North Myrtle Beach | CigarCraig's Blog

Friday was the official release event for the long awaited and anticipated release of Steve Saka’s Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust Stillwell Star cigars, a foursome of cigars blended with pipe tobacco. The release was held at Low Country Pipe and Cigar, in Little River, South Carolina, which is owned by the same company that owns Cornell & Diehl, the pipe tobacco company that worked with Steve on the blends of the Stillwell Star cigars. Now we know how a shop in South Carolina and their website, SmokingPipes.com, ended up with the exclusive launch. Of course, an event of this magnitude deserved cigar media coverage, and Bob The Cigar Guy, and his son The Chief, popular Youtubers, were on hand. I popped in from Pennsylvania to provide support on the written word side of things since nobody else seemed to be stepping up 😁 . A little backstory: my wife mentioned this event, and wanting to get away for the weekend, and I need to take vacation days, so I made quick work of arranging the day off. As it turns out, the weather in South Carolina this weekend wasn’t much better than in PA, but it was still a weekend away! So I called Tim at Lake Country and bought two tickets for the event (event packs including four DTT cigars). We got up early Friday morning and drove nine hours to a cigar event, a new personal record. When we walked in I think Steve had a WTF look on his face, and I think Zev Kaminetsky, who is brokering DTT in the south now, was similarly surprised. A few words about the shop. Now, I’m not a pipe guy, too much fiddling around for me, I just want to smoke it and put it down, but this place had a huge selection of pipes and pipe tobacco. I took a stroll through the humidor as well and it was adequately appointed with a nice balance of legacy brands and boutiques. I even saw one brand I was unfamiliar with, and I would have explored that further on a day that wasn’t so busy. But this was a Dunbarton event, and it was about the Stillwell Star.

We were welcomed warmly by the staff, who was friendly and attentive, clearly all the folks working here love what they do and do it well. They had a company on site making pizzas that were really good, $10 for a pie that my wife and I split, I’d say it was a 14″ pie, and they were making tons of them, they had an oven right there in the parking lot. I hardly ever eat at cigar events, but after a 9 hour drive I was ready for dinner, so I ate, and it was good. after 35 years, my wife knows my pizza preferences, so my half had sausage, pepperoni, hamburger and bacon. I like a little meat on my pizza. It was mid-bite when Bob the Cigar Guy came up and introduced himself to me. He’s a hoot. Nice guy, has me confused with someone else. I don’t deserve the praise he heaped upon me, but a likable fellow! I enjoyed talking to him and his son over the course of the event. I picked up one each of the Stillwell blends, because they are pricey and, me not being a pipe smoker I really don’t have a frame of reference for the specific pipe tobacco blends, I just want to sample each one, which I shall do on a fresh palate in the comfort of my home lounge (enclosed porch). I did enjoy a Sin Compromiso and a Mi Querida over the course of the evening, while hanging out in the shop, wandering from conversation to conversation, and listening to Saka educate us all on a number of topics, mostly tobacco related. He also autographed various items. This was a great launch event, in a great shop with a great staff. It’s always fun to hang with Saka. I’m just disappointed Dave Lafferty wasn’t there.

Saturday turned out to be a gloomy, windy day, with weather much like we left behind in PA, so we stopped in to Nick’s Cigar World, which was, conveniently, a short walk from our hotel. This turned out to be a nice cigar bar adjacent to a well stocked shop. The cigars were kept in a labyrinth of counter humidors, arranged alphabetically by brand, more or less. Not really needing anything, I picked up a Fuente Rare Pink Signature and a CAO Cameroon Toro and we hung out in the lounge and enjoyed the afternoon. The staff there was attentive, and it was much like being in any lounge, with patrons watching football and busting balls. The staff was friendly and attentive. It was certainly a very nice experience. The cigar was OK, it wasn’t like the L’Anniversaire I remember from the old CAO days (I still have a tubed Churchill from about ’03 I think), but it was satisfying. Overall we had a nice, lazy day in North Myrtle Beach, despite the weather. Driving home today.