Tag Archives: La Gloria Cubana

by CigarCraig | May 10, 2015 · 12:53 pm

Leccia Luchador, Rocky Patel Prohibition, LGC, a Rodrigo and a Couple of Swingers Cigars

First off, don’t forget to go back to my last post and weigh in on the “where do you smoke” poll. After looking at it, I should have specified covered patio or porch, any old patio isn’t drastically different from “outside”. I am fortunate enough to have a screened in porch which worked pretty well all winter long for me. Anyway, let us know where you smoke! I had a pretty good cigar week this week. Of course, I smoked a Leccia Luchador El Hombre Tuesday, since it was Cinco de Mayo. I had smoked the Rocky Patel Prohibition Connecticut Broadleaf on Monday, figuring I’d follow that with the Mexican version on Tuesday, but I misplaced it and the Luchador jumped out at me anyway. It doesn’t generally take much to convince me to smoke a Luchador, I love that cigar! The Luchador has it all, San Andres, Pennsylvania ligero, Ometepe, it’s quite the smoke. I really enjoy the Prohibition Broadleaf too, it’s well made with a nice sweet flavor. It’s a very good smoke, and If I can find the Prohibition Mexican later I may revisit it as well. When I smoked these cigars initially I preferred the Broadleaf over the Mexican, let see how a few months in the humidor treated them. I also managed to smoke a La Gloria Cubana Trunk Show from 2012, the Liga YG-23, which was a trade show sample, before they had the bands for them. When they did have bands, they were of the smokable variety, either made from HTL (Homogenized Tobacco Leaf) or they had the band printed on the wrapper with a vegetable based “ink”, I forget which exactly. Either way, the presentation was cool and the cigar was very good, especially with 3 years age. It had a very rich and smooth flavor, quite enjoyable and a rather large cigar at just under 7 inches (6 7/8″) x 58.

Friday evening I was in a corona kinda mood and went for the Corona Project Vol. 1 from Rodrigo Cigars. This is a visually interesting cigar, a dark Broadleaf wrapper with a pigtail cap and a closed foot, very rustic. Here’s what the website says: “Blended as a collaboration between the father and son team of William and Henderson Ventura and Rodrigo owner George Rodriguez, The Corona Project Vol. 1 delivers an all ligero blend of Dominican Criollo 98, Corojo, HVA (Habano Vuelta Arriba), with a Sumatra Ecuador binder, finished in a maduro Broadleaf US Connecticut wrapper.” All ligero is apparent as soon as the delicious sweetness of the extra Broadleaf at the foot burns off. This is a powerful little cigar! It’s loaded with very direct and concentrated flavor, nothing subtle here. I really enjoyed this cigar, and appreciate Gary Griffith sharing this with me. Many times I prefer smoking a larger cigar, mostly because it makes my daily vacation just a few minutes longer, but when it comes to really tasting the blend, a corona is the way to go.

Yesterday I pulled out a pair of cigars that I got at last years Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival. These cigars were two double coronas from Swinger Cigar Co., whose motto is “A Good Smoke For All Your Strokes”. While this name and motto could be interpreted a couple of ways, they have a golf theme, and the two cigars they offer are the Front 9 and the Back 9. If they had named their cigars “Wife Swap” or something I’d be concerned and probably avoid the line. It’s a lifestyle brand, but not that kind of lifestyle! They come in three sizes, the 5½ x 52 Par 3, the 6″ x 60 Par 4 and the cigars I smoked, the 7″ x 54 Par 5. The Front 9 is recommended for “A morning on the links”, it’s has a nice Connecticut Shade wrapper, presumably from Ecuador. I really enjoyed this flavor, complexity and burn of this cigar. It had a really smooth, sweet flavor and was clean and refreshing. This ranks among the better Connecticut shade wrapped cigars I’ve smoked recently and was very relaxing and enjoyable. I would smoke this happily just about any time of day, although it was a perfect accompaniment after lunch and running errands. I was quite impressed.

Once the lawn dried from the morning rain, and I ate dinner and my wife an I double teamed the lawn cutting duties, I lit up the Back 9. I had some expectations based on the Front 9, and my preference for darker wrappers over lighter ones. The difference seems to be the wrapper, as this is listed as having a Brazilian Corojo wrapper. Unfortunately they don’t divulge any other of the components of either cigar on their website, and I was hoping I’d get an e-mail with information. Anyway, the Back 9 was a very different cigar than the Front 9. Where the Front 9 was perfectly balanced, the Back 9 had an acidic tinge to it that I did not find appealing. I expected a more meaty, savory flavor and this wasn’t there. This cigar did not suit my palate like it’s Connecticut shade sibling did. If I smoked these in the reverse order I may not have gotten around to the Front 9, so I’m glad I stuck with the program. There was just something strange about the Back 9 that didn’t please my taste buds.

That’s about it for today. Enjoy your Sunday and I’ll see what I can come up with for next week! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review

Tagged as Back 9, cigar, cigars, Corona Project, Front 9, general cigars, La Gloria Cubana, leccia, Luchador, Prohibition, rocky patel, rodrigo, Swinger

by CigarCraig | April 5, 2015 · 9:42 am

A Room 101 Daruma, Bernie Parent’s Birthday and an Aged La Gloria Cubana Cigar

I’m going to try out a different posting schedule starting this week. I’m cutting my regular posts back to Sundays only, which will be the usual recap of notable (to me) cigars I smoked that week. I’ll post here and there during the week as something comes up, an event, an interesting cigar, or a news item, or not, however I feel. I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to keep the Sunday/Wednesday schedule going, and I have to admit, posting from my dying father’s hospital room put things into perspective for me. It may result in more posts that are focused on one thing, or I may take a week off, we’ll see how it goes. I’m also happy to post “Honorary Craig for a Day” posts if they come my way. I mainly want to avoid burning out, especially as the site continues to gain popularity. This plan should be better for everyone all the way around.

Last July I was in Chicago herfing around town for a few days, and I was given a Room 101 Daruna Mutante Lancero. I managed to stumble into a herf at Tesa Cigars, there were folks there from the BOTL and Saints and Sinners groups, and they welcomed me into their event. I gave someone a cigar that they mentioned they hadn’t tried, it might have been a Leccia Luchador, and they reciprocated with this lancero, employing the time honored excuse of having to make room in the traveldor. It was not necessary, but much appreciated. This one had managed to migrate to the top of the lancero shelf in the humidor, so it caught my eye I needed to be smoked. The cigar is a beautiful classic pigtailed lancero measuring 7″ x 38, and smoked very well. The Screwpop 2.0 punch is about 10mm in diameter which made a perfect hole in the cap, no burn or draw issues were experienced. It had a nice little kick with a hint of sweetness from the Brazilian Mata Fina used as the binder. It was an elegant smoke, both in shape and flavor. I’m reminded that I haven’t smoked this cigar’s cousins, Camacho, in quite a while and will have to scare one up. Thank you to the gentleman who gave me this fine cigar.

Friday happened to me Bernie Parent’s 70th birthday, In his honor I smoked the Lord Stanley from the BSB 40th Anniversary by Bernie Parent sampler. Of course, Bernie Parent is the legendary goalie who led the Philadelphia Flyers to back to back Stanley Cup wins in 1974 and 1975, winning the Vezina and Conn Smyth trophies in the same years. The sampler commemorates the never before and never since winning of all three trophies in back to back years. Bernie is a great story teller and truly loves cigars, so much so that Rocky Patel created this line. I decided to smoke the Lord Stanley, the box pressed Sumatra wrapped cigar that’s about 6½” x 50 (I could grab another out of the box to measure, but the humidor is all the way across the house. Sadly nobody mentions the sizes of these online, more on that later). The cigar was good, very pleasant flavors, but nothing so spectacular as to warrant the $12 price tag in my opinion. I don’t regret the purchase though, I bought a single of each and the box containing four each of the three cigars and an autographed puck, and I had Bernie sign the box in front of me (and I got to spend a great evening listening to his stories), so it was worth it. I just have to decide if I will regret smoking through the box one day or if I should keep it intact. Not being a collector, I’m inclined to smoke them, maybe the Flyers will win another Cup in my lifetime, at which time I’ll have a great box of cigars to break out!

I often link back to the manufacturers websites in my posts as a reference to myself and so my readers can get more information if they desire. I get frustrated by companies not having information on their sites about the cigars, as is the case with Room 101 and the BSB (I really searched through Rocky’s site, saw the HR500 listed, but no BSB, and there are a lot of lines to sift through!). It takes so little effort and expense to include information about the cigars, I don’t understand why in 2015 companies cant get the most up to day information on their sites in an easy to find manner. For this reason, I link to a sponsor’s retail website, or reputable information and review sites such as Halfwheel or Cigar-Coop, to fill in the blanks.

Yesterday I took a nice long walk with a La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro Especiale Cubano. I was given a box of these back in 2011 when I had the great pleasure of visiting General Cigar’s operations in Santiago, DR, and am down to the last few from that box. It’s a big cigar at 6½” x 58. The cellophane is now a nice amber color, and, all things considered, these have aged nicely. The concept behind this line originally was to downplay the contribution of the wrapper to the flavor of the cigar and let the filler blend shine. I can’t really comment on this without trying it with other wrappers, but the wrapper is a hybrid Connecticut seed grown in Honduras, so I can understand where it would theoretically be a very mild flavored wrapper. I’ve smoked a bunch of these over the years and have always enjoyed the balance and medium bodied strength and flavor this cigar has. It’s right up there with my favorite LGCs, and I’ve been smoking La Glorias for almost 20 years. It’s a cigar that can be smoked at any time of the say and enjoyed, and they hold up over time, while it hasn’t gotten markedly better, it hasn’t lost anything either.

Happy Easter and Passover everyone! I’m off to load up yet another rental truck with furniture to move from the old house to the new one…one step closer to getting that job done!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Editorial, News, Review

Tagged as Bernie Parent, BSB, cigar, cigars, La Gloria Cubana, rocky patel, Room 101

by CigarCraig | March 8, 2015 · 6:21 pm

La Gloria Cubana, Padron, Rocky Patel and a New Tortuga Cigar

With so many new cigars to smoke, I decided to go with some old favorites and not so new cigars this week. We had probably the biggest snow of the year this week, and it was only about 10″, but it’s still enough to mess up the roads. Hopefully this is the last we’ll see of the white stuff (I know a lot of the country has seen their fair share this year). I’m celebrating the return of Daylight Savings Time here today as well. It’s gotten a lot easier now that most of the clocks change on their own, we used to have to run around and change all the clocks manually, and for the CDO (OCD in alphabetical order as it should be) afflicted, getting them all set to the same time is a nightmare. I have a Sony alarm clock that sets itself, but it’s ALWAYS five minutes fast! What’s up with that? Anyway, enough rambling nonsense, let’s get to some cigar nonsense!

Thursday was the day it snowed, and we closed up work at one-thirty, I was home by two-thirty and out taking Macha for a walk with a La Gloria Gubana Serie R Esteli No.54 by three. I never really cared for the Serie R line, they didn’t have enough oomph for me. I know they pioneered the large ring trend back in the late ’90s when they came out (at the time, the Casa Blanca Jeroboam and Puros Indios Chief were the notable giant cigars that were actually real premium cigars). Last year General Cigar Co. released the SErie R Esteli and Black, with the Esteli being brick and mortar exclusive, and the Black only available online. I find the Esteli to be not only right up my personal alley flavor-wise, but far superior in flavor to it’s predecessors as well as the Black. Comparing it only to the Black, as they hit the market at the same time and seem similar, I find the Esteli to be richer and deeper in flavor, and those flavors are the dark cocoa and espresso with some spice flavors that I really like. Burn was great, draw was great and it’s got a hearty enough Jalapa sungrown wrapper to hold up to a few snowflakes here and there. I’m a La Gloria fan anyway, but this is among my favorites, I’ll happily smoke these in any size, although my preference is for this size, 6″ x 54, which is the smallest.

Friday I went old school. I had two Padron 4000 cigars floating around the humidors since last year sometime. One slightly darker than the other, so one could assume one was the maduro and one the natural. Of course, it’s hard to make these assumptions with Padrons, but I leaned toward the darker of the two. The Padron “thousand series” is the quintessential Nicaraguan cigar. All the Anniversary series are great, but the “bottom of the line” standard Padrons are great on their own. Reasonably priced, almost always available, and consistent in flavor and construction year after year, you really can’t go wrong. The 4000 hasn’t been in the line-up as long as the 2000 or 3000, so this is the first in that vitola I’ve smoked, but it met all my expectations. There’s a dusty cocoa flavor that is the core of Padron, and this cigar absolutely satisfied all my criteria for an excellent cigar. Maybe these aren’t as pretty as the Anniversary series and have a few rough edges, but for the money these are something that should be a staple in every humidor.

Yesterday I was poking around looking for a cigar to smoke after the disappointing Flyers loss to the Bruins. the occasion wasn’t deserving of a BSB No.1 Bernie Parent Lord Stanley by Rocky Patel, but next to it was a Rocky Patel Fifteenth Anniversary Toro, so I said “what the heck” and grabbed it for a post dinner walk. Tonight I get to start taking walks in the daylight again! I wasn’t sure where this cigar was going to go, having not smoked one before and knowing nothing about it. What I do know is that it came out a few years ago to commemorate the company’s 15th anniversary (well duh…that was tough to figure out there Captain Obvious) and a little research turns up that it has a Habano wrapper, comes in sizes Corona Gorda, Robusto, Toro, Torpedo, Sixty, Toro Tubo, of which the Toro is a 6½” x 52 with a comfortable box press. Ask me where I got this one, I couldn’t tell you. I seem to have amassed a pretty good handful of Rocky Patel cigars over the years, and I can only remember buying a few, the rest must have snuck in. I don’t get samples from RP, except the occasional “here, try this” unbanded sample from my local rep, Mark. Anyway, this was a taasty cigar, nice sweet notes and a solid core of rich tobacco flavor. I liked it and would smoke it again, for sure.

Last week Pottery Barn, of all places, listed a cigar case and cutter on their clearance page (that part isn’t particularly surprising, that they had them there in the first place was the surprise. Unbeknownst to me, my wife order them and they arrived this week. I personally would have passed on this offer, although I will certainly use the double tube cigar case. I have several single tubes that I use from time to time, but then I end up with empty tubes that I needed to take home. The tubes might accommodate a 6″ x 46 cigar, but are probably better suited for a smaller ring gauge. The caps fit nice, although the overall fit and finish is a little sloppy, but it kind of fits with the antique brass finish. The cutter is your typical single blade in a metal housing instead of the usual plastic. It seems sharp enough and is certainly a nicer alternative to a throw-away promo type cutter. It would certainly do the job and goes nicely with the case. She didn’t get them monogrammed, but that was available, although checking today it looks like only the cutter is still in stock. I would have liked having an R and and L on the lid of the tubes, just to satisfy my aforementioned CDO. 🙂 I really like the Brass tube that Kevin Shahan in Florida made, if he could make them double like this, I think he’d be on to something.

Today I went to have a quick meeting with Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands and Tortuga Cigars. We met at local favorite cigar hotspot, Cigar Mojo. Victor only had a short window of opportunity, so we met at 11am, when Mojo opened. We each purchased a handful of cigars, oddly including some Tortugas and RomaCraft cigars. We sat down at a table and lit up the new Tortuga 215 Reserva Connecticut Elegante, a 6″ x 54 cigar presented in a tissue paper wrapped cedar sleeve. This cigar debuted last month, and hasn’t been talked about much. It’s a mild cigar, wrapped in Ecuador Connecticut (Victor would have liked to use US Connecticut, but there were questions of the sustainability of the blend, and he wanted to be able to make this cigar consistently for years to come). The cigar is on the milder side, a perfect pre-lunch smoke, and I was impressed with the burn, as it left my favorite nice flat ember. It’s a flavorful, well balanced Connecticut cigar, as one would expect from a Tortuga. The very limited Tortuga Regalo with the same wrapper is a great smoke, and this one is the Regalo without the ligero, quite a great cigar. In the process of talking cigars and tobacco, Victor shared with me a new cigar he’s been working on for the last year, and the first production is already sold out and will be in stores next week. I’m not going to reveal too much more, but it’s something very different for Victor. Watch on Wednesday for more information.

That’s it for now, I would have smoked Victor’s new cigar today, but a migraine knocked me out again and took my afternoon away. I’m looking forward to getting it smoked for Wednesday’s post, and I’m also hoping to see the new cabinet humidor show up this week. Now I’m off to take my first evening daylight walk of the year!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

8 Comments

Filed under News, Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, La Gloria Cubana, padron, rocky patel, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | July 30, 2014 · 9:30 pm

Royal Gold Nirvana, Villiger Caberete and Nat Sherman Timeless Cigars

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day so, after doing a little yardwork, I alternated between smoking cigars in my chair in the yard and smoking cigars in the pool. Â We’ll be moving soon, so whether we’ll have a pool in the future is quite uncertain, so I’m trying to take advantage of the pool as much as possible. Â I started the day with an old La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro EspecialÃ© Cubano from a box that came back with me from the DR in 2011. Â These have aged nicely. Â When that was done, I found a Merlion Robusto from La Sirena. I figured the aquatic theme would fit in with my day. I’ve had this robusto since at least a year ago and age has been kind to this cigar made in the La Aurora factory. Both were on the smooth and mild side, which was nice on a hot day. Â After dinner I grabbed a new-to-me cigar that came out after last years IPCPR show. Â Royal Gold is the premium cigar division of Swisher International, and I talked to Alex Goldman, the president of the division at the Cigarnival a month or so ago. Â The Nirvana is made by Drew Estate and has an African Cameroon wrapper. It had the construction you’d expect from a Drew Estate cigar, and had a nice flavor with that Camerooniness that I love. Â It was sweet tobacco all the way through and was quite tasty. Â I have examples of their other lines, the Kismet and Casino Gold which I’ll get to in the coming weeks. Â Based on the Nirvana, I’m impressed.

Monday morning I got to work and there was no power, the previous nights storms had taken down a couple poles, so we did what we could and got out of there early. Â I came home and took a nap, then grabbed a cigar for my evening walk with the dog. Â I’ve been a fan of Villiger Cigars for a while, and I came across a new cigar from them called Caberete Maduro. This jet black, box pressed cigar looked like one I’d enjoy, and is made at theÂ Tabacalera Palma factory. This factory has been producing lines like Aging Room, SeÃ±orial, etc, and is one of the hottest factories in the Dominican Republic right now. Â The cigar was quite enjoyable, medium bodied, with a strong coffee/cocoa flavor. It burned admirable and gave me a very nice smoking experience. Â The cigar I smoked was the Toro Largo size at 6″ x 54 and had a severe box press. Â I look forward to smoking more of these. More information about this can be found here, as Villiger’s site has yet to updated with the latest information.

Tuesday I grabbed a cigar that had been gifted to me by a work associate, the Nat Sherman Timeless No. 2. Â I have no excuse for not having sampled this line before. Back in the eighties I smoked Nat Sherman MCD cigarettes for a while. They were gool because they were brown, and they were all tobacco so they went out if you didn’t pay attention. Â Totally irrelevant to this story, but I used to get their catalogs at the time. Â It may have had a little to do with my cigar fascination. Â Anyway, this is a nice torpedo shaped cigar, a classic 6Â¼” x 52, made in the Dominican Republic with a Honduran wrapper and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. Â I don’t have sophisticated tastebuds, so I was surprised when I got cinnamon. Is wasn’t cinnamon stick as much as a hard cinnamon candy. Â I really enjoyed the flavors of this cigar and I’m sorry I haven’t smoked this line before. I’ll have to try some more, as well as the Nicaraguan line. Â What an interesting and tasty smoke.

That’s about it. Â We’re running out of time to comment publicly on the FDA Deeming Document. Go HERE and tell the FDA that regulating premium cigars will devastate not only local economies and put people out work, as well as hurting economies internationally. Â It’s important, and I can’t wait to stop talking about it!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

A Shop Visit with a La Gloria Cubana, a Great Wall and a Monte Pascoal

As you well know, I’ve been tiring of smoking in the cold lately, so I paid a visit to a local shop on Sunday afternoon for a smoke. Lightn’Up in Glenmore, PA is only about 5 miles from home, and I pass it just about every day. I haven’t made a habit of stopping there because the inventory has been quite thin over the last few years. I heard that the store, along with it’s sister store in nearby Frazer, PA, was recently purchased by the CigarCigars chain which is growing steadily in the south-east PA area. I wanted to see what had changed, and the inventory is vastly improved. I selected a couple La Gloria Cubana Serie R Esteli, a CAO Flathead V642 Piston and a huge Foundry Compounds, Elements and Musings Uranium (I have to admit to a fascination with the Foundry line, and I dig the skeleton band on the Uranium. When I’m smoking a 7×70 I can’t say. This, along with the Carbon, are going to be regular production cigars, the rest in the Compounds, Elements and Musings line are limited editions). I sat down and lit up the LGC Esteli, which I like quite a bit. I think it’s the best in the Serie R line. It was the typical cigar shop scene, a few guys sitting around shooting the bull while the History Channel is on the TV. Yes, I wondered why there wasn’t some Olympics on, but there was a show about the White House (actually history programming on that channel, who’d think it?). They close at 4 on Sundays, which isn’t a bad thing, I was there for two hours enjoying the smoke, and it was good. Glad to see the shop improving. It’s in a good spot and is certainly convenient to me. I need to go visit their other recent acquisitions in my county. I was not impressed with the Frazer location when I stopped in last year, and I haven’t visited G&G Cigars in West Chester since they took it over. I’ll be interested to see how they have changed.

After I got home and ran out for Chinese take-out, I figured it would be a reasonably good time to try a cigar I got at the IPCPR show. for the last several years I’ve seen the huge, elaborate booth of the China Tobacco Chuanyu Industrial Co. Limited. I’ll admit that entering the booth held little interest to me. I guess I’m a little closed minded, I see premium cigars as a Latin American product, and it’s hard for me to associate cigars with anything else. I have to applaud the companies persistence, it has to cost a bundle to bring this enormous booth to the show every year, and I honestly don’t recall seeing a lot of traffic there. My friend Mitchell passed his bag from the booth on to me, and I’ve been passing up sampling the coronas that were in with the glossy 50+ page brochure. I figured I already had a great cigar earlier in the day so I figured this was the time to try something outside my comfort zone. Not many things bother me more than wasting quality cigar time on a sub-par cigar. The cigar is called the Great Wall Tudor No. 2, and is about 5 1/8″ x 42. It is described as having Indonesian wrapper and binder and “domestic” filler, which I assume is grown in China. I was expecting the worst, given I’m not a fan of Indonesian wrappers, but it wasn’t a terrible smoke. It was fairly neutral, with some interesting flavors. It burned and drew well, I should hope that a factory that turns out five billion cigars a year (I’m assuming that not all are handmade). I’ve smoked worse, and I have a couple more floating around including a Great Wall Flourishing Age III, which is cello wrapped with a handy pull tab that’s described as “sweet flavored”. This one may wait for a while.

Monday evening I selected a Monte Pascoal Belicoso for my evening walk. This 5½” x 52 cigar was given to me last year by a gentleman know as Matt Ross on Cigar Federation and Twitter. I met Matt up in New Jersey last year when we had a bit of a herf at Cigar Emporium in Lyndhurst, NJ. I figured I was meandering from the traditional tobacco regions with the Chinese cigar, so it wouldn’t hurt to smoke something from south of the equator. This is a Brazilian puro, wrapped in Mata Fina, but not a maduro Mata Fina like we are used to seeing. These are terribly tasty smokes, and I can’t recall smoking one that misbehaved. The laws are such in Brazil with their regulation that it’s costly and difficult to introduce new blends. This is precisely what the FDA would like to see happen here in the US, which will virtually eliminate the need to walk into your tobacconist and ask “what’s new?” Good reason to support all the efforts out there to keep the FDA out of our humidors (CRA). Many thanks to Matt for the cigar! It was greatly enjoyed.