Weekend Cigars: Rodrigo and Cigar Safari Blend, and Stogie Boys Contest Winners!

I was going to concoct a story about finding a dried up cigar last Friday, and putting it in the humidor and seeing if I could resurrect it, but that seemed too time consuming and maybe a little blasphemous, a long way to go for an ironic holiday joke. Anyway, I managed a couple of new cigars this week, I wanted to share the experience.

A few weeks ago I got into a conversation with a fellow Pennsylvanian, George Rodriguez of Rodrigo Cigars.  I couldn’t talk him out of sending me samples for review, and a package showed up early last week.  I am torn between wanting to allow new arrivals to rest for a while in the humidor and giving timely feedback on the cigars.  I was faced with a beautiful Saturday afternoon and time for a robusto, so I grabbed the smallest of the bunch and fired it up.  I received and Robusto, a Toro and a Belicoso as well as a Lancero, which isn’t listed in their literature.  The cigars are made in Tamboril, Dominican Republic with Dominican filler and binder and a Ecuador Habano wrapper.  The cigar burned reasonably well with a perfect draw.  The flavor didn’t really wow me on this one, it was pleasant enough, certainly not offensive in anyway, but nothing that made me take notice.  I’ll give the other three a little more time in the humidor, maybe it was just the Robusto that wasn’t for me. I can’t help but think I rushed smoking this one.  I’m looking forward to smoking the Lancero especially.  Thank you George for giving me the opportunity to try your cigars, I appreciate your generosity.  Look for Rodrigo Cigars and give them a try.

We had a family gathering on Easter Sunday and I decided it was time to try out one of the cigars that I blended while in Nicaragua on the Drew Estate Cigar Safari.  As I mentioned in my post “Cigar Safari Trip Report: Days 3 and 4“, Corey and I selected our blends on paper, without the benefit of actually touching and smelling the tobacco.  I went with a Mexican Oscuro wrapper, mostly because they didn’t offer Connecticut broadleaf and  I really like the Mexican wrapper on the Chateau Real Maduro.  While I never cared for Indonesian tobacco, I used it for the binder, basically because the description said it was sweet and aromatic.  I used Seco leaves from both Esteli and Dominican Republic, only a half a leaf of Esteli ligero and filled it out with Brazilian Mata Fina.  I chose the same vitola as the Liga Privada Unicos Dirty Rat, because I love that size, 5” x 44.  The cigars ended up being absolutely gorgeous with an oily dark wrapper.  I really loved the cigar!  It had a very full flavor, a lot of sweetness and coffee and cocoa, but was smooth as silk without a  hint of nicotine. I smoked it down to a finger burning half an inch. If I had been able to find a toothpick at my in-laws house I would have finished it.  These were rolled by the torcedors that make the Liga Privadas, so it was no surprise that the construction was flawless and it burned razor straight all the way down.  It burned for nearly an hour and forty minutes!

I promised to select some contest winners today, and I’m going to pick three!  As has become my custom, I’ve pasted the names of all of those who left comments into a spreadsheet and used Random.org‘s random number generator to make the selections.  Would  Wayne Nye, MoBarbq and jimbobber please e-mail me your contact information so I can send you your Stogie Boys Stogie Register, courtesy of StogieBoys.com!  Thanks to Paul at Stogie Boys and to everyone for  participating.  See the bottom of this post for the 10% discount code generously offered for my readers!

That’s it for now, hope you all had a great Easter or Passover, I know I made a pig of myself today!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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