Friday evening I was privileged to attend one of José Blanco’s (of E.P. Carillo Cigars) educational tasting events at Goose’s Montecristo Lounge and Tobacconist in Limerick, PA. José has done over 900 of these events around the world, and they are unique. My first experience with his seminar was at an IPCPR show in 2011 in a room with 
several hundred people. It involved four separate cigars, if memory serves, not the single toro cigar with four stripes of different wrappers applied. This time there were fifteen in attendance, I dragged my amigo Mike along for the ride, I’ve gone to many events with Mike, but this is the first with an educational component. Mike has been smoking cigars longer than I have, and met a couple years ago when he was a winner of one of my holiday contests and we met at another local shop. I always enjoy smoking cigars with Mike. I don’t think I’ve had a bad time smoking cigars with José Blanco either, he’s never ruined a great cigar for me (if 
you’ve ever been to one of his events, or read just about anything about them, José’s theory is that a perfect cigar can be ruined by smoking it next to an asshole, so that’s my way of saying he’s not an asshole). Not to brag or anything, but I was able to partially identify three of the four wrappers presented on the special cigar, they were mostly educated guesses, or just luck. The one I missed was embarrassing, as it was probably a tobacco I’ve smoked as much of in my life as any. I’m intentionally leaving out specifics so José doesn’t have to have the factory change up the cigars, which he said the rollers only are able to make 50 or 60 of a day, and they would be very expensive if they were regular production. The base cigar was very good on its own, however, being able to taste the subtle 
differences each wrapper presents is neat and educational. Any time spent with Jose is educational and enjoyable, the attendees at the event were friendly and engaged in the event, a couple of them even claimed to be readers of this site! It was a fun evening complete with great cigars, and they even had a photographer, Brian Miller of http://
Yesterday, all my troubles….nevermind, although the reference is appropriate since I was supposed to drop my wife off at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Jersey City yesterday and go visit Hoboken Cigars. Plans changed and we decided to head the other direction and go to Baltimore in search of Beatles books, my wife reviews books on her blog, Beatles-Freak’s Reviews, so we went to The Book Thing, went to Philip’s at the Inner Harbor for lunch (Crab 
Mac & Cheese!), then found another little used book store on the way to Cross Street Tobacco for an after lunch cigar. There was a cigar lounge closer to the Inner Harbor, but it was in Larry Flynt’s Hussler Club, which didn’t sound like a family friendly place. Cross Street Tobacco is a great little shop with a very well stocked humidor and a lively clientele. There were about 20 chairs in the shop, and they brought out some folding chairs at one point. Sanford was working, he’s been working there Saturdays since they opened in 1996. They had a great selection, it was hard for me to choose what I wanted to smoke. Of course, since I’m in Pennsylvania, the land of no cigar tax, I’m often sticker-shocked when I shop in other states. That being said, their prices weren’t terrible, I picked up a couple of Inch Maduro No. 62, at 5″ x 62 with a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. I really like Connecticut Broadleaf! It had occurred to me the night before that I hadn’t smoked the Inch line at all, 
don’t know why, just never managed to pick any up. It’s not like I’m averse to large ring gauges, and I’m certainly a fan of Ernesto Carillo‘s work, and it had come up in conversation last night. We ended up talking to a patron who was a music fan who told us we had to visit Protean Books & Records, which is in the shadow of Camden Yards, a couple blocks away, which we ended up doing. I can’t recommend Cross Street Tobacco in Baltimore more highly. Although small, it’s a classic shop with a great selection and staff and a lively customer base. The cigar was great, as was the overall experience.
I got home late last night and needed to get Macha out for a walk, so I was thinking about what cigar might fit in with the theme of the weekend. I could smoke another E.P. Carillo cigar, I’ve accumulated a few here and there, or a La Gloria Cubana. Then I came across a Señorial Maduro El Cuadro by José Blanco. A corona gorda measuring 5¾” x 46, actually one of my favorite sizes, was perfect for a short walk and unwinding from a two-hour drive. Señorial is getting hard to find around here, although, and it pains me to say, a local shop had these on their clearance shelf. The Señorial Maduro has a Mexican San Andrés Negro wrapper, with Dominican binder and filler. This vitola was presented at the 2016 IPCPR show, and might have been the last domestic release of the brand. It was a lovely cigar with a sweet earthy flavor that made me happy. The cigar was neither too big or too short, it was just right. I linked to the Señorial Facebook page because the Las Cumbres Tobaco site seems to now be about make-up, fitness and breast enhancement, I have no idea what that’s all about. Anyway, the Señorial was great, buy them up if you can find them. Maybe I’ll smoke a Freya today, I haven’t smoked on of those since I was in Iceland, where it seemed like the appropriate cigar to smoke.
It was a great weekend, even if it’s an hour shorter than 50 other weekends in the year. The payoff for the shortened weekend is more daylight in the evening hours, which I like. That’s all for now, until the next time,
CigarCraig
I’m with you on the Senoral Maduro AND the cigar size. That one (or one very close in size) is what I’ve seen called a “Cuban Corona”. My first one of them was a San Cristobal. Needless to say, it was a nice stick. Jose’ really is a good guy. While I’ve never been able to attend one of his events, I have been a regular on his Twitter account and we’ve developed a very nice relationship. Maybe I can make it to one of his events somewhere in the Southeast the next time he gets down this way.