The Week in Cigars, Liga Privada Contest Winner Announcement – Monday May 10, 2010

Here’s a little recap of what I smoked over the past few days: Friday night brought nice weather, and a Flyers playoff game that needed watching. I lit

up a ITC 10th Anniversary lonsdale for the game. I had been looking forward to smoking this, since I really liked the Indian Tabac line when it came out. Oddly, Rocky Patel’s cigars have been few and far between in my humidors for whatever reason and I’ve gotten away from the brand. I know Rocky Patel is the hot ticket in the cigar world, but I just haven’t jumped on that particular bandwagon. I admit I was expecting something different in the ITC. I found it to be very strong and harsh, when I expected something smooth and creamy. Maybe I just expect an elegant smoke from a cigar with two bands, I don’t know. It burned well and after while the harshness subsided a bit, but it was still a full bodied cigar. I’ll have to try another one sometime with the expectation that it will be a strong cigar. It just caught me off guard and wasn’t what I was expecting or looking for at the time. If I had done my homework I would have picked out something different. Another thanks to Jason for the opportunity!

The rest of the weekend cigars were ones I’ve discussed here before. Saturday’s was a very nice Chateau Real Maduro and Sunday’s was a Hoyo de Tradicion Toro. It was really windy all weekend which reduces the enjoyability of smoking outside. These are both cigars I enjoy quite a bit, the Chateau Real for it’s coffee and cocoa and it’s excellent construction and the Hoyo for it’s mellow chocolaty flavors.

For Mother’s Day I grilled up some shrimp and salmon for my beautiful wife (who has had a rough few weeks taking care of here parents and really deserved to be taken care of for a while). The kids pitched in and we had no shortage of tasty food. I used the Punch Grill Box. I picked up some mesquite chips and it seemed to work, not that there’s a whole heck of a lot that can go wrong with such a thing. I’ll probably be using this a lot this summer.

I’m sure everyone is saying “CigarCraig, c’mon man, who won the Liga Privada Sampler?” Well, the response was excellent and I got some really good guesses. After I started seeing the guesses I realized that I may have a problem selecting a winner. I decided the only way to determine a winner when no-one guessed the right numbers was to add both temperature and relative humidity together and select the winner that way. Thanks to all who entered and I hope the new readers stick around a while. The cooler’s hygrometer (which, incidentally, I recently found in a box and put in a fresh battery) read 62% RH and 66°F for a total of 128. The closest guess was 65% and 67° for a total of 132 by Joel Scott. Congratulations and please e-mail your snaily so I can mail this beautiful box of Liga Privada No.9 cigars out to you. Remember the rule: If you enter a contest, you have to take the prize!