Tag Archives: Villiger

by CigarCraig | July 30, 2014 · 9:30 pm

Royal Gold Nirvana, Villiger Caberete and Nat Sherman Timeless Cigars

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day so, after doing a little yardwork, I alternated between smoking cigars in my chair in the yard and smoking cigars in the pool. Â We’ll be moving soon, so whether we’ll have a pool in the future is quite uncertain, so I’m trying to take advantage of the pool as much as possible. Â I started the day with an old La Gloria Cubana Artesanos Retro EspecialÃ© Cubano from a box that came back with me from the DR in 2011. Â These have aged nicely. Â When that was done, I found a Merlion Robusto from La Sirena. I figured the aquatic theme would fit in with my day. I’ve had this robusto since at least a year ago and age has been kind to this cigar made in the La Aurora factory. Both were on the smooth and mild side, which was nice on a hot day. Â After dinner I grabbed a new-to-me cigar that came out after last years IPCPR show. Â Royal Gold is the premium cigar division of Swisher International, and I talked to Alex Goldman, the president of the division at the Cigarnival a month or so ago. Â The Nirvana is made by Drew Estate and has an African Cameroon wrapper. It had the construction you’d expect from a Drew Estate cigar, and had a nice flavor with that Camerooniness that I love. Â It was sweet tobacco all the way through and was quite tasty. Â I have examples of their other lines, the Kismet and Casino Gold which I’ll get to in the coming weeks. Â Based on the Nirvana, I’m impressed.

Monday morning I got to work and there was no power, the previous nights storms had taken down a couple poles, so we did what we could and got out of there early. Â I came home and took a nap, then grabbed a cigar for my evening walk with the dog. Â I’ve been a fan of Villiger Cigars for a while, and I came across a new cigar from them called Caberete Maduro. This jet black, box pressed cigar looked like one I’d enjoy, and is made at theÂ Tabacalera Palma factory. This factory has been producing lines like Aging Room, SeÃ±orial, etc, and is one of the hottest factories in the Dominican Republic right now. Â The cigar was quite enjoyable, medium bodied, with a strong coffee/cocoa flavor. It burned admirable and gave me a very nice smoking experience. Â The cigar I smoked was the Toro Largo size at 6″ x 54 and had a severe box press. Â I look forward to smoking more of these. More information about this can be found here, as Villiger’s site has yet to updated with the latest information.

Tuesday I grabbed a cigar that had been gifted to me by a work associate, the Nat Sherman Timeless No. 2. Â I have no excuse for not having sampled this line before. Back in the eighties I smoked Nat Sherman MCD cigarettes for a while. They were gool because they were brown, and they were all tobacco so they went out if you didn’t pay attention. Â Totally irrelevant to this story, but I used to get their catalogs at the time. Â It may have had a little to do with my cigar fascination. Â Anyway, this is a nice torpedo shaped cigar, a classic 6Â¼” x 52, made in the Dominican Republic with a Honduran wrapper and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. Â I don’t have sophisticated tastebuds, so I was surprised when I got cinnamon. Is wasn’t cinnamon stick as much as a hard cinnamon candy. Â I really enjoyed the flavors of this cigar and I’m sorry I haven’t smoked this line before. I’ll have to try some more, as well as the Nicaraguan line. Â What an interesting and tasty smoke.

That’s about it. Â We’re running out of time to comment publicly on the FDA Deeming Document. Go HERE and tell the FDA that regulating premium cigars will devastate not only local economies and put people out work, as well as hurting economies internationally. Â It’s important, and I can’t wait to stop talking about it!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 11: Drew Estate

Day 10 is in the books and we’re getting close to the end of this odyssey! I’m going to have to sit down and figure out just how many cigars and goodies were given away this year. It’s a ton. I do know that I’ll be shipping out 25 Villiger cigars (a box of 20 La Capitana Toros and a 5 count sampler!) to Michel Vigeant, assuming he sends his shipping address to me! Once again, thanks to Anne and her crew at Villiger Cigars North America for providing this great present!

Day 11

Day 11 brings us some goodies from our friends at Drew Estate. We’ve got an Undercrown cap, an Acid cutter, and a bundle of the new Nica Rustica El Brujito! If you haven’t yet heard about the Nica Rustica, it’s one of my favorite new cigars this year. It’s an homage to the people of Esteli, Nicaragua, the city where the Drew Estate factory is located. This 6″ x 52 cigar is made with a pigtail cap and an untrimmed foot, and has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, San Andrés Negro binder and Esteli and Jalapa Nicaraguan fillers. It’s a rich, tasty smoke that’s a little more rustic than the Undercrown, and priced very well. This is a bundle of 25 cigars. These are a hot commodity! I don’t see today ending without me smoking a Nica Rustica (not one of these, I have a couple of my own!)

Thanks to John Brook, and all of my friends at Drew Estate for sending these great cigars and goodies along. Leave a comment to enter and good luck!

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

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Filed under Contest

Tagged as 12 days, cigar, cigars, Contest, drew estate, Villiger

by CigarCraig | December 21, 2013 · 6:47 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2013 Day 10: Villiger Cigars

Happy Saturday before Christmas! I’m now officially on vacation, so maybe it’s time to get to the shopping malls. They won’t be busy or anything will they? Yesterday’s present under the tree was a box of Casa Miranda Chapter Two Toros from Miami Cigar and Co. It’s my understanding that Barry Stein has a bad case of pneumonia and strep throat, a nasty combination. My best wishes for a speedy recovery, it’s no fun to be sick over the holidays, I’ve been there my friends. The oracle of Random.org has declared Brian Impson the winner of the Casa Mirandas. Please forward your details, but I would ask you and Jeff K to be a little patient with Barry, don’t get too upset if he doesn’t ship your boxes out promptly. Let’s see what Day 10 has in store for us:

It’s Day 10, and I’m pleased to present, for the third year in a row, a fine present from Villiger Cigars! The winner of this present will get a box of Villiger La Capitana Toros, and an “Unreleased Sampler” which is, as the name suggests, unreleased and only available at events. The sampler contains the Villiger Talanga Selecto Corona and Lancero, as well as the Colorado Torpedo, Diadama and what appears to be a pigtailed robusto.. I can personally vouch for the first two, and from the Villiger Colorado’s I’ve smoked, I can only imagine that these three sizes will be excellent. For what it’s worth, I also really liked the La Capitanas, they are excellent cigars, they are a Nicaraguan puro, made completely with Nicaraguan Habano tobaccos. These are very tasty cigars! Villiger may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think of premium cigars, but it should be. They’ve been making cigars for 125 years, and their handmade cigars are exceptional.

My thanks, once again to Anne and everyone at Villiger for today’s outstanding presents! You know what to do next!

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 won, 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

122 Comments

Filed under Contest

Tagged as 12 days, Casa Miranda, cigar, cigars, Contest, Villiger

by CigarCraig | November 13, 2013 · 7:36 pm

UF-13, Villiger and La Palina Lanceros and an OSOK Cigar

We’ve had a bit of a cold snap here in Pennsylvania. I don’t like it one bit! Not only is it dark when I get home, but it’s cold too! It gives new meaning to taking a brisk walk! I still need the exercise and so does the dog, so I grab a cigar and go! As I said last time, I’ve gotten the ball rolling for this years Christmas contests and am already 75% there with boxes of cigars already starting to roll in! Last year is going to be tough to top, but I’m certainly going to try! I smoked a Drew Estate Liga Privada Serie Unico UF-13 Dark to celebrate a productive and entertaining Sunday and it was darned good! This came from a box I received for my birthday. Every time I see the box in the humidor I hear a dozen little voices singing “smoke me”. The next time there will only be eleven voices! This is a nice smoke, and had plenty of horsepower for a brisk evening. I love the closed foot and the fancy fan/pigtail. This is probably my favorite of the Serie Unicos so far, although there are several I’ve yet to sample. Awesome smoke and I’m looking forward to further reducing the voices coming from that box!

Monday I came across a Villiger Talanga Selecto Lancero from the IPCPR show. I’ve been really looking forward to smoking this special take on the Talanga line. I’m a fan of the Villiger premium line. They do things right, and they make good cigars. Don’t base your opinion on their machine made lines, although the Export is a really nice little smoke. The premium lines are tasty and this lancero was no different. At one time the Lancero size could be counted on to have a hard draw, but I’ve smoked a bunch in recent years and never had a problem. This one has a beautiful Honduran grown Connecticut wrapper with a Jalapa Habano binder and Esteli Corojo, Ometepe Habano & Condega Habano fillers. It’s perhaps a little more refined than the regular Talanga line, which isn’t to say that line is unrefined, it’s very tasty. This Selecto line is a little more complex, perhaps. I’ve had both vitolas now (the other is a corona gorda, both excellent sizes) and enjoyed them fully. The Lancero was smooth, sweet and burned very well. It dropped the ash on it’s own, sometimes unexpectedly, but that’s not so big a deal since I was outside walking. I will certainly look for some of these to add to my growing selection of Lancero sized cigars.

Tuesday I celebrated, well….Tuesday, with another Lancero, this one a La Palina Classic that arrived in my mailbox last week. I think I saw that Cigar Aficionado gave this a 92 rating, and I think after some more humidor time I would agree. I was impatient with this one, I’m afraid. It was a great smoke, but could have burned better. Granted it was a breezy evening, but I had some burn issues that felt like it needed more rest, if only from it’s time in transit, Again, it’s a classic size, and a great way to really taste how much the wrapper brings to the table. This cigar is made in the PDR factory in the Dominican Republic with a Brazilian wrapper, Ecuador binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. This works out to be a smooth and flavorful cigar that was quite nice to smoke. I’ve not tried any of the top tier La Palina cigars, but the El Diario and Classic lines are quite nice, with, of course, the maduro in the El Diario line being my favorite in the range. The Classic line is on the low end of the price scale, but still runs from $6.75 to $8.50 per cigar. Nice stuff.

Prior to sitting down to write this post I pulled out a little cigar that was gifted to me last spring by my friend Alex Martiniez, the Stogiecop, the weekend I spent herfing around North Joisey. Alex gave me an Edgar Hoill OSOK Cultura which was in a white sleeve. This is probably one of the first cigars produced in Christian Eiroa’s Fábricas Únidas. It’s a Nicaraguan cigar and is a neat 4 ½” x 54 shaped cigar. Since it was cold and I had a lot to do tonight, I thought this would be a good time to light it up. This was a lot lighter in body than I imagined it would be, and really only approached the high side of medium when it got too short to smoke any more. It had enjoyable flavors, and I’ll have to revisit this cigar either on a warm day or indoors, as I’m afraid the cold air didn’t allow this cigar to shine for me. It could be that the cigar just doesn’t suit my preferences, but I like to give cigars a fair shot. I hate to say it, because I go back a long way with Christian, but his CLE cigars didn’t really hit me right either, so maybe it’s me. Either way, I’ll still keep trying, because that’s just the kind of open minded guy I am! Thanks to Alex for sharing this cigar with me.

That’s it for now. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, drew estate, Edgar Hoill, La Palina, Villiger

by CigarCraig | September 22, 2013 · 12:49 pm

A MUWAT Kentucky Fire Cured, a J. Fuego, a Villiger and an Editorial

It’s been a weird and busy week. The onset of Autumn bums me out. There were events I could have gone to, but just wanted to be at home. On weekdays I’m happiest to come home from work and stay there. I skipped the Delaware Cigar festival yesterday because we were supposed to pick up our son st the airport after a 23 day trip, and I’ve been there the last couple years. Its a great event, don’t get me wrong, and I love seeing old friends, but do you guys really want to hear about it again? So I’m working on some new and unique cigar adventures in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Thursday evening I was rummaging through the IPCPR samples and came across a Drew Estate My Uzi Weighs a Ton Kentucky Fire Cured “Just a Friend”, which is the toro size in the line. This is another cigar that utilizes the fire cured tobacco from Kentucky. I figured since I had just smoked another cigar utilizing this tobacco that it would be interesting to compare. This cigar is made in the Joya de Nicaragua factory, and, like the Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta, it has a two inch wrapper overlay on the head of the cigar. Jumping ahead a bit, I’ll mention that whatever this leaf is, it doesn’t burn. I’ll also mention that when I smoked this cigar at the factory a few months ago I found it to be unique and interesting, but not entirely to my liking. This hasn’t changed. I personally find what strikes me as a campfire aroma off the unlit foot to be off putting. That flavor isn’t overpowering in the smoke once it’s lit, it gives it a savory flavor that is interesting. Obviously, this is just me. Everyone raves about this cigar and it certainly is well made and something that should be experienced. If I said I loved everything that comes out of my favorite factories I’d be lying. Smoke it yourself, it may be a cigar you love!

Editorial

You, no doubt, have read on other cigar media sources of the resignation of Bill Spann as president of the IPCPR. This probably has little or no relevance to the majority of cigar smokers, but since I interacted with Bill quite a bit over the last couple years, I’m going to bore you for a few minutes with my thoughts on this. I first “met” Bill in March of last year after I posted a rant on the IPCPR Internet Media Membership (http://www.cigarcraig.com/?p=3605). Bill worked with those of us involved to try to make things right with this IPCPR membership category. We came to an agreement, although there’s still quite a few wrinkles to be ironed out (more on that later). Bill gave me an open line of communication, even though the president of the association had much better things to do than dealing with the smallest category of membership. When I did have to contact him, he produced results, and I did my best not to bother him. Of course, the internet media members are members as much as your local tobacconist is, and this is where my rant begins. I hope Bill’s successor gets new media as much as Bill did, and I hope he is able to convince the board to accept us as members, because the Internet Media, and I am going out on a limb speaking for everyone, still feels unwanted. I’d like to see one of two things happen: either do away with the membership category and invite the media and bloggers That the IPCPR wants to have at the show, or give us the same consideration as the retail membership gets. Both would require the IPCPR to have one person in charge of the media, one point of contact. I, for one, am tired of spending a boatload of money to join an association who doesn’t know I’m a member, and travel to the annual show. Unlike a retailer, my income is not derived from the cigar industry, I do what I do because I love doing it, not because it’s my job, and that’s the same with most if not all of the IPCPR New Media members. Anyway, I wish Bill Spann the best of luck in his future endeavors. I can imagine that he had a thankless job, but I want to say “Thank you” to him.

Back to the cigars! Yesterday afternoon I dug into the trade show samples and came out with a J. Fuego Connoisseur Classique Toro. First, if anyone from J. Fuego is reading, the size is incorrect on the site, it’s a 6″ x 50 and not a 5″ x 60. This has a nice looking Ecuador Sumatra wrapper over a San Andrés binder with Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers. All of this makes for a nice, medium bodied cigar that smoked for almost 2 hours. I really love the 777 Maduro line, and have enjoyed a bunch of other cigars made by Jesus Feugo, this one is probably in the middle for me. It was good, well behaved, and enjoyable, but not entirely up my alley. Looking at this post so far, I really need to adjust my attitude, the Autumn thing is really getting to me! This was a very nice cigar though and I enjoyed smoking it on a beautiful late summer afternoon on the deck.

After dinner I grabbed a Villiger Selecto Corona Gorda. This cigar comes in only Corona Gorda and Lancero, and I would have taken the Lancero for a walk if it wasn’t going to rain. This is a line extension to the Talanga line, as it has the beautiful Talanga Connecticut wrapper, similar binder and fillers. It’s a refined cigar. It is buttery smooth with loads of nice, mild flavors that dance across the palate. After smoking the 5″ x 46 Corona Gorda, I can’t wait to try that Lancero. It’s not a super mild, grassy Connecticut, it’s got a lot more. Perhaps the Nicaragua Ometepe filler leaf makes the difference. All I can say is it’s damned good, and I’d say that even if I didn’t like the Villiger company as much as I do. They are a good bet whether you need a quick machine made cigar or a fine premium. Another job well done with the Selecto!

Also, From the folks at NewestCigars.com:

NewestCigars.com is finally official and we’re pretty excited about our new website. Please see the attached press release. We’re having a website launch party with Asylum, CLE, Edgar Hoill and Wynwood in Detroit, and we’re also giving away a 5 pack of new cigars each week for a year in The Great Cigar Giveaway, visit our website to enter.

That’s enough of my nonsense for a beautiful Sunday. I have to go to the airport later today to pick up the son who I had to reschedule flights for yesterday! I may get a walk in before having to leave!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Editorial, IPCPR, Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, drew estate, Fire Cured, IPCPR, J. Fuego, KFC, MUWAT, Villiger