The 2014 Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival

Last weekend we flew out to Denver, Colorado to go to the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival.  Friday evening we drove up to a cigar store called Havana Manor where they were having a My Father Cigars and Tatuaje event. It still amazes me that I can walk into a cigar store 2000 miles from home and know a bunch of people. It was a who’s who of the cigar industry there and we had the pleasure of catching up with friends, and if I tried to list names I’d miss someone.  I picked up some L’Atelier cigars and smoked a LAT54 which was delicious. It was a nice time and we met some great folks in addition to those we knew already, and we’d see everyone at the event the next day. The store was expansive, they had two walk-in humidors in the retail area up front, and several large lounge areas in the back. It was a really impressive store.  After a day of travel, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

I’ve been hearing great things about this festival for a few years, and we made the decision earlier this year to make the trek to Colorado from Pennsylvania to attend the Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival.  We were invited by Joe Liggett, of Smoker Friendly, who sponsored the event. Joe did an amazing job of organizing this event. There were about 2000 attendees, falling into three categories, General Admission, VIP and Executive VIP.General admission attendees took hope over 40 cigars, and the more costly levels received many more super premium cigars. There somewhere along the lines of 40 cigar companies, a bunch of beer and liquor companies and all kinds of other interesting vendors.  We saw one vendor, Twisted Custom Cutz, with ashtrays made from wine and spirit bottles cut length-wise which were really cool. The event ran from 1:00 (noon for the VIP ticket holders) until 7:00 which left plenty of time to visit all the vendors and enjoy the festival. It looked like it was really going to storm at one point, but after a few drops it passed without incident, the band played on, the cigars were smoked and the food, which was really good, was eaten.  We took a bunch of pictures, which are in the slideshow below, and videos which I will post over the coming weeks.  I’ve included a video here with Joe Liggett which we shot as the event was getting set up and I put on Facebook right away.  I highly recommend this event, it’s easily one of the best in the country.

Click on one picture to open a slideshow.

httpv://youtu.be/8QA2xcUWVaI

As I said, it’s a really fun event, the area is beautiful, the weather was great, and there were a lot of great vendors there.  After the event, Drew Estate hosted a herf and gave out hats and more cigars. I enjoyed a Joya de Nicaragua Antaño Dark Corojo El Martillo and had a nice time talking to Willie Herrera, who’s assumed the roll of head blender at Drew Estate recently.  I had run into his predecessor, Nick Melillo, earlier in the day.  There were so many great cigar makers, and I made some new friends and visited with some old ones.  I don’t think that cigars tasted any different in Colorado, I smoked a Villiger Cuellar Connecticut Kremé to start the day which was really good, a geat Joya Red and a Nimmy D Toro. I was careful not to over do it being unaccustomed to the altitude. I kept hydrated, but the difference in the air from home was noticeable. Thanks again to Joe and Smoker Friendly for inviting us to attend this wonderful event! As I said, stay tuned for videos from some of the vendors at the event.

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

CigarCraig