Tag Archives: Sun Grown

A Turkeyday Liga Privada T52 and an Alec Bradley Event at Old Havana

After a fine Thanksgiving turkey dinner with my family I figured something a special cigar was in order. I was in a Liga Privada mood, so I was riffling through the Drew Estate box and came across a 6″x 60 Liga Privada T52. Now tell me, what could be better than more of a good thing? Probably just about every other size of the T52! Not that it wasn’t a spectacular cigar, it certainly was! It was loaded with flavor, just not quite the concentration of flavor that the narrower ring gauge T52s present. I enjoyed every last bit of this cigar, but couldn’t help to think that the wrapper to filer ratio just isn’t quite right to showcase the wrapper on the T52 line. I think this came from a goodie bag at a blogger party Drew Estate threw in Vegas at the 2011 IPCPR show. Great cigar, but I’m not really surprised that it isn’t in regular production, but it’s always fun to see how blends translate into different sizes. It’s a cigar I’m glad to have had the chance to try in this format to see the impact that the wrapper has on a blend.

 

Friday evening I took a drive down to Old Havana Cigar Co. just south of West Chester, PA. for an Alec Bradley event.  This shop always has good events and they have a really nice lounge as well as a huge, well stocked humidor.  They have food in the lounge and always have quite a crowd. I picked up a couple of American Sun Grown robustos and lit one up. For right around $5 these cant be beat. I think I prefer them over some of the pricier lines. I had a nice time talking with “the Player”, Jonathan Lipson, and hanging out and enjoying my smoke. Since I moved a few months ago I’m a lot farther away from this shop than I used to be, but I’ll make the trip occasionally to catch an event. I ended up with new Connecticut offering from Alec Bradley which I’ll smoke in the not too distant future (maybe today).

 

Last night, after a two day battle with a migraine, I went for a favorite, a Gurkha Seduction Robusto.  This is an excellent smoke that I really like and didn’t have to think to hard about, I could just enjoy it .  A year ago I don’t think I’d even had a Gurkha cigar, and now I find that I have a handful floating around the humidors.  So far the Seduction is my favorite, but I have a bunch more to sample.  I’ll wait until the weather is nicer though as the all seem to be toro sized!

 

I hope everyone had a fine Thanksgiving and is ready for the start of my 12 Days of Spectacular Giveaways coming up in a few short weeks!  It’s looking like it’s going to be even better than last year!   I’m going to go string some more lights outside after I send a few e-mails lining up stuff for the contests.

 

Until the next time,

CigarCriag

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Filed under Events, Review, Stores

Midweek Cigars: An H. Upmann and a Kristoff

Welcome to the midweek edition, I’m working on some rather exciting things regarding the appearance of the site, so stay tuned!  If all goes well, there will be a new look over the next week or so.  I’m excited about it, as the look of the site has remained unchanged for the last 24 months and it’s time to spruce things up a little!

 

I dipped into the IPCPR show samples again and came up with this short, fat H.Upmann Sun Grown from AltadisUSA. I was taking an evening walk and wanted something short and different, so I picked out  this chubby robusto, which they call a Short Churchill.  Odd name, but I suppose if the “Churchill” in the line is 7″ x 54, then a 4½” x 54 is a Short Churchill…why not.  This was a super enjoyable smoke. Pretty rich in flavor and well behaved, although the draw was a bit loose and it smoked pretty fast.  Usually I can get more than a mile and a half (which is about two laps around my neighborhood) out of a cigar this size, with a few more minutes on the front porch to finish.  This one was just about done at the end of my walk.  This is another instance where, had I know the draw was so loose, I would have tried the punch first before whacking the whole end off of it.  At least if the punch doesn’t cut it, I can still give it the full clip, but you can’t really do it the other way around (well, with some pectin, extra wrapper leaf, a little skill and patience, I suppose one could conceivably put a new cap on and punch it, but that’s an awful lot of work…)  Anyway, totally decent cigar which I’d smoke again in a heartbeat!

 

Once again, I was in the mood for something different, so I grabbed a Kristoff Kristania robusto, one of two that I had picked up at Cole’s Tobacco Shop In Pottstown, PA a few months ago.  I have very limited experience with the Kristoff line, I think a Corojo that I smoked at the Delaware Cigar Festival was about the extent of my Kristoff exposure.  They look like really nice cigars, they always have a nice presentation, nice wood boxes with the cigars comfortably nestled in picadura tobacco.  The Kristania, on the other hand, is their budget line, and the cigar looks nice, the wrapper has a nice oil to it, and is kind of mottled in an attractive way.  As it turns out, I was very upset with myself for having put a Cain F Corona back in favor of this one.  I had some trouble keeping the wrapper burning, and wasn’t a big fan of the flavor.  Maybe this is mixed filler, which could account for the tunneling, but I don’t feel like this was worth my $4.95 all things considered.  I’m quite willing to explore the other cigars in the line, as the Corojo was a really nice cigar, but I’ll be avoiding the Kristania in the future.  I will say that, for the most part, Criollo wrappers don’t typically agree with my palate, and the burn problems and smoke production really took away from the experience.

 

Not a lot else going on!  Don’t forget to  go to to the Cigar Rights of America site to send a letter to your elected officials. Or you can use the widget in my side bar on the right, between the IPCPR and CRA logos.
Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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Filed under Review, Take a Cigar For a Walk