Tag Archives: Providencia

by | June 21, 2020 · 10:49 am

Providencia Spectrum and Espinosa Comfortably Numb Cigars and Other Stuff

Happy Father’s day. Later today I’ll smoke the last cigar from a box of cigars I bought for Father’s Day in 2000. It’ll be a hard cigar not to save, but I’m going to bite the bullet and light it anyway. I didn’t smoke the whole box one every Father’s Day, it took a few years for me to develop that tradition. I had smoked a few and shared a few, but over the years I had a few gifted to me as well to supplement the inventory, thanks to Mike Perry for extending my tradition for a few years by sharing some of his aged stash with me! So today will see the last Esperanza Para Los Niños toro, a cigar made by Christian Eiroa in 1999 with the help of some guys from a usenet group who met up in Danli and selected this blend and sold it with proceeds going to children orphaned by hurricane Mitch. $85 a box was a fortune for me at the time, a bargain now for an excellent cigar, which was heavy bodied, not unlike the old Camacho Triple Maduro. It’s always an adventure smoking a 20 year old cigar, I’m rather looking forward to it, but it’ll come with some sadness as I’ll never have another! I still have the box someplace though! 

 

On to some cigars I actually smoked! I went on a brief Southern Draw bender on the heels of their press release announcing the cancelation of all of their public events for the rest of the year due to pandemic concerns. Personally, I find this to be a responsible decision, as areas that seem to be lax in their preventative measures seem to have a higher infection rate, and who amung us doesn’t want to protect their families? I think the Rose of Sharon Desert Rose is one of the top Connecticut shade style cigars out there, and the Kudzu Lustron is definitely a top notch cigar as well! I smoked both, they are the same box pressed torpedo vitola and are delicious. Speaking of box pressed torpedos from a Texas-based cigar company, I also smoked a cigar from Providencia Cigars. This cigar is called Spectrum, and my assumption is that it has an autism charity connection, considering the colorful puzzle pieces on the band. I can appreciate this theme. If I were to guess, I’d say it was 5″ x 52ish, and the only information I have on it is that it has a Sumatra wrapper that was characterized as delicate and thin. I was advised to avoid wind and humidity due to the fragility of the wrapper, so I did. This is an abso-friggin-lutely delicious cigar! As with just about every Providencia cigar I’ve ever smoked, the cigar burned perfectly. This was the rival of another Sumatra wrapped, honduran made cigar I love in flavor, balance and overall enjoyability (Don Juan Calavera). There’s a sweetness that I really dig, I really have to buy a mixed bag of old-timey hard candy and try to isolate that flavor, but there’s a candy sweetness that makes this cigar a great desert smoke. Absolute joy. I don’t have any idea what the availability of this is or was, but try it if you can. 

 

I believe the Espinosa Comfortably Numb Vol.1 is a Meier and Dutch distributed brand, which is the distribution arm of Cigars International. I picked this one up a few years ago at the CI store in Hamburg when Erik Espinosa was there the day Cigar Fest tickets went on sale. I was just there for the spectacle of it all, hundreds of people lined up outside for hours in the freezing cold for tickets, not my bag, baby. This is a toro with an Ecuador Habano wrapper, Corojo binder and Nicaraguan fillers and is surprisingly mellow. It almost smoked like a shade wrapped cigar. It doesn’t have the grassy flavor, but it does have a sweet, nutty flavor that is pretty nice, and it seemed to have aged pretty well. I say “aged”, it was February of 2018 when I picked this cigar up, so, it’s hardly aged compared to a lot of things, but it held up. Tasty cigar, and not badly priced. I’d be very tempted to sample the madur version, the Vol. 2, the next time I happen to be in a CI store, or if I see it in a shop. Older folks will note the Alton Kelley/Wes Wilson inspired band design.

 

Speaking of “aging”, I smoked one of the Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust Famous Smoke Shop 80th Anniversary cigars from last October last night and it was spectacular. There’s not a lot of Saka’s cigars I don’t like, but this one is pretty special. Well, on with the day, have a great one, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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by | April 26, 2020 · 12:08 pm

Cohiba Royale, Providencia Barrel Aged Old Fashion Cigars

I had a busy week working on a side project, and I slacked of on original content and made up for it with a bunch of news pieces through the week. So I had the luxury of smoking some old favorites, some older than others. One notable cigar was a Fuente Hemingway Classic. For along time I preferred the Signature over the Classic, it seemed like the Classics I smoked all had a metallic flavor to them I didn’t like. Granted, this was in the ’90s, and several factors change. The box I’ve had in the humidor for the last three or four years has been spectacular. A La Sirena Trident (Churchill) from he first batch that La Zona made was equally enjoyable. Yesterday I smoked a Nica Rustica Belly from a bundle I bought at the release party in Louisville, KY in July of 2015 that was wonderful, and a Room 101 Uncle Lee from the end of Matt Booth’s Davidoff years. And then, there was the new stuff…

 

It seems like every blogger and his brother has been reviewing the new Cohiba Royale. I apologize for being another one of them. I suppose when General Cigar sends a bunch of folks samples in the mail, and people can’t get to stores to buy new cigars to review or talk about, this sort of redundancy, repetitiveness, repeating oneself, saying he same thing over and over, will happen. I know that my inventory of newer cigars is running low. Enough excuses. This new Cohiba is interesting. It’s also expensive. Granted, it’s less than one third the price of the Cohiba Spectre, but it’s still not a cheap date. The Royale runs from $23.99 to $28.99, which is much more than my usual cigar budget, so smoking this falls into “treat” territory. I suppose the special occasion is surviving another day of global pandemic madness. Anyhoo, this particular Cohiba hits a few milestones for the brand. It’s the first to be made at HATSA in Honduras. This factory makes Punch, Hoyo and the like. This is also the first to use a Nicaraguan Broadleaf wrapper, and this is what really makes this cigar special in my opinion. The binder is Dominican Piloto Cubano and the fillers are from the Jamastran Valley in Honduras and Jalapa and Esteli in Nicaragua. I personally find the cigar to be quite delicious, and I can’t wait to see what some age does to this blend, even though they say that the tobaccos have five to six years age already. It has some sweetness and spice, but there is a little sour note here and there that makes it interesting. I smoked the toro, which is the largest size, and I would have liked a better burn and draw from a cigar in this price range, but that should come with some humidor time as these samples were only about a week off the truck. I look forward to the day when I can catch up with Sean Williams and smokes one of these with him.

 

The other new cigar I smoked  was another one from Providencia Cigars. This one gave me pause, being a non-drinker. It’s the Barrel Aged Old Fashion, and had a pronounced “boozy” aroma to me. After almost thirty years of not drinking, it’s not like something like this is going to make me fal of the wagon, there’s nothing to worry about there. I actually have some liquor in the house for guests, it’s never a temptation. What it means is that I really have no frame of reference for booze related flavors. I don’t think I have ever had an Old Fashion, if I have it was over 30 years ago. I was more of a beer and shots guy than a cocktail guy when I drank. So this cigar was a toro sized cigar, wrapped in a San Andrés wrapper with an Indonesian binder and Honduran and Nicaraguan Ometepe in the filler blend. The magic happens when they age the cigars for four months in barrels that contained Old Fashion cocktail drink from the Little Water Distillery in Atlantic City, NJ. I was a little surprised that the cigars were in the barrel in cello, but that goes to show you that cello

is permeable, and I’m sure it reduces damage to the cigars. The cigar smoked beautifully, like every Providencia cigar I’ve ever smoked. There are a couple small Honduran cigar factories that are making exceptional cigars, and Providencia is one of them. I suppose an Old Fashioned has some sweetness, because there was a nice sweetness to this cigar. This is basically the Providencia Bloodshot blend, aged in the barrels, so the cocoa and dark chocolate are enhanced with the sweetness. I enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t relate to the liquor aspect of the cigar. I may have to root around and see if I have a Bloodshot to compare it to! Providencia Cigars never seem to disappoint, and I am so grateful to Ray for sharing his new blends with me. 

 

That’s al for today, be safe out there, support your local retailers so you have somplace to go when things open up again, and enjoy your day. Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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by | April 8, 2020 · 8:59 pm

Providencia Cigars Rusted Revolver

Once again, I’ve been grabbing cigars to smoke, and smoking some favorites. I came across a really interesting 1502 test blend that I really should have smoked a few years ago and given Enrique some feedback, but it got buried in the humidor. It was really good, and I found out it was a prototype for the Blue Saphire. I usually don’t do that, one slipped through the cracks. That’s not to say I often get the opportunity to give feedback like that, now that I think about it, I have a couple cigars from Providencia that I still haven’t smoked, and it’s probably passed the time that any feedback would be useful. Even during this time when time seems to be standing still, there’s a lot on my mind, and things get forgotten. So when I recently received a few new cigars from Ray at Providencia, I figured I had better get to smoking them and post my thoughts, like I did on Sunday with the Providencia Shenanigans.

 

Today I smoked the Providencia Rusted Revolver, another Barber Pole style cigar. This one is wrapped on San Andrés and Connecticut (Ecuador?), an Indonesian binder, Nicaraguan Ligero and Honduran fillers. The Connecticut leaf was a dark shade, leading me to initially guess it was a Habano.  It was on the rustic side, but that kinda fits with the theme of the brand. One thing I’ve found to be universal among the Providencia cigars I’ve enjoyed is the excellent construction, the cigars always seem to smoke right, this one was no different. Barber Pole cigars can burn funny sometimes, this one burned perfectly. The flavors of the two wrappers played nicely with one another, some creaminess and sweetness along with spice and earthiness. The cigar was on the stronger side of medium, and was quite a satisfying cigar, and had a nice, cool burn all the way to the end. It’s normal for me to smoke cigars to about ¾”, I have trouble letting them go, unless I get really bored or they start falling apart. This one was great. Another winner from the house of Providencia. 

 

It’s been busy here this week. My wife got bees and I helped her set up her hive, and I picked up two chicks that my granddaughters are raising until they are old enough to come to our house and move into our chicken coop and eventually join our flock. With any luck by the end of summer we’ll have eight laying hens and I’ll need to increase my cholesterol medication! Maybe we’ll have Honey too! Now, if only life would return to normal and a job would present itself!  Until the next time!

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | April 5, 2020 · 9:14 am

A Providencia Shenanigans Cigar and a Fundraising Raffle

I’m back after a few days of smoking some favorites out of the humidors. I found a few old Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo El Martillos with the old bands, the first one I lit up just wasn’t drawing right, which irritated me. Usually I work my way through, but I wasn’t willing to aggravate myself on that particular day, so I set down the cigar after fighting with it for a third of the cigar, ran an errand, and came home and lit another one, and enjoyed the crap out of it. This has been a cigar I’ve been a fan of for a decade. I can remember smoking one of these when I first toured the Joy de Nicaragua factory in 2011, and with the heat and humidity there that day, I had to put it down or become overwhelmed.  It’s a powerful smoke. I love it. I still have a few of these with the old band, and a few with the new. I had a Numero Uno last week which was exceptional also. Love the Joya cigars (I can do without the Red and Black oddly enough). A four year old La Gloria Cubana Serie RF, a Famous Smoke Shop Exclusive, was also smokes this week, and was also very good. It was strange when I looked back through “memories” and saw I smoked the same cigar four years prior almost to the day. It’s funny how often that happens! 

 

My wife has been sewing masks lately and sent some to a hospital, and made me a couple out of the cigar fabric that I have. She made a couple extras, and is having a raffle on Facebook to raise money for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The raffle “tickets” are $1 each, and I’ll sweeten the deal by adding a few cigars to the winner. Click here (or on the picture) to make a donation and be entered. All the details are on the post. It’s only running until Saturday, so don’t delay. 

 

Of course, I try to introduce something new in my Sunday posts, r at least new to me. This time it’s from Providencia Cigars. Ray at Providencia sent me some of their new cigars, so look forward to more featured in the coming  days. One smells particularly boozy, not sure about that one…but anyway, this one caught my eye right off, and I had to smoke it. The cigar is called the Providencia Shenanigans, and it’s a barber pole style cigar. First off, it was a toro, 6″ x 50 or 52, I failed to measure it. Secondly, it’s a barber pole comprised of Candela and San Andrés Maduro, a striking contrast. The binder is Indonesian, and the fillers are Honduran with Nicaraguan Ligero. Naturally, this cigar seems to target a March 17 smoking date. I can’t help but draw comparisons to other cigars, not gonna lie. Since there’s no way I was going to wait almost a year to smoke it, I fired it up last night. Often barber pole cigars can have odd burns, not this one, it was perfect. Draw was perfect, combustion was perfect, all of the tobaccos burned at the same rate with a flat ember, no coning, no tunneling, absolute perfection. This is how every cigar should perform in a perfect world. The flavors were equally pleasing and entertaining. The interplay between the earthiness and espresso of the San Andrés and the refreshing chlorophyll of the candela was unique, and the spice from the ligero gave it some oomph. Overall, I very much enjoyed this cigar, it was really very good and entertained my for a good hour and a half. It was well worth missing the beginning of “The Ten Commandments”, which is only slightly longer than one of Coop’s podcasts! :-)_~.

 

That’s all for today. Don’t forget to keep up the social distancing, call your local tobacconist if you need cigars and try to keep them in business! Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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by | December 17, 2019 · 8:19 am

A Providencia Cigars Pre-Release Sample

Last week I received a package of sample cigars from Ray Zinar of Providencia Cigars for some feedback, which was rather humbling and flattering. Providencia Cigars is a small cigar company making their cigars in Honduras and I’ve enjoyed the cigars I’ve smoked from the brand. Ray has ties to the Philadelphia area, so we have that in common. I’m still looking forward to meeting him and sharing a smoke in person, but that day will come eventually. Anyway, as you probably know, the first cigar I chose out of the package was the only maduro in the bag, and, fortunately for me, it happened to be a 7″ x 47 Churchill. I’m always tickled to find a traditional sized Churchill, next to a toro, it’s about my favorite shape, and not an easy one to find. Most companies take liberties with the dimensions. The look and feel of this dark, rough wrapper made me think San Andrés and I lit it up and was pretty sure I was on the right track. I took a quick walk around the block and then settled into my favorite chair on the porch to enjoy this perfect cigar. The flavor was right up my alley, exactly what I love in a cigar. Sweet espresso, with some spice and that little earthiness you get from Mexican tobacco. At about the midway point I hit a cinnamon stretch, just a hint, enough to take notice and make me want more. Throughout the cigar the burn was straight, the draw was perfect, and the combustion was even, all tobaccos in the blend burning at the same rate, which always marvels me. I quite look forward to smoking this again. 

 

Just as I was finishing the cigar I was in communication with Ray and he revealed that the cigar I was smoking was to be their next release, a small batch to be called Johnny Ringo.  It indeed has a San Andrés wrapper, Indonesian binder and Nicaraguan, Dominican and Honduran fillers. Photos here are their mock-ups and may or may not represent the finished product, but I can tell you, the cigars will be top notch! 

 

 

Last night I smoked another sample that I have no information on, but I suspect it had a Habano wrapper and it was very good, had the same great construction and excellent flavor. It wasn’t the perfect cigar for me that the Johhny Ringo was, but was still a tasty smoke, and was a traditional corona gorda size, 5 5/8″ x 46. It’s an interesting experience smoking samples where feedback is requested. It’s an added responsibility not to be taken lightly, and I appreciate the opportunity! 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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