Tag Archives: RoMaCraft

by Craig Vanderslice | December 26, 2021 · 10:35 am

A Neanderthal, a Diamond Crown and Boxing Day Cigars?

It’s the day after Christmas, so I don’t have a great deal to write about, since the last few days have been busy with family and the whole build up to the holiday and all. I have just been smoking good cigars, and whatnot. I started off the long weekend with a Paladin de Saka after a private discussion amongst some bloggers about how this yet to be released cigar might end up on the Halfwheel Consensus. A little insider info for you there. I toyed with the idea of doing a top whatever list myself, just to see if I make the consensus again, but it would be a vanity project, and I think I’ll just discuss my favorites of the year in a different way. There were some new cigars that impressed me, and I want to give credit where credit is due, but my ego doesn’t need to be stroked. One of the cigars I treated myself to was a Christmas Eve Romacraft Neanderthal Gran Perfecto. I had purchased a collection of Gran Perfectos from Son’s Cigars a while ago and have been working my way through them. I have to say, the Whiskey Rebellion has been my least favorite, there’s something I don’t like about it. Of course, the Cromagnon was excellent, as was the Neanderthal. This format, the 5 5/8″ x 60 perfecto, changes the flavors ever so slightly. In the cases of the latter two, the flavors seemed stronger, or more focused, which makes sense considering the tapered format. I’m a fan of the brand, of course, I’ve known Skip and Mike for over a decade, they are one of the brands that I’ve purchased 99% of the cigars of theirs that I’ve smoked!

Christmas day, after all the kids and grandkids have gone and our big brunch was cleaned up, I hit the porch with a Diamond Crown No. 7. It has been my tradition over the years to smoke a classic cigar on Christmas day, usually something Fuente or Padron, something I love that I can just enjoy. This is such a cigar and brings with it a lot of memories. I always think of a cigar party in Vegas in 1998 when I smoked a Diamond Crown for the first time. My wife smoked one too, and Saka was there as well as a few other folks I’m still in touch with (Ed Sullivan of The Cigar Authority and The Ashholes podasts, for instance). It’s a quintessential Connecticut shade cigar, mild, bready, a hint of sweetness, and just an all around pleasant cigar. When they came out in the mid-90s, available only west of the Mississippi, oddly, enough, they were absurdly large 54 ring gauge. This pyramid is a 6 ¾” x 54, and manufactured at Tabacalera Fuente. My preference is generally for the maduro, or the Maximus, but the original version is always a treat for me.

Today is Boxing Day in the British Commonwealth countries, and I don’t quite know the intricacies of that holiday, but I know it doesn’t have anything to do with pugilism. There goes my plans to watch Rocky movies all day. That saves me hours of going frame by frame looking for myself in the fight scene in Rocky 5 (we were extras ringside). Anyway, whatever Boxing Day is, for me it’ll mean finding a box of cigars and taking a cigar out and smoking it, maybe doing it more than once. It’s supposed to be a nice day too. I’m certainly not going shopping. Anyway, I only mentioned Boxing Day because I couldn’t think of anything else. Didn’t Rocky Patel make a cigar for a boxer? So, that’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, Diamond Crown, J.C.Newman, Neanderthal, RoMaCraft

by Craig Vanderslice | October 30, 2019 · 11:04 am

The New Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA

Yesterday I dropped by the new location of Cigar Mojo, the cigar shop and lounge in King of Prussia, PA. They opened the first shop back in 2013, and I posted about it here. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, they’ve had their challenges over the years, but Ive been to some great events, and it’s turned into one of the premier lounges in the area. To those not familiar with the area, the name King of Prussia sounds like an odd name for a town, but it’s adjacent to Valley Forge, which holds a significant place in American History, and the Prussian troops played a large part in the Continental Army’s success, hence the area being named after their king. Of course, none of that has anything to do with Cigar Mojo, except that I’m sure some tobacco was smoked at the King of Prussia Inn in the 1700s, as tobacco was one of the things that funded the war. Anyway, The Cigar Mojo guys had enjoyed success in their beautiful lounge, but decided to move a half mile down the road into a vacant bank building and create a bigger and better Mojo. This new location is nestled between an Aldi super market and a Duluth Trading Company store, and has plenty of parking (where as the old location was nestled between a Wawa and a cemetery, and had limited parking). I have only included exterior photos today, as they had just received their occupancy permit and were in the process of moving in, so, while functional, the inside was in a bit of disarray. Trae, one of the owners, was busily stocking the large and centrally located humidor with their generous stock. The store has three lounges, a public lounge to the left of the humidor, the members lounge to the right, and an outdoor lounge in the rear of the building. All of them have plenty of seating, and TVs, even the outdoor area. There is a dominos room and also a kitchen I’m told. As I said, the large humidor is in the center, when you walk in the door, it’s in front of you, and you move through the vestibule to the left to enter the retail space. I look forward to seeing it when it’s all cleaned up and organized, it was understandably a mess as they had to hurry to vacate the old location.

As always, you can go to any cigar shop anywhere and strike up a great conversation with a total stranger. Sure, I’ve been to Mojo plenty of times, and there were several people who came in and out who I knew, but you can just sit and talk to someone new and have mutual friends and interests and have a great time. Trae was kind enough to find me a box of RoMaCraft Baka in the 4″ x 52 Bantu size and open it up and sell me some singles, one of which I smoked in the public lounge. I had gone in thinking I was just going to smoke a particular cigar, then, as I saw the chaos in the humidor, and the tons of cigars there, I forgot what it was I was thinking of. So I grabbed a couple Cromagnons, and, half jokingly, asked Trae where the Bakas were. He said they had them, and dove into a pile and found a box. I really enjoyed this cigar! It’s not as powerful as other cigars in the RoMa line, it’s got a sophistication, along with the nutty “Camerooniness”. The size was deceiving too, as it easily burned for an hour. This is a winner, although I doubt anyone would be surprised.

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Baka, cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigar store, cigars, RoMaCraft

by Craig Vanderslice | July 7, 2019 · 9:53 am

A Couple of Shop Visit, a Couple of Cigars and a Contest Winner!

Happy Sunday! I suppose it’s the end of a holiday weekend for a lot of people, I had Thursday off, and stopped into the CigarCigars shop in the King of Prussia Mall and picked up a couple cigars, one of which I smoked later to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Sure, I have plenty of natural Padron 1964 Anniversary Exclusivos, but I hadn’t had a Maduro in quite some time, so I picked one up. My wife spied a Foundry Compounds, Elements and Musings Uranium box with two cigars left in it, so I bought them and got the box. I’m pretty sure I’ve smoked Uranium before, although I don’t smoke many 7″ x 70s. The artwork is cool and I’ll rig a light in the box and it’ll be a nice shelf piece. Gotta give Mike Giannini credit for creative design! So my wife got a ring from Tiffany, and I got some cigars, it was a good day. The Exclusivo was exceptional, of course. I remember smoking my first one probably 20 years ago and they haven’t changed.

Friday evening I took a ride up to Suburban Cigar Lounge in Mount Penn, PA, which is near Reading. This is a really nice lounge run by Gary, over top of what is, by all reports, a very nice restaurant, which, if I’m not mistaken, his wife runs. I went to meet up with Boston Jimmie, of Stogie Press fame, who took his sweet time showing up. If you advertise that you’re going to be someplace from 7-10, showing up at 8:30 is not acceptable, I don’t care how things are done in Florida. 😜Anyway, Gary has a nice lounge with a friendly clientele, and his humidor has a modest but diverse selection from which I purchased some Alec Bradley Magic Toast Gordos, and RoMaCraft Aquitaine Mode 5s, and lit up a Magic Toast. I love this Magic Toast, it’s my kinda smoke. The dark, oily Honduran wrapper is beautiful, and the flavor is equally dark and lush. I smoked a Mode 5 next, and while I prefer the CroMagnon, the Aquitaine is damn tasty. This is a great example of how the wrapper can completely change the flavor of a cigar, as the wrapper is the only difference between the CroMagnon and Aquitaine lines. Jimmie finally showed up and hung out for a while. I hadn’t seen him since the 2017 IPCPR show, so it was nice seeing him again. Suburban Cigar Lounge is a great place to hang out of you find yourself in the area. I’m sorry I didn’t let long time reader Corey know I was going!

Last night I smoked the 2Guys Smokeshop exclusive Pistoff Kristoff Firecracker. Every year they do a special Firecracker release, last year it was the Mi Querida, prior to that it was the Fratello. I’ve managed to smoke a bunch of them, except for the original ones. It’s a small format, 3½ x 50, in a stronger blend. This was the second Pistoff Firecracker I smoked and I thought it was very good. I’m OK with the Pistoff blend to begin with, so I figured I’d be OK with this, and if I wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be a large time commitment. I do, generally, get an hour out of the Firecrackers, smoking them slowly. Because of the closed foot, a trademark of Kristoff, and usually a Firecracker trait, it starts with a blast of wrapper flavor, and some concern that the draw will be tight, once the wrapper burns, this one opens up to a perfect draw and has a good, bold flavor. It was strong, but well balanced. It looks like these are sold out, as is the case with most of the limited Firecrackers, but often the have second runs, and I would recommend these and others if you like small, strong cigars. They have all been exceptional in my opinion.

Contest

It’s time to select a winner in last weeks contest. To recap, I am giving away some great, in my opinion, Don Juan Calavera cigars from Danli Honduras Tabaco (from my own humidor, to protect the innocent), a Herics Cigar Tape, and a Cigar Prop and Light Bleed Tool from CigarProp.com. It’s possible some other goodies could fall into the box while I’m packing it up. There were 42 entries, and according to the random number generator, the winner is Bob Langmaid! I seems like Bob wins everything all the time, but I could only find one instance of him winning one of my contests, and that was almost 4 years ago. I’d rather have someone who hasn’t won before win, but Bob’s name came up, and he’s been fanatically religious about entering my contests for many years, so fair is fair! Please send me your address Bob!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as 2 Guys Smokeshop, Alec Bradley, cigar, Cigar Prop, cigar store, CigarCigars, cigars, Contest, DOn Juan Calavera, Firecracker, Foundry, Kristoff, padron, Pistof, RoMaCraft, Suburban Cigar Lounge, Uranium

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

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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 | October 5, 2016 · 10:17 pm

CroMagnon Firecracker, Mi Querida, Belstaff Bond, CAO Flathead and Cigar Prop

I had a long day Sunday with my brother-in-law framing out two walls in my living room. I guess in the late 50’s when the house was built heating was cheap and insulation wasn’t a big concern, so putting drywall right over brick and block walls was OK. Over the years people also thought it was a good idea to wallpaper, then after wallpaper was out of fashion it was OK to paint the wall paper. We’ve been systematically removing old drywall and insulating the outside walls. This is all irrelevant except that it was a long day, and by the time I got to a cigar, I wanted something short, but satisfying. At the IPCPR I finally met an old friend, Dave Payne, and he generously shared with me some cigars, one of which was a RoMaCraft CroMagnon Firecracker, this years Two Guys Smoke Shop special edition. In years passed they have had the Firecracker vitola made by La Flor Dominicana and Tatuaje (I think?). It’s a 3″ x 50 with a closed foot and a long pigtail “Fuse”. I have to think this is a goosed up version of the CroMagnon blend, it’s a powerful little cigar and was just what I needed to wrap up a productive day. While it was strong, it was loaded with those deep, dark flavors that I love in the CroMagnon blend. Of course, I wanted it to be longer, but it was a great little smoke. Thanks to Dave for sharing it with me, Skip for making it, and Dave Garofalo for dreaming up this vitola. I have a suspicion that this will be a very hard cigar to find.

Monday I figured it was time to give Steve Saka’s Mi Querida another try, dubbing the occasion “Mi Querida Monday”. Maybe we can make this a thing, #miqueridamonday needs to enter the lexicon. Anyway, I smoked one of these at the show and saw the potential, trade show samples smoked in the Las Vegas environment is rarely a good way to sample a cigar. I found another one in my samples, and had been salivating over it waiting for the right time to smoke it. Monday was the night. I’m anxiously awaiting these showing up in one of my local shops so I can put some more in my humidor. This cigar had everything I love about cigars, great construction, perfect draw and the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper was delicious. This could become one of those “goto” cigars that always satisfies. I obviously have a bias, I’ve known Steve for 20 years, but I know him well enough to be honest with him if I don’t like something he made, but I would like this cigar no matter who was behind it. Another winner from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust.

Tuesday I came across a cigar that came from the Bugatti Cigars booth, which was within the Meier and Dutch booth (the distribution arm of Cigars International). This was a toro called Belstaff Bond, and is made in General Cigar’s Santiago, DR factory. This cigar had a nice, dark Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, and was quite a good smoke. I have smoked several cigars from the Bugatti line, and found them to be quite nice. This reminds me that I’ve been using the new Xikar Xidris lighter pretty exclusively for the last few weeks and am finding it to be an excellent lighter. It holds a lot of fuel and lights every time. It has a solid, hefty feel, and Xikar says that it has super car styling (see the tie in?). It’s a classy lighter, I just have to make sure I have it oriented the right way or I’ll burn my palm one of these days. It’s a very nice lighter.

Tonight I got a hankering for a “goto” cigar, and opted for the CAO Flat Head Steel Horse Apehanger, a 5½” x 58 cigar with a Connecticut Habano wrapper. I really love the Flathead line, the Steel Horse series is round instead of square pressed, but still has the flat cap, which is best approached with a large-bore punch. The released two new sizes this year at the show, and I’ve yet to get my hands on either one (the Handbrake and the Roadkill, both in the robusto range at 4½ x 50 and 5½ x 54 respectively), and as soon as I come across some I’ll be picking them up, but the Apehanger does it for me. I once joked about putting Apehanger handlebars on my Yamaha Majesty 400 scooter…

Finally, you’ll recall a year or so back I mentioned some nice cigar tubes that Kevin Shahan was making in his Florida machine shop, and he’s moved into making another useful cigar product, the Cigar Prop. This is a machined aluminum cigar stand that is very handy. I tried to make a poor man’s version of this a few years ago out of a piece of bamboo and a 1″ hole saw. I would walk to the local convenience store, set my cigar on the ice cooler outside (or the top of the Red Box machine) while I went into the store. One day a Liga Privada number nine rolled off and I had to reach under the machine to retrieve it and it had been damaged in the six-foot drop and just wasn’t the same after that. That’s when I started carrying the bamboo stand with me. Not that I have too much of a need for that anymore, but this Cigar Prop is a handy addition to the collection of cigar tools. It’s very nicely machined, cradles the cigar nicely and is attractive. You can see it in use in two of the photos above. Give Kevin’s Cigar Prop site a look, and for you bearded guys, he also has a line of beard products called Irish Beard Balm.