Tag Archives: Tortuga

by CigarCraig | June 18, 2014 · 9:19 pm

In the Cigar Mojo Humidor with Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands

Tuesday evening we found ourselves, once again, at Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia PA to meet with our friend Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands. You’ve heard me mention Cigar Mojo on occasion, it’s not the closest cigar store to me, but we’ve come to feel at home there as they have a terrific humidor and lounge, and Trae and Wade, the owners, make us welcome when we visit. Victor now lives in Philadelphia, his home town, and Mojo is conveniently located just about directly between our homes. Victor has become a good friend, and it’s always entertaining and educational to get together with him for some smokes. I have my old friend Mike Perry to thank for introducing us several years ago. As always, I picked up a few cigars that I haven’t tried before (and one I had), this time it was some of the new La Antiguedad from My Father Cigars, and a few of the Surrogates series. I led off with the La Antiguedad Robusto, which was a very nice smoke. I suppose this one could be considered strong, although I found it solidly medium. It’s a nice, box pressed 5¼”x 54 with a Ecuador Habano Rosado Oscuro wrapper. I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly while engaged in conversation with Victor, Trae and my wife, Jenn.

After I finished that tasty treat, Victor turned me on to his newest creation, the Tortuga 215 Reserva El Coyote Negro. This lovely belicoso is a tweaked version of the regular 215 Reserva with a beautiful dark Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper. I instantly regretted no smoking this cigar on a clean palate, a situation I will certainly remedy once these become commercially available. This had many things in common with the rest of Victor’s cigars, it was perfectly constructed, one of my favorite things is when you tap off the ash of a cigar and it’s burning perfectly flat. This speaks volumes to the care that goes into selecting tobaccos which happen to burn at exactly the same rate, no easy feat. This cigar competes favorable with cigars such as the Padrón 1964, it’s well balanced and very refined in flavor. That’s not to say it tastes like a Padrón at all,but was certainly on a par in terms of it’s overall performance. At about the half way point I got a curious exotic spice flavor that made me take notice, and that sensation went as quickly as it came. What a pleasant surprise, although I wasn’t surprised that this was as good as it was. I enjoy the heck out of the Tortuga line, and I was certain this amped up, maduro wrapped version would be right up my alley.

I dragged Victor into the humidor for a quick video for your enjoyment. I was hoping to get a scoop on The Cigar Authortiy, where Victor will be appearing on Saturday. Tune in to the show from 12-2 at ThCigarAuthority.com to watch and listen.

For tonight’s evening walk, I felt compelled to dig out a Tortuga 215 Reserva Alma which I had picked up last fall when I visited Two Guys Smoke Shop in New Hampshire. The Alma, which is probably not named after my paternal grandmother, is a box pressed 5″x54 robusto which is presented with a red ribbon on the foot. This ribbon must be removed before lighting, buy they way. Burning ribbon doesn’t taste good. As I’ve come to expect from this line, it was perfect in burn and flavor. It’s Nicaraguan, but without any rough edges at all. Just a smooth, well balanced smoke. I’m pretty sure I’d love this line even if I wasn’t friends with the maker, it’s a solid special occasion cigar, an ultra premium cigar that’s really quite special. I keep my meager supply buried in the humidor or I certainly would smoke them up and not have any left!!

Contest

I’m sure you remember Sunday’s contest. I’ve once again consulted the random number generator at Random.org and it gave me the number 2. By my count, that makes TriMarkC the winner of the two CAO Flathead tin signs and a four pack of the new CAO Flathead Piston. Mark has been a long time reader and while he has won once before, it’s been several years. I’m reminded that I need to update my winners page…I’ve been slacking…out of sight, out of mind, I guess. So Mark, send me your address so I can get these goodies to you!

That’s all I have for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Review, Video

Tagged as cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigars, Contest, Tortuga, Victor Vitale

by CigarCraig | April 16, 2014 · 10:06 pm

Three Toros: Gurkha, Nica Rustica and Tortuga Cigars

The weather here in PA is all over the place! Sunday it was darned near 80, and today it snowed in some places and the temps didn’t get too far out of the 40s. This didn’t stop me from smoking what used to be considered larger cigars. The Toro has been among my favorite sizes since I started smoking cigars in the 90s. Six inches by 50, 52 or 56 is in the ballpark, not as fat as the 60 ring gauge cigars, nor as long as a Churchill or double corona. They are usually good for an hour to an hour and a half. I like Robustos too, but the Toro is a great size.

The first toro I smoked this week was a Gurkha Ghost Asura, at 6″ x 54. I bought a couple of these at a shop in New Jersey, and they’ve taken some time to grow on me, the first few I smoked I didn’t quite get. I figured I should like this cigar, it has a maduro Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper (interestingly mispelled on the Gurkha website), and I usually like that wrapper. Eventually, I’ve come to enjoy this cigar, it’s on the rustic side, appearance wise, and it’s got a nice, fairly heavy flavor of dark roast coffee that I like. This one burned well with a dark grey ash that hung on pretty well. Lots of people think Gurkha cigars are all hype, but they have a bunch of cigars that are really very good.

Last night I grabbed a Drew Estate Nica Rustica El Brujito for my evening walk. This 6″ x 52 toro has a closed foot so you get a nice blast of flavor from the Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper. the fist time I tried this it was a pre-release sample from the factory, and it had a half a leaf of a “wild” Esteli tobacco that added a real special little zing to the blend. I suppose the availability of this tobacco wasn’t in keeping with the idea to make an affordable and sustainable blend, so it was replaced with something more available. The cigar is still a winner, it’s got some strength and good, hearty flavor. The reason I grabbed this was that I was thinking about the recent earthquakes in Nicaragua. I happened to see a comment on a cigar makers post asking for positive thoughts and prayers for the Nicaraguan people and someone responded with something along the lines of “keep the cigars safe”, which I thought was about the most selfish comment. Really? Losing a few cigars is more important that people dying? We all love cigars, but are they more important than lives? I don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything more about the earthquakes, except they were preparing for “the big one”, like the one in 1972 that pretty much leveled Managua. Let’s hope that the seismic activity settles down in that part of the world, they have it bad enough. Anyway, the El Brujito is one of my favorite new cigars in the last year. For around $6, if you like stronger cigars these are worth a try.

A sign from the elevators in the Crown Plaza Hotel in Managua

Tonight I dug deep into one of the coolers and selected a Tortuga 215 Edición Limitada 2011 Toro. This is a 6″ x 50 traditional toro that’s made in the Dominican Republic with Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos. This is from a ten count box that was a generous gift from Victor Vitale a few years ago. These are aging very nicely. It’s a cigar with a lot of balance and class. Where the Ghost and the Nica Rustica are pretty brash, in your face kind of cigars, this one is loaded with flavors that are delicate and refined. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Victor Vitale‘s cigars, and I only have a few of these left, which I’ll savor slowly because I don’t think there’s many of these left in the market. I know I have one enormous double corona that was a gift from a great friend in New York State that will be a great pool cigar this summer! Keep up the great work Victor!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as cigar, cigars, drew estate, El Brujito, Ghost, Gurkha, Nica Rustica, Tortuga, Victor Vitale

by CigarCraig | December 17, 2013 · 6:42 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 6: Two-fer Tuesday! Flor de Gonzales and Kings Cigars

I can’t believe this thing’s almost half way over! The response continues to be enormous. I was looking at some numbers and this week alone will come close to the total number of visits I had the first year I was online with CigarCraig.com. Amazing and humbling, thank you all for visiting, that’s one of the reasons I run this annual giveaway. For those interested, chekk12 did come through with his address and his Atabey sampler will be shipping his way today. Today I need John Hateley To kindly send me his address, as he is the winner of the Tortuga and Ora Vivo sampler from Victor Vitale at Legacy Brands! I smoked an Ora Vivo last night and these, along with the Tortuga 215 Reserva, are really very special cigars. I encourage you to give them a try! On to today’s giveaway!

Day 6

I try to do one thing a little different every year, so this year I’ve decided to have a “Two-fer Tuesday”! There’s a mess of stuff under the tree today! First, from Flor de Gonzales we have a five-pack of their cigars, a T-shirt and a pen. I’ve long been a fan of the Flor de Gonzales line, and there’s one from each line represented here. The 90 Miles 1980 is particularly exceptional, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them. They are all very flavorful and perfectly constructed cigars. Even their bundle line (not represented here) is a great cigar for around $2. My thanks to Yadi Vargas for providing this fine present.

Our second gift comes from Kings Cigars. We met the Kings folks at the IPCPR show last July and they were the life of the party. Their cigars are darned good too. In today’s gift bag is a couple Kings Cigars T-shirts, some hats, long matches, a nice stainless steel cutter, and a five pack sampler of their excellent cigars. I’ve smoked the King of Kings and the Conde and enjoyed them greatly! These guys are new to the market, but their cigars are three years in the making and they are doing it right. Thanks to Anwar, Pete and Marlene at Kings cigars for sending this gift bag!

There you have it. A bunch of T-shirts, goodies and excellent cigars! Thanks again to Flor de Gonzales and Kings Cigars for making Two-fer Tuesday possible! You know the next step, load up the comments!

Rules

Here’s how you enter: leave a comment. That’s it, plain and simple. Tweets don’t count, but feel free to spread the word, only comments on this page count as an entry. Each day there will be a different prize and the winner will be drawn from that day’s comments. The winner will be announced on the next day’s post. The contest is open to everyone, even if you’ve won one of my contests in the past six months, but once you’ve won, you are ineligible to win again in this series of contests. All prizes will be mailed as soon as I get a chance to go to the post office, or whenever the sponsor decides to ship, whichever is the case, so don’t make me chase down your address! Please e-mail your contact information to craig@cigarcraig.com as soon as possible!

That’s it, leave a comment to enter and good luck. Check back tomorrow to see if you won and enter tomorrow’s contest!

Until Tomorrow,

CigarCraig

121 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as 12 days, cigar, cigars, Contest, Flor de Gonzalez, Kings, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | December 16, 2013 · 6:44 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 5: Legacy Brands

Once again a nice turnout for the chance to win a box of Leccia Black Petite Rothschilds and a Leccia Tobacco t-shirt worn by Sam himself! (just kidding!). Thanks again to Sam and Jack Toraño for this spectacular present! JScott is going to be out of his mind excited to have won! Joel is a long time reader, and I might have his address around here somewhere but please send it anyway so I make sure I have it right! Maybe share one with your buddy Commish if you want! Also, Saturday’s winner has yet to e-mail, chekk12 please send your address! Of course, the bad news for both of you is that you aren’t eligible to win again until Jan 1 when I reset everything. You won, quit your whining :-). On with something very special for Day 5!

It’s Day 5 already and things are moving along nicely! Today we have more cigars of exceptional quality from Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands. Victor launched his new Tortuga 215 line at this years IPCPR trade show. It’s very exclusive as it’s on;y available at appointed merchants (BestCigarPrices.com happens to be one of them). These are made from high priming Nicaraguan tobaccos and are really, really good smokes. There’s a Four-pack of the Tortuga 215 Reserva Robustos along with a two cigar sampler containing another Tortuga 215 Reserva and an Ora Vivo Armand Assante Robusto, which is the second cigar line in the Legacy Brands stable. the Ora Vivo is a very tasty cigar as well. You may have read about it here in the last several months.

There you have it, a spectacular bunch of smokes from Victor Vitale and Legacy Brands. Many thanks to Victor for sharing these cigars with one of my lucky readers, I know I’ve enjoyed a few of both lines. You know what to do! Leave a comment to enter and check back tomorrow to see if you won.

Rules

Here’s how you enter: leave a comment. That’s it, plain and simple. Tweets don’t count, but feel free to spread the word, only comments on this page count as an entry. Each day there will be a different prize and the winner will be drawn from that day’s comments. The winner will be announced on the next day’s post. The contest is open to everyone, even if you’ve won one of my contests in the past six months, but once you’ve won, you are ineligible to win again in this series of contests. All prizes will be mailed as soon as I get a chance to go to the post office, or whenever the sponsor decides to ship, whichever is the case, so don’t make me chase down your address! If you are the winner, please e-mail your contact information to craig@cigarcraig.com as soon as possible! That’s it, leave a comment to enter and good luck. Check back tomorrow to see if you won and enter tomorrow’s contest!

Until Tomorrow,

CC_Logo_xmas_s

CigarCraig

124 Comments

Filed under Contest

Tagged as 12 days, cigar, cigars, Contest, leccia, Legacy, Ora Vivo, Toraño, Tortuga, Victor Vitale

by CigarCraig | December 4, 2013 · 8:09 pm

A UF-13 in Atlantic City, Leaf by Oscar, and a Tatuaje at Cigar Mojo with Victor Vitale

From the “I’m not as young as I used to be” file, I’ve been paying for having some fun on Sunday. Sunday my wife and I decided to pay a visit to Atlantic City for some fun. We played some slot machines and I enjoyed the heck out of a Drew Estate Liga Privada Serie Unico UF-13 Dark while playing. It’s nice to smoke a great cigar indoors once in a while! There was even a nice little cigar shop in Resorts International that had a decent selection. By the way, one way to feel young is to go to the buffet at 5:30. We were well below the median age there. We ended up leaving AC at 5 am so I could get to work more or less on time, which made for a long day.

Monday evening, with my butt dragging, I fired up a cigar from “Island Jim” of Leaf and Bean in Pittsburgh. This cigar is called “Leaf by Oscar” and has been getting a lot of buzz lately. These are presented wrapped in a tobacco leaf as opposed to tissue or cello. They have a unique look on the shelf. George Rodriguez of Rodrigo cigars (who is partnered with Jim) sent me one of each wrapper and I (of course) selected the maduro first. My apologies for not taking a better photo of this cigar. Under that outer leaf is a beautiful dark wrapper. It’s the color of semi-sweet chocolate (ironically, I think semi-sweet chocolate is contributing to my migraines lately…). The wrapper is Nicaraguan maduro and the guts are Honduran. This cigar was very tasty and burned perfectly, as straight and even as any cigar I’ve ever smoked, with a nice, flat ember. It started off with a nice spice and mellowed to a rich, chocolaty experience. I enjoyed the heck out of this and had planned to move on to one of the others Tuesday.

However, Tuesday I left work and drove down to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA to meet Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands for a smoke. In the month or so since I first visited this shop Trae and Wade have done a great job stocking the humidor and getting some displays and furniture in. It’s becoming a very nice shop with a great selection. The lounge is comfortable and the clientele seems to be friendly. They already have a good number of lounge members. I picked out a cigar I hadn’t tried before, the Tatuaje Havana VI Artistas torpedo and chatted with Trae until Victor arrived. I don’t smoke a lot of Tatuajes for some reason. Maybe because I’m afraid I’ll find yet another cigar that I love, but is priced higher than I like. This Havana VI is a little more reasonably priced, about $7 here for the classic torpedo size. I found that the ash dropped easily, much to the proprietor’s dismay. It had a nice flavor and burned well. I’ll smoke it again after some humidor time (I always buy two). I had a great visit with Victor, and smoked another of his new Tortuga Reserva Cedros which was really, really good. I have it on good authority that the Reserva Cedro line will be out soon in three sizes, if you can find some, give them a try. They aren’t a typical Nicaraguan puro. It’s a refined smoke that exudes quality. I’d say that even if Victor wasn’t a friend, and I’m glad he’s back in Philly so we get to see him a little more often! I’ll probably be back at Cigar Mojo soon, it’s not really close to home, but it’s a nice place, and Trae and his Dad, Wade are doing it right. Good stock, nice atmosphere.

I just started evaluating a device from Elertus that wirelessly monitors my humidor. I placed the Smart Sensor in my Adorini humidor in the living room for now, but I’ll try it out in the coolers eventually. This is a neat device. It monitors temperature and humidity, and sends alerts to my cell phone and e-mail if conditions change outside the limits I set. It also senses movement and alerts me (someone moved my humidor while I was at work today!). This would be a reasonable investment for a store owner who wants to know if his walk in humidor needed attention. It’s got features I don’t really have use for, like door sensors, light sensors, and it will even alert you if the WiFi loses connection. You can monitor the status on the website, or on iOS or Android apps. It’s pretty spiffy. I’ll report later on how it works over the course of a few weeks in a few different humidors.

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

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review, Stores

Tagged as cigar, Cigar Mojo, cigar store, cigars, Leaf and Bean, Leaf by Oscar, liga privada, tatuaje, Tortuga