Tag Archives: macanudo

by CigarCraig | January 22, 2017 · 12:28 pm

Cigars and Music: The NAMM Show in California and Boveda

I just got back from a few days in Anaheim, California where I didn’t get around to visiting any cigar shops, but I did run into the guys from Boveda. I attended the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show at the convention center in Anaheim, CA, just a stones throw from Disneyland. Why did a cigar blogger go to a music convention, you ask? Well, my wife has a Beatles related blog (https://beatles-freak.com/) and asked for media passes and I went to the show with her. After several IPCPRs of dragging her around, it was time to put the shoe on the other foot. Obviously, this show was much larger than the IPCPR show, it was on four floors of the enormous convention center, as well as spilling into two of the adjacent hotels. Where the IPCPR is a show for the vendors to write orders, this is more of an expo of new and current products. All it took was an e-mail requesting press passes and we were in, no application process or annual dues. IPCPR could learn a thing or two about how to treat the media! At every turn there was someone playing an instrument, tapping on a cymbal, and impromptu drum battles broke out. Not a place to be if you’re sensitive to sound! There were also artists playing on various stages all over the place, as well as in vendors booths. We had the good fortune of watching Lawrence Juber, lead guitarist for Wings from ’78-’81) play an amazing set. We ran into Rick Neilson of Cheap Trick on the show floor too, no telling how many other famous musicians we might have seen as many were incognito. I searched far and wide for cigar box guitars but didn’t find any, I saw parts to make them, but no finished product. No doubt they were there someplace.

Here’s just a couple of cool things that caught my eye at the NAMM show:

I managed to smoke a few cigars while there too, mostly walking back to the hotel after dinner, which is my usual routine anyway. I stuck with smaller cigars, Wednesday smoking a Macanudo Inspirado Petit Piramide that I bought on my Iceland trip. This was said to be the best-selling cigar in the only cigar shop in Reykjavik, and it was reasonably priced by Iceland standards at around $8. It was a tasty little cigar, about half way in it changed flavors to an unusual flavor that I couldn’t put my finger on. I bought two, so I’ll give the other one a try another time and see if it smokes the same. I’m also looking forward to comparing it to the domestically released Inspirado Orange.

I had a couple other cigars too, but the weather was rainy (sheesh, we went to southern California to get away from the weather here, and it was cold and wet there!) There was a cigar shop about two miles from the hotel that would have been an easy walk if we hadn’t been walking around all day. I had also hoped to get a chance to sit down and have a cigar with Jerry Goldenson, VP at KHS America, the parent company of Sonor and Mapex drums, Hohner harmonicas, etc. Jerry was the man behind Nick Perdomo’s new drum kit that was at the IPCPR show last year, and Rocky Patel’s conga bar stools in his Burn lounge, and a unique humidor/Cajon (box drum). Jerry is a huge cigar lover. There are rumors floating around that Nick Perdomo is interested in another drum set, this one an enormous kit with four bass drums! It was a rumor on the NAMM show floor, I can’t comment further than that!

Take a look at this short video of how Boveda‘s humidification technology isn’t just for cigars!

Contest!

Wednesday I posted a contest for a Stage V Clinger cigar holder. There were only 22 entries, would it have been more if there were cigars included? I guess it’s better odds, but I was a little disappointed with the turn out! I plugged 22 into the random number generator and got 4 for the winner. It looks like KRUK was the winner! Bryan, please send your address so I can pass it on to the folks at Stage V, so when the thaw comes to New England you’ll be ready for the links! Thanks to Marissa and the folks at Stage V!

That’s it for now, time to get back in the swing of things after a vacation and get ready to start another work week! My back porch has been missing my cigar smoke too! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

6 Comments

Filed under Review, Video

Tagged as Boveda, cigar, cigars, Contest, macanudo, NAMM, Stage V Clinger

by CigarCraig | December 31, 2016 · 10:38 am

CigarCraig’s Top Five Memorable Cigars of 2016 and A Contest Winner!

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for another great year at CigarCraig.com. If you all keep reading, I’ll keep writing! Heck, I’d probably be writing this if nobody was reading. I’m posting on a Saturday instead of Sunday for a couple reasons, mostly because I don’t feel like getting up early tomorrow to post something when nobody will be around to read it, and I slacked off and missed my Wednesday post, it happens. So I figured I wrap up the year with some of the cigars that were memorable to me this year, and my criteria was simple, the cigar, no matter how many I smoked, made a positive impression on me to the point where I really want to smoke more of the cigar. These are presented in no particular order, and I know this keeps me off of Halfwheel’s annual conglomerate list, but so be it, why break the streak?

Maya Selva Flor de Selva Grand Pressé Box Pressed Toro. This really shouldn’t be included as it was an IPCPR sample smoked on the show floor, and I typically think this is a bad place to properly evaluate a cigar. However, my approach was that I only smoked one cigar on the show floor all day, and I practically did smoke this all day. I would let the cigar go out while talking to someone, and relight it and it was still amazing. This was a brand that I had heard of but not tried, and was very impressed. Sadly, I don’t see these around the stores here, but I have to hunt some down. I know this is only based on one example, but it was memorable and fits my criteria!

RoMa Craft Neanderthal HN. Technically I smoked this cigar at the end of last year, but since I smoked it’s little brother, the Shallow Gene Pool, later in the year I’m going to mark it down as Memorable. I really did love the candela wrapped Fomarian , and smoked more of those this year than the Neanderthal, the Neanderthal stuck out in my mind as memorable. It had some strength, but most of all the flavor was exceptional and left a definite impression. The pricetag keeps it out of this cheap bastid’s rotation, but it competes favorably with other cigars at similar prices, such as a Padron 94 Exclusivo or similar. Bottom line is, there aren’t a whole lot of cigars I’d pay $12 for, but the Neanderthal is one of them.

It should be fairly common knowledge by now that Steve Saka and I go way back and I consider Steve a friend. Actually, in March it will be 20 years since Steve and I met face to face. So if that puts a bias on my inclusion of the Mi Querida Gordito (as well as the rest of the sizes) in this list, so be it. It could be argued that knowing Steve shaped my palate and preferences, and if that’s the case than I’m pretty lucky. I first smoke the Mi Querida Ancho Larga (toro) at the IPCPR show at the insistence of Stace Berkland, who was working in the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust booth, and my initial impression was good, but that age would benefit the cigar, which might have been construed as saying I didn’t like it, which wasn’t the case at all. I’ve smoked several sizes in the line now, the Ancho Corto (robusto), the Muy Gordo Grande and the Gordito, which I am listing here as the most memorable. Hey, I love them all, they are exactly my style of cigar, I like the mellowness of the Muy Gordo Grande, but the punch that the little 4″ x 48 Gordito has really made an impression. I was going to include the Sobremesa Elegentes en Cedros in my list, as I found it to be an awesome cigar, with a slight edge on the also awesome Short Churchill, but I didn’t want to appear totally biased! Unfortunately the Mi Querida Gordito size might be hard to find as I think it’s fairly limited.

I’ve developed an affinity for milder, more complex and sophisticated cigars lately, and one new one that I find myself going to frequently is from Cornelius and Anthony, and is the Cornelius. This is a cigar that’s made at the El Titan de Bronze factory in Miami, and is just a really tasty cigar with a lot of subtlety and class. I’ve smoked several of the sizes and think the toro suits me best, although the corona gorda certainly has a lot going for it if you want a little bit of an edge to the flavor. The Cornelius and Anthony Daddy Mac is a great smoke as well, but not nearly as memorable as the Cornelius. It’s another cigar in the over $10 range that I think is worthwhile. I put it in the same category as the Sobremesa, Davidoff, or some of the Havanas, it’s “clean” and delicious. There are some times that I chose to smoke this cigar that I remember fondly.

Finally, the cigar that was most memorable for me this year. I was tempted to number this list because I knew this was number one, but really couldn’t assign numbers to two through five. At the time I said about this cigar “This was the best cigar I’ve smoked in recent memory” and I stand by that. Of course, the cigar Im referring to was the Fratello Bianco The Boxer. This is a box pressed torpedo, with San Andrés Negro wrapper, binder from the Dominican Republic, and the fillers are Nicaraguan, Pennsylvanian and Peruvian. I dig the Bianco blend, and this tweaked version was just off the charts in flavor, and again, hit my particular flavor preference on the nose. Friggin yummy. Omar de Frias made news this year by quitting his day job at NASA to concentrate on the Fratello brand, a bold move given the whole FDA nonsense. What an amazing cigar.

That’s five, right? There were a lot of runners up, the Hoyo La Amistad, the Foundation Tabernacle, the Foundry Time Flies, Leccia Des Nudos (it should have been in the top five…so close). There were a lot to choose from but these were the most memorable.

Contest Winner!

The last contest of the year was some great stuff from General Cigar Company. We had a Flathead sign, a nice Macanudo Colibri cutter, some La Gloria Cubana scissors and a Punch bobble head. Maybe I should have included a cigar from each brand from my humidors in the contest, because that’s what I intend to include. Many people who have won my contests before can tell you that things often fall into the box when I’m packing it up (has anyone seen my keys?). The FDA says that manufacturers cant give away cigars for free, but they don’t have any say over my personal collection and what I do with it! The winner of the last contest of 2016 is Timmc71. Please send me your info so I can get these goodies out to you!

That’s all for today! Happy New Year again, and here’s to a successful 2017!

CigarCraig

11 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as Bianco, CAO, cigar, cigars, Cornelius & Anthony, Flor de Selva, Fratello, general cigars, La Gloria Cubana, macanudo, Maya Selva, Mi Querida, Neanderthal, punch, RoMaCraft

by CigarCraig | December 26, 2016 · 10:19 am

CigarCraig’s Holiday Contest Number Four: General Cigar Co. and the Tommy Bahama Winner

I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. As JJO suggested in his comment on the last post, it turns out I did have better things to do yesterday than post the winner, including having a big breakfast at our daughter’s house with the granddaughters and our kids, then taking a drive to visit more family in New Jersey. While at my bro-in-law’s in Jersey I got to smoke a glorious Sobremesa Short Churchill, which was wonderful. Christmas Eve I managed to smoke a Davidoff Golf Scorecard Edition, a gorgeous 6″ x 55 toro. These are presented in a five pack, ostensibly four cigars for your golf foursome, and one with a gold secondary band for the winner. These carry a pretty hefty price-tag , $114 for 5 at CI, who starts off the description with “Some things are matches made in heaven â€“ like bacon and eggs, mac and cheese, and of course, golf and cigars. “, which I find to be a rather pedestrian way to start a paragraph about a pretty expensive cigar! Anyway, it was a spectacular smoke, even though I don’t golf. It had loads of creamy, spicy flavors that were quite entertaining. It turned out to be pretty hard to find something suitable to follow such a stellar smoke, so I went with a Bolivar Royal Corona that had been floating around the humidor for 5 years or so. It was up to the task and was a great smoke, on the milder side, on par with the Davidoff. It was a pretty great couple of cigars on a reasonably nice winter’s day.

Contest!

Let’s keep it going! I have some goodies from General Cigar for today’s giveaway! Â There’s a Punch Bobblehead, a tin CAO Flathead Steel Horse sign, a pair of very nice La Gloria Cubana Cigar Scissors, and a Macanudo Inspirado Colibri Grip cutter, which is rubberized with orange blades, very sharp-looking. It’s hard to say what else might fall into the shipping box while I’m packing it up too, it’s been known to happen. Anyway, usual rules apply, leave a comment to enter, Â I’ll announce a winner on Wednesday!

Winner!

I almost forgot to announce the winner fo the Tommy Bahama ashtray and travel humidor, and Island Lifestyle Cigars! Â I wore my blue check Tommy Bahama shirt yesterday with my blue check Vans, it was quite the look. Â Many thanks to Ryan at Island Lifestyle Importers for providing this wonderful present! I can’t say how much I like the Tommy Bahama branded stuff, my wife told me I was crazy to give it away! But, giving is so much fun, so it’s off to Random.org to find the winner! Â I’m not sure how this happened, but the winner isÂ Andy Klueber. Â Every once in a while someone calls their shot, but Andy chose the opposite, pessimistically entering saying he wasn’t going to win, several times! His number came up this time, and I’ll be sending him some great stuff!

That’s all for now! I got some chicken harnesses for Christmas so I can try taking chickens for a walk instead of Macha, that should get the neighbors talking….until the next time,

CigarCraig

36 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as bolivar, CAO, cigar, cigars, Contest, davidoff, general cigar, La Gloria Cubana, macanudo, punch, Sobremasa

by CigarCraig | March 13, 2016 · 10:28 am

Smoking Alec Bradley, CAO, Macanudo and My Father Cigars

Finally it’s here, the day we’e all been waiting for (me at least), it’s Daylight Savings Time! I don’t even really mind losing the hour, it’s a good trade-off for the extra evening daylight hours. It also means spring is coming, which means summer’s coming, which I like. I’ll try to find a good cigar to smoke to celebrate today, but for now, I have a few cigars I smoked this week to discuss. I found myself a bit torn between smoking something “new to me” and smoking an old familiar friend, so I did both. Balance is the key to life. Thursday I lit up an Alec Bradley Post Embargo in the 6½” x 54 Toro size. This one falls into the “new to me” category as I have only smoked one before back in November of last year around the time they were released. I stand by my original thoughts that the wrapper isn’t the most flavorful, but it was a very nice, medium bodied smoke, with some leather and earth, no real sweetness to my palate. I don’t know that 5 months in the humidor did anything to this cigar one way or the other, but I think it’s another solid Alec Bradley cigar, of which they have many. Their Nica Puro still remains my favorite in the brand.

This week was a beautiful week, weather wise, which made for a long week in the office, stuck behind a desk while it was sunny and in the 70s outside. As I mentioned in my last post, I was able to take two wheels to work this week, which makes the commute a little more bearable, but by the time 4:30 hit on Friday I was ready for a sure thing to wrap the week. After a delicious diner featuring corned beef, I grabbed my final CAO Flathead 554, which was probably a leftover from samples I received when they were first released. I punched this with my ScrewPop 2.0 punch (the website lists a 3.0 now, I’ll have to find out how they improved this already fine tool) and lit it up. This must have had one vein in a leaf near the foot with a lot of oils left in it, because I got a runner that got nearly an inch ahead of the rest of the burn. This didn’t have any effect on the flavors of dark, black coffee and cocoa, which I love in this Broadleaf wrapped beauty. At some point in the future there’s going to be a box of Flatheads in my humidor, I’m just now sure which one. CAO has just announced the release of two smaller sizes in the Connecticut Habana wrapped Steel Horse line, the Handbrake (4.5” x 50 – SRP per cigar is $6.99) and the Roadkill (5.5 x 54 – SRP per cigar is $7.00) which I’ll need to try before making a decision. I might just have to load up on singles of all the sizes just to have variety.

Saturday afternoon I took a walk with a Macanudo Maduro Vintage 1997. I bought a handful of these a few years back at my local shop, they were reasonably priced, and there were only a few left in the box, which I wanted as I had seen them making these boxes in the factory when I was there in 2011. That box sits on my desk holding things like cords and flash drives and is a pleasant reminder of that trip. I’ve had this cigar floating around the humidor for about four years now, and with the big metal band it has, it’s always been a bit awkward. I worried about it damaging other cigars, or having the 1997 Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper damaged by something else since it’s uncello’d. So I smoked it, and it was good. This has a Honduran binder and fillers from Nicaragua, Brazil and the DR, and is a really nice maduro cigar. Macanudo’s are often dismissed as mild and flavorless, I’ve not found that to be the case with the maduros. This was a refined blend with some sweet and spicy notes, quite entertaining. I think these are still around and worth trying if you like a good maduro. One thing that was very surprising on that trip back in 2011, by the last day my palate was pretty fried after smoking cigars nonstop for several days, so I grabbed a regular old Macanudo Maduro and I could taste it! Now, I just need to figure out what to do with the metal band (and where I stashed my other ones…), it reminds me of my old Boy Scout neckerchief slides, although I hardly think that would be tolerated in this day and age.

Last night I was in an exploratory mood, so I selected a cigar from CDMCigars.com‘s exclusive collection, the My Father Oro de NicaraguaRobusto. Holy crap was this a great cigar! There’s not a lot of information about the blend on the website, as I’ve complained about before, so I can’t tell you what differentiates this from the regular My Father line, but I can tell you it’s very good. It’s smooth, rich, loaded with a bunch of flavors and is interesting right down to the nub. If I’m not craving a sweet, mocha maduro, this is exactly what I want a cigar to be. It wouldn’t be a My Father cigar without a little spice right at the start, and this one had it, although it was far more subtle. I’m going to have to pick up some of the regular My Father line , or rummage through the humidors to see if I have one, which happens more than I’d like to admit…Thanks to Craig at CDMCigars.com for sharing this great smoke. I imagine they have these in the Casa de Monteristo store in Chicago? These also come in a bunch of cool sizes.

That’s it for now, I have somethings that need doing today that I’m going to try to get out of the way early, then find something good to smoke this afternoon, and maybe something this evening to celebrate the extended daylight! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

8 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Alec Bradley, CAO, Casa de Montecristo, CDMCigars, cigar, cigars, Flathead, general cigars, macanudo, My Father, Post Embargo

by CigarCraig | August 16, 2015 · 8:54 am

Marrero Cigars, Flor de Gonzalez, Macanudo Estate Reserve and Cigars with Friends

I’ve been working through some more new cigars from the IPCPR show, and I ran across some Marrero cigars that it took me a moment to remember. We ran across the booth late on the last day we were there and got to talking to Joel Vazquez Marrero about his cigars. My memory is hazy on this, but I think these are rolled at the same factory as Vegas de Santiago, MBombay and Atabey, Byron and Bandolero. If this is the case it’s one more bit of proof that this particular factory is producing some excellent cigars. The Marrero Tico Pigtail is 6½ x 56, has an Ecuador Habano wrapper, Indonesian binder and what they call Costa Rican/Proprietary Blend as the filler, as well as a long pigtail, as the name would imply. The cigar was solid, firmly packed with a similarly firm draw, although it wasn’t annoyingly so. I found it to be on the milder side of medium, with a nice flavor and burn. It was a nice cigar for my evening walk. I look forward to trying the Tesoro Mio blend in the near future.

On Thursday I had a brief moment of wishful thinking that it was Friday, but reality soon slapped me in the face. So Friday deserved what I hoped would be a special smoke. Another booth we stopped at late in the show was Flor de Gonzalez. We had a brief visit with Yadi, and she shared their 20th Anniversario cigars, which come in either a Ecuador Connecticut or a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. My natural inclination is to go with the Broadleaf, which I did and was very pleased. This was a rich, chocolaty smoke with a great burn and draw. It’s a rubusto, but is 5½” x 50, a little more of a good thing than your traditional 5″ robusto. I can’t wait to try the other one. I’ve always enjoyed the Flor de Gonzalez line, it seems to fly under the radar in a lot of places, at least around here.

We had some friends over last night, so we spent the better part of the day getting ready, and in the hour or so before people arrived, I sat down with a Macanudo Estate Reserve Jamaica 2015. This is a very special Macanudo, here is what the folks at General Cigar have to say about it:

To experience Macanudo Estate Reserve is to savor a tradition that spans nearly half a century, for this exceptional cigar hearkens back to the very roots of the brand.
For the 2015 release of Macanudo Estate Reserve, the artisans of Macanudo blended a 10 year old Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper from the sun-drenched, highest priming, with proprietary Jamaican tobacco cultivated on small, independent farms and aged exclusively for this year’s small batch offering. The dark, well-oiled wrapper adds a new dimension of complexity to the flavor that ignited the passion for one of the world’s most beloved cigars.
Jhonys Diaz, master blender and vice president of operations said, “We selected a broadleaf wrapper for this year’s release to deepen the flavor profile of the cigar. The wrapper delivers bold notes of leather and earth, while complementing the unique attributes of the Jamaican filler. This is a rich and complex smoke, one that will appeal to the true cigar lover.”
The Jamaican tobacco tells a story all its own. The varietal used in Macanudo Estate Reserve is called Silver Tongue, a native seed favored by locals. It is an extremely low-yield tobacco and is the most expensive long-filler leaf in the world.
Due to the scarcity of Silver Tongue, this exquisite cigar will only be available until the limited release of 1,800 boxes per size is depleted.
Macanudo Estate Reserve 2015 will be available in three frontmarks, each protected in 10-count boxes and shipping in October. They are:

No. 7 — 7 x 50; SRP per cigar is $17.00

No. 8 — 6 x 57; SRP per cigar is $18.00

No. 9 — 5 x 50; SRP per cigar is $16.00

The presentation is beautiful and goes back to the Jamaican roots of the brand, which at one time was made in Jamaica. I remember having a box of Macanudo Prince Philip back in the 90s that was still made in Jamaica (won it on the CigarWorld.com website somehow, and that was a very long time ago when there weren’t a lot of cigar websites). Anyway, this Estate Reserve was really very tasty and had about the most perfect construction imaginable. The cigar was perfect in every way, and had a nice flavor of espresso and cocoa. I found it to be medium bodied, and I smoked to a very tiny nub. It’s not a cheap date, but it is one of the most flavorful Macanudos out there.

One of our guests, my old friend Bruce, presented me with a very rare cigar, a Padron Millennium, claiming that he came across the humidor (these came out in 2000 in a humidor of 100, of which there were only 1000 made) in his basement. I believe he gifted me one of these nearly 15 years ago, but I smoked it long before I started documenting my daily smokes so religiously. This was a special blend of the 1964 series and had five year old tobacco at the time they were rolled in 1999. He was concerned that they had been neglected, but upon smoking the cigar all was well. If it was blended to be bolder than the 1964 series, the last 15 years might have tempered the original intent, but it was still a spectacular cigar that had a perfect burn, draw and the chocolate bar creamy sweetness that one would expect. Quite a treat, and I can’t thank Bruce enough for sharing that special cigar.

One of our other guests, Victor, brought some Tortuga Cigars, so I smoked one of my favorites from the line, the Cedro No. 5 as my last cigar of the night. Talk about a trifecta of exceptional cigars to go along with a night of great friends, food and stories. It’s a treat when you can get three couples together, many of whom haven’t met, and go late into the evening talking about a myriad of topics. Anyway, the Tortuga line is obviously high on my list, and the No. 5, at 5½” x 48, is just about the perfect size and is a great representation of the blend. After the pair of chocolaty maduros, this spicy Nicaraguan puro it the spot, and never fails to satisfy. We don’t entertain much, but with our big screened in porch it is something we need to do more. Thanks again to Victor and Rebecca and Bruce and Shirley for spending the evening with us.