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by Craig Vanderslice | March 16, 2025 · 9:23 am

Serenity Now, Montecristo Exclusive, Hooten Young and Julius Caeser Cigars

Thursday night I went to a Flyers Game, their second meeting with the Tampa Lightning. You may recall that I went to Tampa last November to the game there, and they won in a shootout. It was a fantastic experience with the Diamond Crown cigar lounge and all, Kevin and I had a great time! This time I took my youngest son, and I smoked a Serenity Now from Asylum/CLE Cigars. I figured this would be an appropriate driving cigar! I got this at the TPE show, embarrassed to say I don’t remember the reps name who I talked to , but Tom Lazuka was there. This is a cigar that Christian Eiroa came up with, Tom is usually the idea man for the Asylum line. It’s my understanding that we wasn’t very happy with Christian at first. This comes in a box with a San Andrés sibling, the Insanity Later. Serenity Now uses a Connecticut-seed wrapper, which may or may not be grown in Honduras, over tobaccos from Honduras and an undisclosed South American country. There are a lot of references to CLE having a farm in South America, which is a big place. I thought this was a little bitey for a shade cigar, on the tannic side. It was a nice road cigar as it burned well and was inoffensive. Full flavor yet medium strength. I’d try it again, but am more interested in trying the maduro, which I would have called Profanity Later, but that’s just me.

Last week when I visited the Smoke Inn Casa de Montecristo lounge in West Palm Beach, one of the cigars I bought was a Montecristo Nicaragua Great Smoke 2023 Exclusive. This was priced higher than I usually like, but when in Rome (more on Rome, see below) you know! Yesterday was The Great Smoke put on by Abe at Smoke Inn, and it looks to have been a good time. In honor of that, I decided to smoke the Montecristo. This is a Nicaraguan puro, blended by Rafael Nodal and AJ Fernandez and made at the AJF factory. Montecristo (and a lot of Altadis cigars) aren’t generally my cup of tea, although the exceptions are the ones made by AJ Fernandez. This has a dark wrapper, is a 6″ x 52 Toro, and performed spectacularly. It has a distinctive flavor, I wonder if this is what people refer to as “black walnut”? I don’t like walnut, but this was a good tasting cigar. I didn’t regret dropping $20 on this cigar, it was a souvenir, of my trip, and I really enjoyed it. Once again, I can’t overstate how nice an experience my visit to the Smoke Inn shop was, I will have to get back down there and go to some of the other shops.

Another cigar I picked up on my recent travels was the Hooten Young Ma Deuce. I saw Jon Carney at the Cigar Circus event and he, apparently, had been working with the Hooten Young folks, and hooked me up with a couple of their cigars. I probably should have watched “Black Hawk Down” yesterday while I smoked this, but opted for something a little lighter. Norm Hooten, one of the co-founders of the company, is a Veteran of the mission in Somalia which the movie “Black Hawk Down” is about, and there’s also a connection to Jon Carney’s home town in Maine. This is an interesting vitola. It’s 6½” x 60, but it’s shaped like a .50 caliber cartridge. The Ecuadorian Connecticut and San Andres Maduro wrapper combo is arranged to emulate the different metals in the bullet and casing. It has a Nicaraguan binder and filler. They come in boxes that look like ammo cans. Everyone has a different palate, I got a sourdough flavor off the start, which continued through out. Of course, I like this flavor in a cigar, so it was good. I smoked it for the better part of two hours, and the tapered head makes it very much unlike a 60 ring cigar. It was fun to smoke. I’ll watch “Black Hawk Down” one of these days when I’m in the mood.

Finally, I couldn’t let March 15 go by without smoking a Diamond Crown Julius Caeser cigar. Here’s something I wrote last year that I was pretty proud of, although I might be the only one who was impressed with it…

We all know that March 15 marks the day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. We know the exact date because he invented the calendar we use. He instituted that just a year before his death. Anyway, he was a heck of an Emperor, but I guess his friends thought he was a dick, so they stabbed him. I may be oversimplifying things a little. A few millennia later some Hungarian folks named their son after him, and US immigration screwed up the spelling on his paperwork and Julius Caeser Newman started a cigar company that makes some great cigars.

The Diamond Crown Julius Caeser is made at Tabacalera A. Fuente, has an Ecuador Havana wrapper, Dominican binder and Caribbean and Central American fillers. I smoked the Pyramid vitola, which is 6½” x 52. I might have gotten this when I was in Tampa for the Heritage Festival in ’22. I was kind of hoping to smoke the new Trouble Maker vitola, but I didn’t end up getting my hands on any. This is a great cigar, with a woody profile that’s a nice change of pace for me. I probably don’t smoke this line as often as I should, there are some good memories associated with it, beyond the historical and literary tie-ins.

That’s all I have for today, no travel this weekend! until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Asylum, cigar, cigars, CLE, Great Smoke, Hooten Young, J.C.Newman, Juli, Ma Deuce, Montecristo, Serenity Now, Smoke Inn, The Great Smoke

by Craig Vanderslice | January 28, 2024 · 11:01 am

Adventura, Aganorsa, JFR and DTT Cigars

I was looking at some of the gifted cigars I have this week and pulled out a couple that seemed topical. Not for any other reason than Abe is a friend and Smoke Inn is a great retail establishment, take note that their event, The Great Smoke, is coming up on February 24. Hopefully I’ll make it to one of these some year, I’ve heard good things. My secret Santa this year gifted me an Adventura Sociedad Secreta which was a Great Smoke release last year I believe, and actually has ties also to Secreto Cigar Bar in Detroit. This cigar is a cool size, 6″ x 48, a size I like a lot. It’s midway between a toro and a Lonsdale, pretty cool. This cigar is made by Henderson Ventura in the DR, and has a San Andrés wrapper that has been aged four years, Broadleaf binder with five years’ age, and 3-5 year aged fillers of Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. I’ll be honest, when I read the blend I was surprised, because I would not have thought it had that combo of wrapper and binder. It lacked the darkness and earthiness I associate with those tabacos, but did have a nice, sweet woody flavor. It was medium bodied at best, and quite tasty. I typically am not a Adventura fan for the most part, but this was quite nice. Thanks to Craig for allowing me to try this!

I had a couple more cigars I picked up at last week’s Wooden Indian visit, and smoked a Aganorsa Leaf Signature Maduro in the toro size. To be honest, I wasn’t going to get this, until I was informed I had a $5 credit on my account and figured, what the hell, I’ll put that towards another cigar! Perfect cigar logic right? Why take the discount on the cigars I’m buying already when I can get one more for $5 off? It made sense to me at the time. Anyway, this looked like one I’d like, and, for the most part, it was. This 6″ x 52 Toro has an Aganorsa Corojo wrapper, over Aganorsa binder and fillers, all gown in Nicaragua. Apparently there’s some media tiempo in the blend, I would expect that to give it some oomph, but the cigar was so packed at the head that it was a snugger than normal draw. It was good, some nice spice and good tobacco flavor. I can’t seem to remember which Aganorsa cigars I really like and which one’s are just OK, until I try another, this falls into the latter category. I should find a place to write this stuff down! 🙂

Non-cigar related, my wife and I took a little road trip to see Patterson Great Falls in Patterson, New Jersey yesterday, we had no idea there was a waterfalls in New Jersey. It was pretty nice, I hope the guy who found it wasn’t canoeing down the Passaic River! Apparently Alexander Hamilton founded the city around the falls and built an industrial complex after the Revolution. Neat history and cool waterfalls. On the way home we stopped at Ringing Rocks Park in Bucks County, PA, which has a boulder field that some of the rocks ring when hit with a hammer. Strange to see this naturally occurring boulder field, again, I wonder who figured out that they ring? Anyway, I came home to a losing Flyers game and had a cigar.

The cigar I chose was another Great Smoke release, this one from a few years back, the DTT-EX-38, another secret Santa gift, this one from Mitch (TY!). This one was an exclusive for the ’21 Great Smoke, which was the one that was virtual, an 8 hour telethon style event. I think Carlito Fuente stole a Sakasquatch on the broadcast. This was a cigar Saka had been working on for several years using a Costa Rican Morron ligero if I understand correctly. He made some for the Great Smoke, and is either still working on the blend, or has given up, hard to say. This was a fascinating cigar. It was 5″ x 46 with a pigtail, nice size for the time I had before dinner. It was very chocolaty, but a weird, chocolate that coates the palate. Loads of flavor. This had a long finish, I might still taste it 17 hour later and having had another cigar after it. I think the people that were able to get these had a special treat, and I’m fortunate that I had the chance to try one.

Finally, as I was leaving last week’s Aganorsa event, Fabien handed me a JFR Corojo Robusto “to smoke on the ride home”. I didn’t, of course, it wasn’t that long a ride. This is another Aganorsa puro, featuring the Aganorsa Corojo wrapper. It’s a dark wrapper, I had to look at the band to determine if it was the Corojo or the Maduro. I have to smoke more of these JFRs, I think. This was a good smoke, burned well, was fairly strong and had a lot of spice. I liked it. I’m not sure if it was the cigar or not, but I had weird dreams all night, the kind that you wake up, then spend the better part of an hour trying to figure out WTF that was all about, then falling asleep and waking from another weird dream. I ended up getting up around three and watching Shazam on TBS until I fell asleep again (which didn’t take too long). Very strange. I didn’t eat anything spicy or anything like that, strange how the brain works. Won’t prevent me from giving the JFRs more attention.