I realized recently that while I was recounting my experiences in Nicaragua on Cigar Safari, I didn’t really talk too much about the cigars I smoked. One of the reasons was that I was tying in a contest to guess the number and I didn’t want to make it too easy to figure out, and the other was that there were so many other things going on that I really didn’t think too much about it! One of the things that I noticed was that I enjoyed all of the cigars I had, and all of them performed perfectly. From the first Liga Privada No.9 on the bus at leaving the airport, to the Tabak Especial Negra on the bus back to Managua, every cigar burned great and drew perfectly. I didn’t say I was surprised, I don’t think I’ve ever had a poorly constructed cigar from Drew Estate, or recently from Joya de Nicaragua. I smoked several of the Joya de Nicaragua Cabinettas, including a yet to be released Lancero, and I even had an Acid Kuba Maduro, and I didn’t hate it! I didn’t snap a picture of every cigar I had, but here’s a sampling:
On the “Take a Cigar for a Walk” front, Monday night I smoked another Punch Rare Corojo 10th Anniversary, courtesy of General Cigar. This is the third one of these I’ve smoked and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I taste hints of what I remember the Rare Corojo tasting like, which was very savory and full of flavor. There was a time in my cigar smoking life that I would always leave new arrivals sit in my humidor for a year or so before smoking. In this day and age, cigars seem to be coming to market ready to smoke, and I feel obligated to smoke samples sent to me in a timely manner. It’s a bit of a Catch 22 for me. I would love to see how these age, and, after smoking three of the five samples, I may allow the final two to sit in the humidor for a while more and revisit them in six months or so.
Along those same lines, I recently received some samples from Gary Griffith of Delaware Cigars and Emilio Cigars. One of the cigars he sent was the Grimalkin Toro. This 6″ x 50 cigar was described as being made in a factory in Esteli which they cannot reveal due to contractual obligations. I had my suspicions, which I think were confirmed after smoking one of the samples. I’m not going to reveal where I think this is made because that wouldn’t be right. I really enjoyed the first sample, it had a bit of spice to start out with and was pretty lush and tasty. The construction was top notch and I enjoyed it to the band, which sports a cool pair of feline eyes on a green background. It was definitely a visually appealing cigar and felt good in the hand. I put it down at the band, it got a little funky, another aspect that would be remedied by some additional humidor time. He also sent a couple of his Emilio cigars that I am looking forward to smoking. Again, a very nice cigar. I’d love to try this in a corona or lancero. Delaware Cigars has several locations in Delaware (duh), which is probably a half hour drive, I really need to make my way to one of the stores one of these days. They also host a cigar festival at Delaware Park, a great racetrack, in September, I might have to see about making it to the event.
That’s about it for today, I still need to hear from Wayne Nye with his mailing address so I can send out the StogieBoys.com Stogie Registers. I prefer to make one trip to the post office, so my apologies to MoBarbq and jimbobber for the delay in shipping.
Until the next time,
CigarCraig
