Tag Archives: Los Statos Deluxe

A Djeep Lighter, New La Gloria Cubana, Punch and Los Statos Deluxe Cigars

Welcome to the “last weekend  of summer”.  My birthday and Labor Day always get me down as they indicate the coming of cooler, and eventually cold, weather, which I dislike.  I like summer.  I like stepping outside in the morning and feeling warm.  I like not having to bundle up.  I know some people like autumn, but it just depresses me.  I’m already looking forward to spring! Anyway, I was going through the checkout line at Walmart this week and my eye usually looks at the selection of lighters, and I saw something I hadn’t seen before, a Djeep Turbo Lighter.  I figured for $5 it was worth a try. I broke a couple torches lately, although I still have plenty, but one more won’t hurt.  It comes full of butane, ready to go, and really works well. It brings to mind the classic Blazer PB207, as it has a cap secured with a chain. It, thankfully, doesn’t have a switch to lock the flame on, which I always thought was a liability. The flame is adjustable and it’s refillable. I’ll use the heck out of it and see how it holds up, but initially I’m impressed.  Djeep is a good name in lighters, the soft flame disposable has always done well, I think I had one Macanudo branded many years ago.  There are probably cheaper torches that work just fine, but this is a brand name and is easily accessible. The link is to Amazon where they sell a six pack and is an affiliate link. If twenty of you buy these it might pay for the one I bought! 

 

I received some new releases from Forged Cigars and General cigars a couple weeks back, and was disappointed to receive the press release, but not the cigars,  for a new La Gloria Cubana, a long time favorite brand.  Fortunately, my friend Phil of Comedy-Cigars-Music shared a couple of his with me.  The La Gloria Cubana Gran Legado is a large figurado, 7¾” x 62, with a Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper over Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers.  Each cigar has a secondary band with a signature of one of the team who created it, and they only use rollers with 15 or more years of experience.  I had a busy week at the day job, and was ready to sit down and relax with a cigar Friday, and I chose this large cigar to do it with.  This was a really good smoke.  I’ve had some issues with some of the La Gloria releases lately, but this ain’t one of them.  It’s huge, so it smoked for about two and a half hours, and had some nice cocoa flavors with some spice through the nose.  Mid way through there was some interesting savory flavors, a cigar this large needs some transitions to keep it interesting.  I really enjoyed this cigar, I think it’s very fairly priced at $15, and I really appreciate Phil sharing his with me.  

 

Next up from Forged was the latest Matt Booth/Justin Andrews colab in the Los Statos Deluxe line, the Connecticut. I’ll be honest, I thought the other “LSD” offerings were OK, but I really like this one, and it’s really hard to get me excited about shade wrapped cigars.  This one has an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, Esteli, Jalapa, Nicaraguan Habano, and PA Broadleaf fillers, and, get this, it’s made at the Joya de Nicaragua factory!  No wonder I liked it.  Before I read where it was made, I was thinking that this was a really good budget alternative to a Sobremesa Brulee, and now I know why!  This is on a par with the Antaño CT and the Brulee as far as I’m concerned. I’ve smoked a couple of these and really enjoyed them, it’s a smooth, creamy cigar, with some cane sugar sweetness and an appropriate amount of spice.  I need to find some of the other sizes, the Churchill especially.  Look for the purple packaging, because you can’t see the wrapper to know what you’re getting!

 

Moving from the Forged division of STG to the General Cigar Co. side,  I smoked the new Punch Golden Era in Lancero.  Nearly a year ago I wrote about the robusto in this collaboration with Julio and Justo Eiroa of JRE Cigars.  I remember getting the Golden Era along with the Macanudo Vintage Maduro 2013 and being confused by the fact that the Macanudo was the stronger cigar. Like I mentioned last year, unlike the Punch Rare Corojo, this Golden Era actually has Corojo in the blend, Honduran Corojo wrapper with Honduran Corojo and Habano fillers.  This is a nice cigar with some bread and caramel notes.  The press release incorrectly states that this is the only Punch lancero, unless the 7″ x 37 Chop Suey doesn’t count because it was limited.  I think the lancero was better than the robusto, I planned to smoke one while writing this, but a persisting migraine made me scrap that idea. I’ll have one later.  

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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More Panacea Cigars and a New Los Statos Deluxe

I smoked a few more Panacea cigars from Flatbed Cigar Co. this week.  I had bought a sampler when they signed up to advertise with me.  I subsequently bought a Green Label sampler and that transaction went as smoothly as the first.  Since Paul Bush, the owner of the company, wrote a note on the packing slip asking me to tell my friends, I’m doing just that.  This week I started with the Panacea White Label in a toro. They call the toro in this line the “Hitch Pin”, and list it as 6½” x 54, I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention, because it seemed like a 6″ x 52 to me. This has a Corojo wrapper, a “Cuban Seed” binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan Ligero, Dominican Seco fillers. To me, this started out with some tannins, and worked itself into a citrus tang.  I found it to be a well made cigar, perfect burn and draw.  It had some earthiness and nuts perhaps.  Nice smoke.

 

Next up was the Panacea Red Label, which was a really pretty looking cigar.  The red band and the Habano wrapper work very well together visually. This was the company’s third cigar, released in 2009.  In addition to the Habano wrapper, this has Seco Cubano,  Piloto Cubano, Olor Dominicano, and  Nicaraguan Ligeros.  The website description may have a copy/past error.  This is a really nice, medium bodied cigar, with a sweetness that I generally get from Habano wrappers.  The blend description makes it sound like a heavy cigar, but it’s solidly medium for some reason.  I’ll get to the Black and Blue labels next week.  I think it’s funny that the Connecticut is the Black Label, I imagine in 2007 when this came out all of the Connecticut wrapped cigars had white bands and this made it stand out. 

 

Yesterday I gave the new Los Statos Deluxe Limited Edition from Forged Cigar Co. a shot.  This cigar is packaged like Matt Booth’s Johnny Tabacconaut, Uncle Lee, Chief Cool Arrow cigars, with tissue paper and a full length sleeve.  Matt had a hand in the blend, along with Justin Andrews and William Ventura.  It’s made in William Ventura’s factory in the DR. The cigar is a rather rustic looking 5½” x 50 figurado.  Full disclosure, I don’t have a track record of really liking cigars from this factory for some reason.  I should love the cigar, it has a San Andrés wrapper, Ecuador Sumatra binder, and Connecticut Broadleaf and Nicaraguan Corojo fillers. On paper, it sounds delicious.  I found the profile to be leathery and earthy, seems to me there should have been some sweetness in there, but I didn’t get it.  I will certainly give this another try after some humidor time, although I don’t know that I was a big fan of the last Los Statos iteration either. Everyone can’t like everything!  I imagine some people with love this, maybe I will too, although they only made 3000 boxes, so I hope I don’t fall in love with it sometime next year when they will be impossible to find!  

 

Yesterday I should have taken a drive up to Bethlehem, apparently CI was having an event at their Superstore (newly renovated, I believe).  I came across references to it around 2PM, which was too late to do anything about it.  OK, I could have gotten there by 3:30, and I think it was over at 6, that’s a lot of driving, gas and tolls. I’ll see most of the people that were there at the Smokeonos event in a couple weeks, which I’m really looking forward to attending.  Also, don’t forget to check out the 2024 Smokin Tabacco x CFCF Fundraiser. which goes live tomorrow, Monday, April 22. 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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