Thursday evening I found myself faced with a dilemma, go to an event at the Cigar Mojo shop a mile from home, or a pop-up event at the Wooden Indian 15 miles from home. The subject matter of the Wooden Indian event was far more appealing to me, so it made the choice easy, otherwise I’d have made a token appearance at Mojo and gone home to watch hockey. It happened 
that Fabien Zeigler and Mike King of Aganorsa Leaf Cigars were in the area and were hanging out at the Indian, so I went, picked up some cigars, and hung out. Now, I’m hit or miss with the Aganorsa line, but there are a lot more hits than the event going on a the other place, and liking the people involved means more than liking the cigars in some cases. I hadn’t seen Fabien since he left Drew Estate, and it’s always nice hanging out with Mike King and I feel right at home at the Wooden Indian. I bought a selection and lit a Rare Leaf Maduro, it the Toro shape. Their Toro’s are 6″ x 54, which suits me fine, and the wrapper is a San Andrés over Nicaraguan Aganorsa tobaccos. I managed to pay attention to this one enough while conversating to know that it’s not one of the Aganorsa cigars that I don’t care for, it’s a perfectly decent, earthy mexican maduro with some rich cocoa and a little spice. I’d definitely smoke this again, although it’s not replacing any favorites.
I decided to follow it the next night with the Rare Leaf Corojo, also in the 6″ x 54 Toro size. This has what they call a Nicaragua Café wrapper, Aganorsa Corojo 99 binder and Aganorsa fillers, sounds like a Nicaraguan Puro to me. My impression of this one was that the flavor was largely on the wood end of the spectrum. It was a good smoke, performed well, had some interesting flavors, a little citrus tingle here, some pepper there. When it comes to the woody and leathery cigars, I tolerate them, but it’s not something I’m going back to, unless I forget and buy one again (which is becoming more and more likely!). I grabbed a couple more toros, and I’m pretty sure I smoked them before, and maybe even liked them! I’m still way ahead of the game if I had gone to the event at the other shop. There will be plenty of people coming to the shop by my house, I can miss one here and there.
I received an email from Tommy Allen of Statesman Cigars in California asking about getting some exposure for his brand, I was intrigued. Any time someone decides to start a cigar business in California I get curious. Is this guy nuts? I need to know more. So I figured he might be a good subject for the next video interview, which I’ll work on arranging, my “studio” is on the cool side this time of year. He sent me a couple cigars to sample, which I smoked yesterday. The cigars arrived in individual sealed pouches, and he shipped them separately in USPS Priority Mail boxes, which was unnecessary and overy costly. He said it had to do with making sure the recipient got “as excellent an experience as possible”, which is a good thing. Still could have put two cigars in one box, I’ve personally gotten ten in one of those! Who am I to criticize though? Taking care of the customer is job number one, and it’s becoming less and less of a thing. I started with what I believed to be the Bella Donna, their Habano blend. Their cigars are all figurados, this was a 6″ x 56ish perfecto. I should have measured the ring gauge, but I did measure the length. This size isn’t listed on their site, which was a little confusing. Regardless, or irregardless, depending on where you fall on that linguistic debate, it was a really nice smoke. It burned well, once getting past the nipple, and had a perfect draw. This had the cane sugar sweetness I like, but it was pretty subtle, not at all cloying or overpowering. Nice.
The Maduro offering in the Statesman line they call the Nightcap, probably because one would smoke it in the evening, not because it looks like a hat one would wear to bed. This is another perfecto, this one was 5 3/8″×52, not small, but smaller than the previous Habano cigar. I definitely have to get into a video interview with Mr. Allen, I have a ton of questions. They do say that the cigars are made in Esteli, nothing about who makes them, or any real info about the tobaccos. The quality is good, the cigars are a little on the rustic side, but I not poorly priced at $11 for a figurado. I’ve had a lot of more expensive cigars that weren’t as good. The Maduro was a cocoa/coffee maduro with a little bit of strength, although approachable. Good smoke. Like I said, I have lots of questions, stay tuned for more on Statesman.
I’m to understand that there will be a multi vendor event on Saturday, May 4 at Goose’s in Limerick, PA. I’m looking forward to this event, I’ll have more information as it becomes available.
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
