I took a much needed vacation day on Friday to go hang out with Willie Herrera and Chris Stone of Drew Estate Cigars. Cigar Mojo was the scene of the event, as Chris and Willie were making stops throughout the area. In True Mojo style, Trae provided pizza, and offered a Buy 5 and one is free special on Drew Estate and Joya de Nicaragua cigars. Sadly, they had sold out of the new Norteño, which was the whole reason I took the day off! Trae was kind enough to find a Norteño in the Coronita size, which is a nice little pressed 4″ x 46. This is right up my alley with the San Andrès wrapper. It was full of dark, rich flavors, this is a winner and I can’t wait to get some more of these and sample the range of sizes. Hopefully Cigar Mojo gets them back in again soon! It’s always fun hanging out at Mojo especially with Willie and Chris. There’s a reason this new shop placed highly in the recent “Philly Hot List” poll.
The Smokin Goose is a multi-vendor event put on by Goose’s Tobacco Outlet and Cafe in Limerick, PA. This was their first event of this kind and was held at the historic Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown, PA. The event featured twenty or so premium cigar brands, including a couple reasonably local small brands. It was held in a pavilion outside of the ballroom building, which, of course, is smoke free and the weather was a beautiful 80 degree day. Late September can be hit or miss in this part of the world, it can be cold and windy, or a great day like yesterday was. Attendees received a goodie bag with a bunch of cigars, a Xikar travel humidor and assorted swag. There was food available all day in the pavilion, and the admission price included a meal at the restaurant too. I didn’t see people leaving the event to eat at the restaurant, which was across the parking lot, but as we were leaving it occurred to me that people were waiting until the event wrapped up (with the raffle prize announcements, as usual) and went to eat after. Makes sense so people didn’t miss any of the festivities. For an inaugural event, it seemed to go well. The 75 or so attendees seemed to have smiles on their faces. Operation: Cigars for Warriors was there and was the beneficiary of the proceeds of the raffles. I am going to have to pay a visit to Goose’s shop sometime in the near future, because I think I won one of the silent auctions. It was a good event, John and Joanne Giese and their team did a nice job putting all together, I’m sure it was worth all the stress and anxiety that goes into putting something like this together. All the vendors and manufacturers who were there are to be commended as well. I’ll be interested to see next year’s version of The Smokin Goose! I enjoyed making some new friends and catching up with some old ones. I appreciate being included.
Some of the brands represented there were La Sirena, Villiger, My Father, Altadis, Alec Bradley, Blanco Cigars, Gurkha, CLE/Asylum, Dominican Big Leager, Jenneff and Evil Genius Cigars from the Lehigh Vallley area in PA, Jason Alexander, John Hay, and Al Capone, as well as The Cigartist, Eric Whitfield. Also, thanks to Joe K for introducing himself! Once again, it was a great way to spend an afternoon, and I’m certain all the attendees got more than their money’s worth.
That’s it for now, I’ve got some catching up to do after goofing off for the last couple days! Until the next time,
CigarCraig
