Tag Archives: La Palina

by | July 18, 2012 · 7:20 pm

A La Gloria Cubana, a Brun del Re, a La Palina and a Hoyo de Monterrey Contest Winner!

I think the combination of the outrageously high heat and humidity and the air conditioning being on in the house has wreaked havoc with a couple cigars this week.  I’ve been taking the cigar out of the humidor, getting ready to take it outside, sometimes it hangs out unprotected in the dry air conditioning for 10 minutes or so, then I drag it out into the hot and humid out of doors.  I fail to see how these short periods of time have any effect, but I’ve had a few cigars that seem to smoke “wet”, as if they dried out a little inside, then soaked up a big drink of water upon going outside!  I know this is unreasonable, but I can’t think of anything else.  Other cigars from the same humidor are fine.  Certainly some tobaccos burn differently at various humidities, or maybe I just got a couple duds!  The first cigar to give me a little trouble was the La Gloria Cubana Artesanos de Tabaqueros retro tour edition, the one with the Sumatra and Broadleaf, as opposed to the Connecticut and Sumatra configuration that’s in regular production.  I have had a couple of these in the Robusto size and absolutely loved them.  It took some work getting the smoke out, having to double and triple draw for the first half to get at that deliciousness.  Once it got to the half way point it started working a little better.  In my experience, this is a terrific smoke, once you hit the broadleaf wrapper those nice, dark flavors really take off.  If you ever get a chance to get to a La Gloria Cubana event and mooch one of these, do it, they are tasty as all get out!

 

Mondays can sometimes be “experimental” cigar days.  I chose a Brun del Re Don Corazza robusto from the couple of cigars left over rom last year’s IPCPR show.  I had smoked this cigar in a 4″ x 60 format and was less than impressed, which is one of the reasons I’ve passed over the robusto in my humidor.   I figured after a year of age I’d give it another shot.  I’m a strong believer in the idea that every cigar is someone’s baby, so this Don Corazza guy must love this cigar.  It smoked pretty well, with a little hint of the “smoking wet” feeling I got with the La Gloria.  I did enjoy the cigar past the band, it burned evenly and had a pleasing flavor.  It may not be something that’s necessarily up my alley, but it’s still a nice smoke.  I think I have a Brun del Re Premium Connecticut floating around someplace that I’ll have to try soon.

 

Tuesday, for some reason, I decided on a La Palina El Diaro Torpedo for my usual walk.  This one had been sitting in my Griffin’s humidor for about six months or so, and it was one of those situations where I thought of that cigar for some reason during the day.  I felt compelled to smoke it and I don’t know why.  I’m glad I did because it was a terrific smoke! This line is one of those that I can’t put a name to any flavors, but I just know I like them and that they are always a high quality smoking experience.  The construction is spectacular and they are smooth and rich and tasty.  I am so looking forward to the maduro version, you know how much I love the San Andreas maduro wrappers!

 

Contest!

 

It’s time to select a winner for the third week of our Hoyo de Monterrey Reposado en Cedros contests!  If you haven’t already, make sure you enter Hoyo’s Box-a-Day contest at HoyodeMonterrey.com.  I consulted the random number generator at Random.org once again, and it spit out the number 7.  By my figuring, foozer69 left the 7th comment so he’s the winner!  Send me your contact info so I can send you cigars.  Sunday will be another contest, so you’ll have another chance to win a six-pack of cigars. Many thanks to the fine folks at General Cigar Co. for sponsoring this series of contests!

 

Finally, as long as you’re leaving comments on Sunday (or on this post), do me a favor and tell me what you’d like me to ask manufacturers and brand owners at the IPCPR show.  I’d like to come back with information that you, the readers, want to hear, so I figured it would be easiest to ask!  So let me know!

 

That’s more than enough for today, until Sunday,

CigarCraig

 

 

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by | May 6, 2012 · 10:38 am

Brun Del Rè Cigars, a La Palina Cigar and a Little Rant

I was feeling adventurous again this week and reached for a Brun Del Rè Premium Robusto from last year’s IPCPR.  I had smoked a sample from their Don Corazza line a while ago and wasn’t very impressed.  I fell victim to one of  the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia”  but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never judge a cigar line based upon a single sample”. Based upon that one sample, I had been hesitant to invest my valuable cigar time in what might have been just another ho-hum, run of the mill trade show sample.   However, my faith has been restored with this cigar.  It was a beautiful Ecuador Connecticut shade wrapped 5″ x 50 robusto stuffed with Nicaraguan filer and made in Costa Rica .  It was well made, had a nice sweet flavor and was on the medium end of mild.  I’m very much looking forward to sampling the rest of this line and even re-visiting the Don Corazza.  This cigar is worth a try in my opinion.

 

Took a long walk on Friday evening and needed a little heftier cigar, so I selected a recently received La Palina Toro.  If I get a mile and a half from home and realize I’ve got a dud cigar I’m very unhappy, so cigar selection in this case is critical.  Of course, I have the foresight to carry a back-up, either to smoke if I get a less than satisfying cigar experience, or to share along the way if the need arises.  With the La Palina, I know I won’t need the back-up. These cigars are always perfectly constructed, they are made in the Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras, the same factory that produces such excellent and consistent lines as Alec Bradley and Illusione (the later of which I’ve never had, but heard good things!).  The La Palina Toro is a rich and tasty smoke, although still pricey at $10 each.  It’s a premium smoke that has never failed to deliver in all of the sizes I’ve tried, but I think I like this size and the robusto the best. Thank you to La Palina for providing the samples, and for their support of this site.

 

A Little Rant

This is probably the wrong time to type this. I tend to be the most curmudgeonly on Sunday mornings after I’ve worked at my part time job until 3 am, but I feel the need to vent.  A couple things annoy me when reading/listening to my contemporaries in what I’ll hesitantly call the cigar media.  My first beef involves basic writing skills.  My dear friend Barry Stein made a bit of a joke about his typos, and it annoyed me but I get it.  He had a wildly successful site, did a great job, and it was a bit of an inside joke.  I read other sites (and I’m going to be a wuss and not name names) and I’m appalled.  I’m no writer, but I take what I do here pretty seriously and try to present readable content.  Punctuation, run on sentences, misspelling, I feel like I’m reading something a 5th grader wrote (with apologies to most 5th graders).  Seriously, word processor programs will at least tell you most of this stuff is wrong!  I don’t know how people can put their names on some of the stuff I see.  It’s a blog. It’s not twitter or texting. Please write coherently.  Another thing that rankles me is when I’m listening to a podcast, and I listen to a bunch, and the presenters get basic information wrong.  I’m far from an expert, but after more than a decade and a half of being a crazy cigar fool, I think I can pretty much tell a cigars size on sight, or at least come close.  I also think it’s irresponsible to get the price-point wrong about a cigar, especially to represent it as a much cheaper cigar than it actually is.  Really, as much time as it must take to produce such high quality podcasts, and as readily available as the information is in most cases, I think it sloppy to leave out these little details.  People must think I’m nuts when I’m in the car or out for a walk and start talking back to the podcast trying to correct them!  Anyway, it all comes down to details in both cases. If you don’t have the details, don’t make them up or guess while presenting yourself as an authority.  As I said, I neither think myself an authority, nor any kind of writer, but I try to get the details right as I feel it’s my responsibility. Thanks for listening, and please leave a comment if there’s something I do repeatedly that annoys you.

 

Sometime during the week I smoked a Berger and Argenti Mooch Schnorr that was really good.  I love the size of this cigar, (it’s  5″ x 50 but it seems more like a corona gorda for some reason) and the name always makes me smile as much as the excellent flavor and construction.  This is a reasonably priced, medium bodied cigar that I think can be enjoyed by many different types of smokers.  In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned this cigar as I’ve mentioned it before, but I spent a lot of time on the photo of the cigar and didn’t want it to go to waste :-).

 

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

CigarCraig

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by | March 26, 2012 · 9:21 pm

A La Palina, a Liga Privada, a CAO and a La Gloria and More Editorializing…

I have to go back to last Thursday when I smoked a lovely little cigar, the La Palina El Diario KB.  This is a pretty little petite corona, 4½”x40 with a Honduran Corojo wrapper and Nicaraguan Corojo and Criollo filler, and a double Honduran Criollo binder.  I only had about 45 minutes until the hockey game was coming on so I selected this cigar, which I received from the company as a sample.  It’s a tasty cigar, many cigars from the Raices Cubana factory are, and it’s maybe a little stronger than its line-mates due to its diminutive size.  It was perfect for two laps around the neighborhood, and finished up just after the puck dropped.  It’s a really nice little cigar, but I have trouble with the price tag, which is $35 for a 4 pack.  It’s a pricey little smoke, however the rest of the line I consider pricey as well.  For me it’s not a daily smoke, but the line is delicious and refined and a very good special cigar.

 

Friday night I decided to treat myself, and selected an original Liga Privada No. 9 from March, 2007.  This had a pre-oroduction band with Saka’s name on it as these were originally rolled as his personal cigar.  This was given to me by a former member of the staff at the time.  I initially thought that it’s time had passed, it was off to a slow start.  After about an inch it kicked in, producing the lush, savory flavors that one would expect.  It had a perfect burn and I wasn’t going to put it down. I finally did when it reached the half-inch mark and was too small to hold any more.  The Liga Privada series remains a favorite special cigar, one I don’t smoke often, and one of the few I will pay the high price for (although not frequently).  I actually did see some Feral Flying Pigs in the shop I mentioned a few posts ago, but couldn’t talk myself into paying the $15+ price tag.

 

Sunday my wife and I took a ride to Atlantic City in a vain attempt to win a bunch of money.  While there we came across a Cigar themed slot machine, and I’ve NEVER played a $2 slot before, but I had to, ya know?  I put my $20 in the slot, and within a few pulls I was actually up $22.  Normally I would cash that out and walk, but I let it ride, right down to $0.  Oh well, the machine was in a smoking section, so I managed to enjoy a wonderful CAO OSA Sol Lot 50.  Nice, bright flavors, a really smooth and tasty smoke.  Well behaved, I only dropped ash on the floor a few times!   When we got home we found that the power was out in the neighborhood, so I sat on the front porch until it got dark smoking a cousin to the OSA, a La Gloria Cubana Retro Especial Cubano.  Nice, big cigar, similar to the CAO in that it’s medium bodied and bright.  I love both cigars for different reasons.  The power came back on around 4:30 am, so it was out for around 12 hours.

 

Editorial

If you read my last post about the IPCPR‘s Internet Media Membership, you will see that there were a ton of great comments from my fellow “new media” types, as well as a response from Bill Spann, CEO of the IPCPR asking for a proposal and promising to re-think their current policy.   I plan on bouncing this off of the Internet Media Members to see where improvements can be made.  I suppose we can call this group Brothers Of The Online Media, or BOTOM. :-).

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | February 1, 2012 · 8:53 pm

A Toraño, a La Palina and a Vegas de Santiago Cigar

We have been having unseasonably nice weather here in south-eastern PA, so I’ve taken to smoking some larger cigars than I normally would this time of year.  Last winter we’d had probably four feet of snow,  not conducive to enjoying a fine cigar. Daytime highs near 60 have left the evenings prime for long walks with excellent cigars.

 

Sunday afternoon I selected a Toraño Loyal BFC, and I think, like the Emilio BMF, I know what the letters stand for.  This 6″ x 60 cigar could be considered a Big Fricken Cigar.  I had picked this up sometime over the last few months at a local shop, and it wasn’t awfully expensive, because, let’s face it, I don’t buy too many cigars that are awfully expensive.  This was a nice, medium bodied cigar that smoked very well.   At the price point around $5, this is a really tasty, well made cigar.

 

For Tuesday’s evening walk I was joined by a La Palina El Diaro Torpedo, which I receive a month or so ago from the folks at La Palina, who is also an advertiser on this site.  The cigar is a classic torpedo size, 6 1/8″ x 52, which is always  a favorite of mine.  I have to say that I think I like the robusto better in this cigar.  The torpedo was good, don’t misunderstand, but is lacked something that the robusto had.  I think i found the smaller size slightly more refined than the torpedo.  As I was smoking it, I couldn’t help but wonder what this blend would be like with a maduro wrapper.  Again, a very nice cigar, but something was missing for me.

 

Tonight’s cigar was a  Vegas de Santiago Secretos de Maestro Don Luis Laguito  No.1 maduro.  This cigar came into my possession  over a year ago after a conversation with Rudi and Lani, the manufacturers in Costa Rico.  I have had an association with this folks going back to a couple of events my wife and I hosted which they generously donated their cigars for the attendees.  Vegas de Santiago makes some really nice cigars at a very reasonable price.  They send me some of these cigars in what they refer to as a maduro wrapper.  This is maduro in the sense that the Cuban maduro cigars are, darker than their “natural”, but not the dark, heavy wrapper that we see in a broadleaf or Mexican maduro.  The cigar is a beautiful chocolate brown, and it well made with a nice pigtail cap.  I enjoyed the heck out of this cigar, except that there were a couple hints of ammonia near the end,  which confused me since these have been buried in the humidor for over a year.   An enjoyable smoke on a relatively balmy evening (for February 1st, light jacket and no gloves is a treat!).

 

My wife has been doing some research and in so doing came across the Philadelphia news papers archives.  Here’s a comic from the Philadelphia Inquirer dated June 6, 1922 that is as relevant now as it was then.  You may need to click on the image to open it in a new window to read it.

 

On a final note, I’d like to welcome my newest advertiser, 1st Class Cigar Humidors.  They have some really nice stuff on their site if you are in the market for a humidor or accessories!

 

That’s about all I have for now, 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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