   This concludes this year’s contests! Please visit the sponsoring companies sites and thank them for their generosity.  Also, take a look at my advertisers sites, and join me in welcoming La Palina Cigars to the CigarCraig.com family.  These friends help me to defray costs of doing things to write about and I deeply appreciate their support!

 

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, to everyone. I’ll leave you with this Christmas video from Alan Bernhoft, who you may have seen in the comments over the last few days.  Let’s give him a little Christmas present and help make his song a new Christmas classic!

httpv://youtu.be/AioTRzrMlBw

 

Until the next time,

CraigCraig

 

 

 

 

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