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by Craig Vanderslice | June 9, 2019 · 10:44 am

The La Sirena Aniversario Especial and a Few Other Cigars

Once again it was a week with a lot of news stories. I expect the next three will be the same as we come up to the IPCPR show. I will not be going once again this year. As much as I hate to miss two shows in a row, and it’s the first time since 2008 that I have, it just doesn’t make sense this year. Last year it was the lack of a job, this year it’s the presence of a job and the timing of the show plays into it a little bit. You’ll have to rely on the excellent coverage that many of my great friends in the cigar media present. As much news as there is that comes out, I am selective about what I post here. I think that personnel changes and international releases are less interesting to my readers so I skip over those and try to hand pick the news I think is of interest. There are enough other outlets that post every piece of cigar industry minutia that I don’t feel the need to duplicate. Anyway, I did smoke a few notable cigars this week, so let’s get on to those.

The most notable cigar I smoked this week was a special new release from my good friends at La Sirena Cigars. I’ve been a big fan and supporter of La Sirena since first meeting Arielle in 2011 when she was still with Miami Cigar and Company and she just had the La Sirena line being made at My Father Cigars. I’ve followed the brand, and the top shelf of my humidor shows it, as there can be found some La Sirenas from La Zona as well as a few from My Father still (some Tridents and Dubloons), Merlions (a few Sealions, this line is made at La Aurora), Oceanos (Quesada), and some of the yummy La Sirena LTs (I might smoke one this morning yet! these are made at Plasencia). La Sirena has been an a supporter of this site too for several years, I think we enjoy a symbiotic relationship. If you search through the site you’ll find a few interviews with Arielle and Mariah which, it should surprise nobody, are among the most viewed videos on my YouTube channel. All this leads up to the 10th anniversary of the La Sirena brand, and the opportunity Arielle and Mariah’s father, Danny Ditkowich, provided me with to try his creation to celebrate the milestone. In the La Sirena tradition of using different factories to make all their various brands, Danny went to the Turrent family in Mexico for the Aniversario Edicion. When I lit this up, having no information on the blend, I had a flashback to my early days of smoking premium cigars, when I started out with Te Amo Maduros. Not to say it tasted that way, but I could tell there was some Mexican tobacco, and I was pretty confident it had a San Andrés wrapper. I happened to notice that Danny was the guest on the latest CigarSnob podcast, which was quite fortunate, because he talked about this cigar and confirmed my suspicions. It seems the wrapper is a 10 year old San Andrés leaf, with a Mexican Criollo binder, and Brazilian Mata Fina, Mexican, Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. This is made by the Turrents at their factory in Mexico. The flavor of this was unique, although there was a hint of sourdough that I find in the regular La Sirena line that I find amusing. Loads of earth and espresso were the main flavors, and it was quite a good smoke. I have no idea how these will be distributed, heck, I’m not even sure how widely the La Sirena line is distributed now days. I understand this is a pricey cigar, and it’s 5 ¾” x 54, so it’s not a super-long smoke (although I smoked it for nearly two hours), but it’s really delicious if you’re tolerant of strong flavors and Mexican tobacco.

I had to reign myself in there, when there’s a cigar line I’m interested in and excited about I get wordy. I did smoke some other cigars this week, of course. I had an afternoon cigar on my day off Thursday while reading a book called “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons” by Kris Newby, which sheds an interesting light on Lyme disease (which I have). I chose a mild cigar, which was a Serpentino by Pendrey Guillen Cigars. This is a Connecticut Shade (ironically, Lyme is named after a town in that state)/Candela barber pole cigar that was a nice, mild to medium smoke with a great burn for a barber pole wrapped cigar. Pendrey Guillen makes some neat patterned cigars in Honduras, many with a camo theme, but they are good cigars beyond the gimmicky aspect, and I don’t know that they are terribly expensive.

One last cigar, and nothing new here, actually one of my favorites, one I go to when I just want to enjoy the crap out of a cigar. This category evolves, of course, and there are several cigars in this class. in this humidor, so to speak, as it’s not a physical humidor, although I suppose I could make one humidor just for go-to cigars, are cigars such as Nica Rustica, Cro Magnon (which I don’t stock enough of), Alec Bradley Nica Puro, La Gloria Cubana Serie R Esteli and Coleccion Reserva, to name a few. Of course, the one I’m talking about now is the Umbagog from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust. This is probably my new favorite. I smoked a Robusto Plus this week and, honestly, is was like smoking dessert. It was like a rich, raspberry dark chocolate cake, it was so delicious. The wrapper on this one was so pretty that Steve Saka commented on Facebook on it, lamenting the fact that Umbagogs were getting much prettier wrappers than they should and they should cost more than they do. Of course, he also announced price increases on Umbagogs recently, so, coupled with shortages of Connecticut Broadleaf, now is the time to stock up on them. Damn good cigars, and Saka always said the ugly ones tasted best. This one was pretty, I can only imagine…

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, La Sirena, Pendrey Guillen, Umbagog

by CigarCraig | January 13, 2019 · 8:59 am

GTO Cigars, Pendrey Guillen Cigars and a Green Hornet

I had the opportunity this week to smoke some new-to-me cigars courtesy of Kevin of CigarProp.com. Kevin and I have been friends for several years and have been known to exchange cigars from time to time. It can bee a challenge to find cigars I haven’t tried, or at least some people think so, really there are a lot I haven’t had the chance to smoke. Kevin manage to find a bunch that I hadn’t tried. One of them was the GTO Mandinga, a 6″ x 60 from the Dominican Republic. I’ve heard about GTO Cigars, Oscar Rodriquez is an emergency room physician and owns the brand, which is distributed in the southeast of the US. I don’t see these in this neck of the woods. The Mandinga has a Domincan Maduro wrapper, Dominican binder and triple ligero fillers of un-defined origin (presumably also Dominican). This is definitely a cigar I’d happily smoke again. It had the flavors and perfect burn and draw characteristics that I like in a cigar. It wasn’t overly strong for being listed as triple ligero, it had the espresso flavors I like with some sweetness. It was perfect for the cold winter night. I had heard about this line on the Smooth Draws radio show, smoking it did bring to mind the late Gary Laden, who passed away last year. I had spent time with Gary at the 2017 IPCPR show and have fond memories.

Another line that I hadn’t heard of which Kevin sent a sampler was the Pendrey Guillen Cigars line from Honduras. Of the five cigars in the sampler, I smoked two this week. I reached out to Carlos Pendrey, who shared some of the details of the line with me. They have four lines, the COMANDO(camos), COMBAT(dark), Serpentinas(barbel poles) and CANDELA (green), in Robusto 5″ x 50, Toro 6″ x 52, and GORDO: 60×7 or 60×6. The Comando was the fist one I smoked, which has a Maduro/Connecticut Base wrapper, with fillers from Jalapa, Indonesia and La Entrada. This line has a Camo wrapper treatment, with strips of candela ,maduro and Connecticut leaf applied. I’ve smoked cigars like this before and one would think that, like a barber-pole wrap, the flavors would meld together, but there actually is some interplay of flavors from the various wrapper appliqués throughout the smoking of the cigar. This was a nice, medium smoke with a nice flavor, with variations to keep it interesting. There was mostly maduro sweetness, with the occasional grassiness of the Connecticut and crisp chlorophyll refreshing flavor of the candela here and there. I liked it.

The next one I tried was the Combat, a dark maduro cigar. I should mention that both samples were the 6″ x 52 toro vitola, which is my preferred size. This is listed as a Double Ligero, with components from Jalapa, Indonesia, La Entrada and Esteli. This cigar looked great, it had a very oily sheen on the dark wrapper. It had the rich flavors I had hoped for, more bitterness than sweetness, which is OK, I like black coffee, and every maduro doesn’t have to be sweet. The wrapper didn’t burn as well as I’d have liked, and when I removed the band it had what I can only describe as a reverse tan line, the wrapper was darker where the band had been, when I hadn’t thought was possible. Looking at the brand’s Facebook page (they don’t seen to have a website yet), they offer their cigars in hand carved boxes as well as standard boxes, as well as samplers, and the pricing that Carlos shared with me seemed to be quite fair. They seem to ship directly from Honduras, and may be distributing in the US. I still have a few more to sample, I think I’ll save the Candela and Connecticut offerings for warmer weather as I worry that they won’t hold up to the cold.

Finally, I had picked up a couple Black Works Studios Killer Bee Green Hornets a couple of weeks ago since I’ve been behind in sampling the Black Works line. The shops near me have started carrying them so figured I’d grab a couple here and there to try to catch up. The Killer Bee Green Hornet is a 5″ x 48 Robusto with an Ecuador Maduro wrapper accented with a candela covered foot and several little candela stripes on the head. The binder and Filler are Nicaraguan and it’s made at Fabrica Oveja Negra in Esteli. On cigars with a covered foot I forgo the toasting ritual, not wanting to waste the extra flavor the maker intended you to get from the wrapper material there on the foot. In this case, it’s a contrast of candela on a maduro cigar, an interesting counterpoint of the herbal, grassy flavor with the rich, sweetness of the maduro. This was an enjoyable cigar, although the draw seemed to increase in resistance along the duration of the smoke, which was odd. I might have given it a second cut, but I was too lazy to try that. I enjoyed the flavor and will continue experimenting with the brand as I have found enjoyment in everything I’ve smoked from that factory.