Friday night’s smoke was an interesting one. Back in August I picked up an interesting cigar, the Crux Ninfamaniac Dark. Â This is a cool 7″ x 33 cigar is based on an old Cuban size, the Ninfa. The difference is that the Cuban Ninfa size is a parejo, and this Ninfamaniac is tapered on both ends. It’s a really nice looking cigar and it’s priced pretty reasonably, about $6. Â I should have picked up the lighter wrapped version as well, the difference being that the dark version has a sungrown Habano wrapper grown in Jalapa, while the lighter one might be shade grown (I’m assuming based upon the description on their website, listing one as “Habano Jalapa” and one as “Habano Sungrown Jalapa”. Having not visited Jalapa, I can’t say if the grow shade grown wrapper or not). Â This cigar is fun to smoke. It’s got a great flavor, rich, chewy, really nice. It burned very well and had a burn time similar to that of a Robusto sized cigar. Â An added benefit is that it’s easy to manage with gloves on, which is an important thing when it’s flippin’ cold out! Â I can see keeping some of these around, they don’t take up a lot of space! Â Based on this cigar, I look forward to trying their other offerings, for a new company it seems like they’re doing things right.
Saturday I went down to Havertown, PA to the Wooden Indian for a House of Emilio event. Â The owner of the shop’s son, Alex, recently became the northeast area rep for Emilio, and Gary Griffith was also on hand. I haven’t seen Gary in quite a while, which is a shame because he doesn’t live far away, but I’ve been missing his Delaware Cigar Festival for he last couple years and we just haven’t crossed paths. Â They did something a little interesting that I 
thought was pretty neat. They had made samplers up of cigars from five of the House of Emilio brands, in mild, medium and strong categories. I picked up one of the medium samplers, which included a 1502 Nicaragua, a Nomad S-307, an Emilio Mia Dora, a 1502 Ruby and an Ezra Zion FHK. For $28 this was a really nice selection. Â I also picked up a 1502 Black Gold Toro and an Ezra Zion Tantrum PA. Â I promptly lit up the 1502 Nicaragua and proceeded to catch up with Alex and Gary. Â I also was hanging out with a couple of Social Media celebrities from the north Joisey area, Matty Rock and Peter Totaro, who stopped in for the 
event (and went on to visit the cheese steak shops in Philly, much to the delight of the local economy! Imagine turning these two loose in the Reading Terminal Market!). Â Also in attendance was Alex Hirsh, of Evil Genius Cigars. The 1502 Nicaragua is a fine cigar, certainly medium and well balanced. I think I prefer the Ruby and Black Gold lines, but this was certainly a great cigar. Â I followed that up with the Ezra 
Zion Tantrum PA, with is a longer version of the Tantrum, measuring 6½ x 44.  Once again, this was a very good smoke.  I think the added length tempers the blend a little as the Tantrum was a very strong cigar.  Full of hearty flavor and it burned perfectly, although I dropped an ash on the way to the ashtray. The shop had a lot of traffic, which is probably pretty normal for a cold Saturday afternoon.  Dave Mayer had a lot of interesting and hard to find cigars in his shop, including some of the original Ezra Zion Inceptions, and some hard to find Liga Privada Unicos.  As always, it was a great event, if you find your self in the Philadelphia area, The Wooden Indian has to be a shop to visit.
When I got home I took a walk with the dog and a Nomad C-295 robusto. This is a nice, box pressed robusto that is made at the AJ Fernandez factory in Esteli. The blend has five filler tobaccos, including some from Ometepe, for which the cigar is named in a rather roundabout way.  In Fred Rewey’s own words: “The name C-276 also has a back story. The “C†is for Concepción, one of two volcanoes on Ometepe Island. “276″ is the square kilometers of the island.”  I’ve really enjoyed this cigar in the past, it’s loaded with dark, lush flavors, just like a strong espresso, which is a profile I enjoy. This is probably better if you haven’t already had two cigars over the course of the day, but it has the horsepower to cut through and deliver a satisfying smoking experience. On a side note, I’m hooked on the ScrewPop Punch 2.0, as I have been using it exclusively. It makes a clean punch like a hot knife through butter. By the way, I finally got in touch with Jeff K, and his ScrewPop Punch (and maybe something to test it out on) will go out in tomorrow’s mail. Back to the Nomad, it’s a darned tasty smoke, worth a try.
That’s it for today, back to the new house to do some work so we can get moved in next week. Also, the 12DoSCG humidor is almost filled to capacity! It’s going to be a pretty amazing couple weeks, folks! I just have to get to taking some pictures and getting the posts ready to go. Until the next time,
CigarCraig
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which is a 4.44″ x 44 petite corona that they were referring to as a fire cracker. Obviously my tastebuds are still compromised from my experiences earlier in the week, because I found it to be a well balanced, full flavored little smoke, but I didn’t really get the strength. Like I said, I had a busy cigar week, your mileage may vary. If you get a chance to try any of the Ezra Zion offerings, loosen the purse strings and give them a try. They are pricey but worth it, and cheap SOB CigarCraig don’t say that about many cigars! I always enjoy seeing my many cigar friends and it was a great pleasure to finally meet Fred. Cigar people are so much fun!
Saturday turned out to a bit if a father/daughter day in my family.  My wife has been busy driving with her father down to Florida so he can spend a few weeks at the Phillies spring training camp, my son-in-law got to spend the afternoon with my grand-daughter and I got to take my daughter to the Flyers game.  There’s nothing quite like taking in an afternoon of gratuitous violence and ice hockey with ones little girl (she’s 29 and expecting her 2nd child and I don’t think she likes it when I refer to her as my little girl!).  It was a great game, lots of action and the Flyers came out on top.  I would normally stop at the Cigar Bar in the Wells Fargo Center for a smoke while traffic cleared out, but that wasn’t appropriate in this instance, 
