Tag Archives: macanudo

by | September 25, 2011 · 8:45 am

G.A.R., Liga Privada, Veritas, a Contest Winner and Another Macanudo Contest!

This nice looking G.A.R. Opium STK toro was handed to my by my old friend Frank Seltzer at the Drew Estate blogger party at this years IPCPR show. He gave it to me without any comment at all, and I’m sure he has no affiliation with Gran Habano. I started removing bands (three of them in all, the foot band had to go first!) and lit this puppy up. To start out, it’s a nice looking cigar, 6” x 50, which oddly felt larger than 50, but I measured it and it certainly was a 50 ring gauge. It smoked very well, and while I didn’t taste poppy seeds or any other interesting flavors, it was a nice, solid, tobacco flavored cigar. It’s a good cigar although not one I think I’d go out of my way to find. I need to try more cigars from George Rico and Gran Habano.

 

Friday I celebrated the end of another week with a Liga Privada No.9 Parejo. I’ve been sitting on this particular one for about 2 years, and, wow, what a wonderful cigar. Perfectly made, perfect balance of flavor and strength. I actually purchased this at an event at the Wooden Indian (the old store) where we first met Marvin Samel. Just a super cigar that I smoked to within a half inch of it’s life.  I still have one of the first Liga Privada No.9 cigars with a plain band from 2007.  Mike Staiber, formerly of Drew Estate, presently of Oliva, gifted me this cigar at an event a while back.  I’ll probably let it get to five years old or so before I fire it up, just to see how well it aged.  It’s all I can do to keep my hands off the meager supply I have, they are so good.

 

Saturday I took a walk with a Veritas MMXI 6” x 60 Maduro, which I got at the Delaware Cigar Festival. This was about the blackest maduro I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll be honest, my first thought is that it was dyed, and the contrast between the fillers and wrapper was quite stunning. Whatever the process involved, I enjoyed the cigar quite a bit, it needed a couple touch-ups but burned nicely. I’m told that these are made by Blue Mountain Cigars in Esteli, and the maduro cigars pictured on their website look just as black. Like I said, I enjoyed the heck out of the cigar. This is the cousin of the Veritas DEA 7¼” x 58 Solomon Connecticut cigar that is accompanying the Rosie Napravnik bobblehead that some lucky reader is going to win.

 Contest!

Thank you to everyone who entered.  It’s been a little amusing to me to see how many visits I had this week from people searching the phrase “Rosie Napravnik Bobblhead”, or something similar.    Thanks go to Delaware Park for unwittingly providing part of the prize, and Veritas Cigars for allowing me the opportunity to purchase the other part of the prize!  So, as usual, I assigned each entrant a number based the time of their entry. Swede214,  please send me your contact information so I can send you your prize!

 

Another Contest!

 

I still have some Macanudo Millionaire 4-packs to give away, and I better do it quick since the deadline for entry is September 30, 2011.  So I’ll hold my October contest a little early.  Leave a comment on this post to enter, I’ll select a winner next Sunday, October 2.  Don’t forget to visit MacanudoMillionaire.com to enter to win the trip to Vegas and a chance at a million bucks!

 

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

CigarCraig

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by | September 18, 2011 · 11:18 am

The Delaware Cigar Festival and Another Contest!

Saturday, September 17 marked the long awaited fifth annual Delaware Cigar Festival, organized and hosted by Gary Griffith, the Premium Cigar Manager of Delaware Cigars and the creator of Emilio and Grimalkin Cigars.  The event took place at Delaware Park, which is already one of our favorite places in the area to go and waste some money on the ponies, or drop some pennies in the slots.  The event was unique, as it is a big herf disguised as a charity event, although Gary won’t use the charity aspect to promote it.  The format is that the manufacturers and reps sell their samples for $3 each, with all of the proceeds going to charity, which this time benefited the family of a slain police officer (news report here), this was just in the last few days and quite tragic.

 

Photo Courtesy of Charlie Greenbacker

For your entrance price you got a bag with about 20 or 25 cigars (nice stuff too, I looked!) and assorted swag, a nice picnic buffet with burgers, dogs, chicken, ribs and beans, and the opportunity to talk with the assorted cigar makers and reps who were there.  Brands represented were:  Inked Magazine, Rocky Patel, Arturo Fuente/JC Newman, Emilio Cigars with brand creator Gary Griffith, Drew Estate, Altadis USA, Oliva, Perdomo, La Sirena with Brand Ambassador Arielle Ditkowich, La Flor Dominicana, Cigar Rights of America, EO Brands with Eddie Ortega, Miami Cigar, General Cigar, 262 Cigars, Kristoff Cigars, El Primer Mundo with Sean Williams, Veritas Cigar Co., and The Cigar Agency. Keith Park from Prometheous was also there.  All of these companies donated TONS of stuff, either cigars that were sold for $3 each, or stuff to be raffled off (we bought 10 tickets didn’t win a darned thing!).  The attendance was capped at 300 people, including staff, press and exhibitors, so it was a nice sized crowd. It was rarely a problem to have a chat with the vendors.

 

In addition to getting to schmooze with some of my friends on the manufacturers side, I was able to hang out a bit with some fellow blogger types such as Barry from ACigarSmoker.com, Walt  from StogieReview.com and Michael from CigarEvents.com.  I also had the great pleasure of meeting one of my readers, Charlie, who won big in the raffle give-aways!  These events are always about the people, and you just don’t meet nicer folks that those associated with cigars for some reason!

 

What a wonderful event that I would recommend highly next year if you are within a 3 or 4 hour drive.  Gary is a fine gentleman and I appreciate him welcoming myself and my wife for the afternoon.  It’s refreshing to see a retailer put on a “not for profit” event, and to have so many people there enjoying cigars and camaraderie.  I’d love to see more manufacturers participate in the future as the event is for good causes and shows the cigar business in a positive light.   The only downside was that the weather could have been a little nicer, it was overcast and under 70 until we drove off the premises, then the sun came out and it was nice!  Hardly anyone’s fault.  I managed to win about $4 on the ponies over the course of the day too!

 

In honor of the event, I’m going to have another quick give-away!  I know, I JUST had one that ended this week, but we got a couple Rosie Napravnik Bobbleheads at the park for Racing Fan Appreciation Day and I thought I’d combine it with a beautiful Veritas Connecticut Salamone that I purchased from the Delaware based Veritas Cigar Co. at the event.  So leave a comment to enter, and I’ll pick a winner next Sunday, September 25th.

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

CigarCraig

Photo Courtesy of Charlie Greenbacker
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by | September 14, 2011 · 8:29 pm

Cigars So Far This Week: a La Palina, a Macanudo and Contest Winners!

Once again I’d like you to welcome a new sponsor, and an old friend, C-Gars, Ltd.  The folks in the vast C-Gars Ltd empire are top notch when it comes to customer service. Check out their vast selection of cigars and accessories from around the world.  I also heard from another old friend from the alt.smokers.cigars days who has revamped his site, The Cigar Diary.  Tony’s site has some great information and a place to store and share your tasting notes.  Thanks, Tony, for hunting me down after all these years!

 

A few weeks back I received a couple of La Palina El Diario Gordos in the mail from Courtney at La Palina.  I had recently enjoyed the robusto in this line that was a sample from the IPCPR show, and was looking forward to trying other sizes.  The Gordo is a 6″ x 58, which is a hefty cigar.  I can’t figure out why I keep reaching for these enormous cigars lately.  I love coronas and lanceros, and I always felt that 52 ring gauge was about as big as I’d care for, but all of these gorilla finger sized cigars are sneaking into my rotation!  One thing I’ve noticed, and please tell me if you’ve noticed this too, but the last couple of 6 x 60s I’ve smoked (or close), seem to have….what’s the word I want?….clogged in the final 2 inches.  It’s not like they are plugged suddenly, but hey seem to slow down a bit.  Perhaps a year in the humidor would solve this.  I’ve gotten away from the point, the La Palina is an exceptional cigar, really nice, sweet flavor and a perfect burn, even in this large size. It took me in excess of one and a half hours to smoke this one.

 

Tuesday evening I grabbed my last Macanudo 1968 robusto and really enjoyed it.  I smoked one of these walking around Vegas in July, and I really like them.  They have a bit of a unique flavor that I can’t pinpoint, but it’s good.  The cold draw tasted like milk chocolate.  As one would expect, the construction is perfect and it burned without need for correction.  This is a solid cigar in my opinion, and one I would enjoy having in my humidor at all times.  Certainly this is not a Macanudo that your typical Macanudo smoker is going to appreciate, it’s on the full side of medium from my perspective.

 

Contest!

Speaking of Macanudo, I need to pick a couple winners for the latest contest.  I’ll be mailing out two Macanudo Millionaire 4 packs to the winners, provided they send me their contact info!  The four-pack includes 60 Ring gauge versions of the Cafe, Maduro, 1968 and Crü Royale (again with the 60 ring!).  I hope I win!  OK, I’m kidding, I’m not eligible.  For the first time, I added Twitter submissions for an additional entry and several people took advantage of that.  I resorted to the tried and true method of selection: listing each entry as it comes in, numbering them, and using the random number generator to pick the winners.  Boring, I know, but until I build a “wheel of fortune” out of dry erase board, this will have to do.  So the random number generator produced the numbers 2 and 13, which by my records corresponds to a tweet from @TriumphCIO and a comment from Spidey55!  Congrats to the two of you, please e-mail me your contact info so I can mail out your prizes!  Once again, my gratitude to General Cigars for providing the prizes and for their support!  I’m truly thankful for the relationship I’ve developed with them and the generous support they give to the cigar media community!

That’s it!  Time to take a cigar for a walk before it rains!

Until, the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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by | September 7, 2011 · 8:53 pm

Rainy Week! More Cigars! Outlaw’s 13, Puros Indios, Fuente Hemingway

Don’t forget to go back to the last post and ever my contest to win one of two Macanudo Millionaire prize packs, and head over the MacanudoMillionaire.com and enter their contest to win a trip to Vegas and hang out with fuzzy little bunnies (I’m guessing they aren’t too fuzzy, but that’s a post on another blog…)  I love sending out cigars to people!

On to this weeks cigars so far!  Sunday evening I sparked up a cigar that I acquired on a trip, the 13 from Outlaw Cigars in Kansas City.  I’m not supposed to say anything about the provenance of this cigar, or how it came into my possession, but these are  readily available at Outlaw Cigar‘s site.  I really liked the cigar.  Like every cigar I’ve smoked that was made in this particular factory, it performed flawlessly.  I noticed that the ligero seemed to billow smoke from the burning foot like no other cigar I’ve seen.  I’m guessing it was the ligero since it was one small spot in the center of the cigar that was emitting the smoke, the rest of the coal seemed to behave normally.  It was weird, but didn’t take away from the cigar.  I imagine if this cigar had been released in it’s original intended brand it would have been one of the more highly sought after cigars of last year, so here’s a tip:  go to Outlaw and pick some of these up. There is a clue on the website what these were intended to be.

I finished off the holiday weekend with a Puros Indios Miami that Frank Santos of Reyes Family Cigars gave me at the IPCPR show. I’ve long been a fan of the Puros Indios and Reyes Family cigars, even back when you could almost count on a Puros Indios cigar being plugged. I never smoked a Chief, don’t even know if they are still made, but 18″ x 64 is an enormous cigar even by todays standards. Back to the Miami, this one had a big vein that didn’t have any effect on anything, except that it was ugly. It almost looked like the wrapper leaf was put on inside-out. For those who don’t know, or never really thought about it, of course a leaf has 2 sides, on one side, the veins are raised, the other side is normally smooth. The wrapper leaf is always applied with the smooth side on the outside of the cigar, which just makes sense, aesthetically. I don’t imagine that it makes any difference at all to the way the cigar tastes or burns, but a wise man once said that we first smoke with our eyes (I can’t recall who said that, but it’s quite true and a brilliant statement!). Anyway, the Puros Indios Miami was a very nice cigar, well made and flavorful.

 

Here’s a picture of some cigars that were on display in the Reyes Family Cigars booth at the trade show. Amazing wrapper artistry.

Click to enlarge, you’ll want to see this full size!

 

Here’s a short video from the trade show with Frank Santos from Reyes Family Cigars:

 

As I’m writing this, I’m smoking a nice Arturo Fuente Hemingway Best Seller.  It was a long, rainy day. Flooding in town hampered our ability to get home after some evening errands, when we finally got home I just wanted something delicious and reliable.  This fit the bill nicely. I had picked up a pair of these on my Father’s Day foray.  I suppose I could have chosen the aged Work of Art in either Cameroon or maduro, but  the Best Seller seemed more replaceable, if that makes sense.  As with all of the cigars mentioned here, I used the Ergonomic 4.5″ Cigar & Pipe Butane Torch Lighter from ButaneLightersWholesale.com to light this and it worked very well on the perfecto tip.

 

While I’m thinking about it, please pay a visit to my advertisers, I don’t want them to think that I’m just a hole in the internet to throw money into…need to give them some bang for their buck! As long as I’m reminding, don’t forget to pester your elected officials about supporting HR1639 and S1461 to protect our freedoms and keep people employed! Go to the legislative action center at IPCPR.org (or use the link in my sidebar) to send their well written letters!

 

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

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | September 4, 2011 · 10:21 am

It’s Contest Time! An Alec Bradley, An OSA Sol, A Macanudo and a Lighter Review

I realized that my last post had “and Some News” in the title, and I failed to include said news.  Bad form on my part!  While I go back and edit the title, I’ll say here that the news I was going to mention, while no longer breaking news, is that José  Blanco joined Joya de Nicaragua this week in the capacity of Senior Vice President.  I met José at the IPCPR show, as well as Dr. Cuenca, his new boss, both are fine gentlemen.  I had the pleasure of visiting the Joya de Nicaragua factory last March and, while I loved their cigars before, I developed a special fondness for them that comes from having a personal connection.  If I can blend what I think is an excellent cigar at that factory, José will be able to do amazing things there.  Best wishes to José and Joya de Nicaragua from everyone here at CigarCraig.com!

I had purchased an Alec Bradley American Classic Blend for myself for Father’s Day, and I came across another one  in my IPCPR samples, and I was in the mood for a big cigar, so I grabbed this 6×60 Gordo and took it for a walk to the store.  It’s got a beautiful band, and a really nice looking wrapper, made me really look forward to smoking this one.  This is made at the Plasencia Factory in Esteli, and had a Honduran Connecticut wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers.  I really enjoyed the flavor, although I wish it had produced copious mouthfuls of smoke so that I could get more of the flavor.  It took a little bit to get a good mouthful of smoke, which was a little frustrating considering the huge girth on this cigar.  I’ll happily try this cigar again, and will try to get some different sizes in the future.

 

Friday brought the beginning of the Labor Day weekend, so I grabbed a CAO OSA Sol Lot 54 and enjoyed it on the front porch.  This 6x 54 version didn’t impress me quite as much as it’s 5x 50 little brother, but it was a darned fine cigar.  I don’t know exactly what made the 2 cigars different to me, maybe the Robusto seemed a little cleaner to me if that makes any sense. I suppose there are a dozen variables to consider, what I had to drink and eat, the weather, my mood, so my opinion really doesn’t matter in the end! Perfect burn and draw and a pleasing flavor.  Lasted a good hour and a half on a beautiful late summer evening.   I look forward to the CAO website having some information on it about this new cigar! 😉

For my Saturday evening walk to the store, I selected a Macanudo Crü  Royale Robusto that I received at the IPCPR show.  I had gotten one of these at the show last year and thought it was a really nice cigar, and this one was no different.  It’s not a mild cigar and, along with the 1968, is a really good, flavorful cigar.  It goes without saying that the quality of the construction is excellent.  I’ve smoked Macanudos that I could barely taste, but they’ve ALWAYS been perfectly rolled.  I like these a lot and they are priced well and they will be releasing a couple new sizes (if they haven’t already) in a tinned 4 3/16″ x 36 and a Poco Gordo at 4 x 60, to satisfy that 60 ring gauge demand.  Nice cigars for sure, something that any cigar smoker is sure to enjoy.  While I’m thinking of it, head on over to the  Macanudo Millionaire site and enter their contest to win a trip to Vegas and a chance to win a Million bucks.

 

Contest

Sticking with the Macanudo theme, General Cigars provided me with some of their Macanudo Millionaire  4 packs featuring 6 x 60 versions of the Cafe, Maduro, 1968 and Crü Royale cigars.  I’m going to select 2 winners on or around Wednesday, September 14, so leave a comment on THIS post saying something a little more substantive than say “comment” or “hello” to enter!  This time, as an added twist, I’ll count tweets which include @cigarcraig and the link to this article, doubling your chances to win!  Usual rules apply, Lloyd is ineligible this time around!  🙂

 

All of my cigars this week were ignited by a lighter that was provided to my for evaluation by Aaron at ButaneLightersWolesale.com.  The lighter is the Ergonomic 4.5″ Cigar & Pipe Butane Torch Lighter, which is a nice looking lighter.  It’s hefty, which makes it a little heavy in the trouser pocket, but has a nice feel in the hand.  My initial complaint is that on the lowest flame setting it doesn’t light for me, and on the highest setting the flame is just adequate. I let Aaron know this and he is looking into it with the manufacturer, which is a good sign that he’s a internet retailer with integrity.  This particular model wouldn’t be my personal first choice, but my wife thinks it’s cool looking, which it is.  Check out the site,  http://butanelighterswholesale.com/,   he seems to be concentrating on the “good lighters at a reasonable price” market segment, which fits my lighter philosophy just right.  I’ve owned a couple of fairly expensive lighters in the past and they’ve all crapped out after a while, and the cheaper lighters seem to last forever.  I’ll keep using this lighter exclusively and see how it holds up, and see if I can adjust the flame setting a little better.  I like to see a good 2″ blue flame on my single torch lighters.  Thanks again to Aaron for thinking of me.

That’s it for now, enter the contest, visit my sponsors and enjoy your Labor Day Weekend!

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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