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by Craig Vanderslice | November 3, 2019 · 10:45 am

CAO Orellana and Fratello Navetta Inverso Cigars

Welcome to the first day of Standard Time, if you live in an area that messes with the clocks, which is most places I guess. I despise this time of year, shorter days, dark early, getting cold. It’s always a downer for me and it’s harder for me to keep a positive attitude this year! I’m still better off than I was a year and a half ago, head-wise, and I have plenty of cigars. On a positive note, Halloween was this week, and it’a always been one of my favorite cigar nites. When my kids were little I’d take a cigar along trick or treating with them, now that I stay at home I sit on the front porch with a cigar handing out treats. I always put the cigar down when the kids come to the door, and nobody ever complains. If the neighbors haven’t seen me walking the streets with a cigar in my mouth the other 364 days of the year, I can’t help them, ya know? Lot’s of other houses to go to if they don’t like it. Anyway, I smoked a RoMaCraft CroMagnon Cranium for the entire two hours of trick or treating, and it was outstanding.

I felt like I needed to give the CAO Orellana a try again after giving them some rest time. The first one I smoked was unimpressive, and I felt like I should have been impressed. This is the fourth cigar in the Amazon Basin trilogy, which I guess isn’t a trilogy anymore. I wasn’t really impressed with the original Amazon Basin, which everyone raved about, however, the Fuma em Corda and Anaconda I thought were exceptional cigars. This Orelana, which is named after Francisco de Orelana the first European to navigate the Amazon river (is he the guy we have to blame for ruining brick and mortar retail? 😁) has a Brazilian Cubra wrapper. I’ve enjoyed plenty of cigars with that wrapper before, mot recently the Vicarias Red Label. The 6″ x 52 toro also has a Nicaraguan binder and Brazilain Bragança, Columbian and Dominican fillers. I found this to be a good cigar, but fairly pedestrian and routine in flavor, nothing really interesting. I suppose it hit me much like the Amazon Basin did, I just didn’t see the big deal, it’s another good cigar. I’ll tell you one thing I really didn’t like about it, and I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve been rather fortunate in my long cigar smoking career to have not burned a lot of clothes, this cigar can burn a hole in your shirt. I got down the the “band” which is cords of tobacco, and started to smell an “off” room note, then I realized that a piece of the tobacco cord had dropped on my sweatshirt and was burning a hole in it. it pisses my off a little, actually, but it could have been much worse, as it’s an easily replaceable sweatshirt. Come to think of it, the only other time this happened was a closed foot on a CAO Flathead Sparkplug! I’m seeing a trend here! I gotta have a talk with Ricky Rodriguez about this…So I guess the score on the Amazon series for me is a tie, 2-2, proving that not every cigar is for everyone.

I go through this all the time, during the day I’ll think of a cigar I want to smoke, then by the time it comes around to smoking it, I’ve forgotten what it was I was thinking about smoking. This happened yesterday, I really should make a note someplace. Of course, every time after I’ve lit whatever cigar I settled on, I remember the cigar I thought of earlier and it’s too late at that point. Not that I would call it settling, but as I was rummaging around yesterday, trying to remember what cigar I had thought of earlier, I came across a Fratello Navetta Inverso Robusto and figured it would be a great cigar to smoke. I had smoked a Toscano Garibaldi last week from a pack I bough in Rome last year, I forgot about it until I saw an announcement that that line was going to be imported to the US, now they weren’t going to be special any more! It was a really good smoke, and I think I paid 8 Euros for the 5-pack or something. That really has nothing to do with the Fratello except that Fratello and Navetta are Italian words and it reminded me of that. The Navetta Inverso has a Habano Nicaraguan wrapper, Ecuador binder and Dominican and Nicaragua filler, compared with the Navetta, which has an Ecuadorian Oscuro Wrapper, a Dominican Binder
and Nicaragua Filler. Like most Fratello cigars, it’s made at the Joya de Nicaragua factory (the Oro is made by La Aurora in the DR). I love the flavor of this cigar, it’s solidly medium to me, with hints of sweet tobacco here and there. It was hard to put down, literally and figuratively. Fratello Cigars recently hired Robert Hernandez as the new Regional Sales Manager based in Florida and Georgia. I received a press release about this, but news about personnel moves and inside baseball sort of stuff isn’t the kind of cigar news I like to post here as a stand-alone news piece. I just don’t feel like my readers are that interested in that, I’ll let Halfwheel, the Industry’s Blog, handle that. Anyway, always hard to go wrong with any Fratello cigar, and even better in the Boxer size, in my opinion! I really need to get a Boxer sampler one day!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as amazon, CAO, cigar, cigars, Fratello, Inverso, Navetta, Orellana

by Craig Vanderslice | March 17, 2019 · 12:29 pm

Saint Patrick’s Day Cigars, CAO, Villiger and Diesel

I have a slightly different take on Saint Patrick’s Day, not being of Irish descent. I have been known to smoke a candela cigar on March 17 over the past few years, considering the cigar companies like to put them out around this time to capitalize on just this sort of thing. Admittedly, I do enjoy a good candela cigar from time to time, I find them a refreshing change of pace. I may pull out an old Alec Bradley Filthy Hooligan today, I have one of the original candelas, and the first year the made the barber pole, unless I stop at the store and they happen to have this year’s iteration, and/or the Shamrock, which I’m quite interested in smoking. I kinda dig the triple-wrapper barber pole treatment for some reason. Anyway, the main reason I like Saint Patrick’s day so much is less about the green and Irish part, and definitely not about the drinking part, but all about the snakes part. You see, I hate snakes, and I’m a huge fan of anyone who can drive them out of an entire country. This is one thing I find appealing about Ireland and New Zealand, they are the two places that are naturally bereft of snakes. I get it, in 400AD there weren’t a lot of affordable direct flights to North America, but I certainly would have helped get this guy over here to get rid of the slithering bastards. So if I had a Culebra to smoke today, that would be my choice, but the only one I have is an LFD that was gifted to me in 2004, and I feel guilty for not smoking it at the time it was gifted, but that’s another story. It’ll keep the story and the cigars).

I guess if that were the case, I wouldn’t have had a CAO Amazon Basin Anaconda to smoke this week, unless he drove them to South America, which seems plausible! In honor of the coming anti-snake holiday, I smoked a CAO Anaconda, perhaps my favorite in the Amazon Basin line. I didn’t care for the original Amazon Basin, lots of people raved about it, but it didn’t do anything for me. the subsequent releases were more appealing to me. The Fuma em Corda was very good, although I only smoked it in the robusto size, and I really enjoy this Anaconda, although I hate the name, I mention I don’t like snakes, right? I do like the 6″ x 52 size of this, and the recipe of Brazilian Bahiano Habano Ligero wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and fillers from Brazil (Bragança & Fuma Em Corda), Colombia & the Dominican Republic are very interesting. The Brazilian fillers used in this are a combination of those used in the Amazon Basin (Braganca) and the Fuma Em Corda (obviously). I guess it wasn’t the Branganca that turned me off in the Basin, unless it just worked better in the blend in this Anaconda. This is a woody smoke with some spice, more on the savory side than sweet to my palate. Like I said, love the cigar, hate the name.

Thursday was a brilliant spring day, I got the bike out of the garage and rode it to work, however, when I left work, it wouldn’t start. it’s a 2005, I’ve had it since 2008, put 29k miles on it, and it’s started every time. I guess it decided that day was the day it wanted extra attention. Better it let me down in a parking lot than on the side of the road, I guess, so today’s project will be getting it to the shop, but I came home and took a walk with a Villiger La Vencedora Churchill. It was warm for a change, I wanted a Churchill, dammit, and this one was front and center screaming ” smoke me!” So I did, and it was good. I guess it’s ironic that La Vencedora means “The Victor”, and I was feeling rather defeated that day, as the bike letting me down wasn’t the only odd thing to happen. Perhaps I was not letting all the little defeats ruin the day completely. The La Vencedora is a Nicaraguan puro, wrapped in a dark Nicaraguan grown Habano Oscuro leaf. I had to take a break from writing to go get the bike to the shop, so I lost my train of thought…OK, the wrapper on this wasn’t pretty, it’s a mottled brown, but it makes up for it in flavor. It’s got some sweet earthy flavors along with a bit of spice. I rather enjoyed it and I spent quite a while with it on my walk, then on the porch watching hockey on the iPad. It’s a 7″ x 50 Churchill, with I don’t mind at all, although a 47 ring Churchill is traditional. All in all, a darned yummy cigar, no surprise this is made at Joya de Nicaragua.

Finally, last night I decided to revisit a cigar that people have raved about, and I haven’t really “gotten” in the past. Last year the Diesel Whiskey Row came out and people were excited, especially people close to the blend, which I understand. I suppose this is another St. Patrick’s day tie in. To me it’s just another woody/earthy cigar with great construction, and, if that’s your thing, it’s a great cigar. I will say that I enjoyed this one perhaps more than previous cigars, so maybe time in the humidor has added value, but it’s still not a cigar I get excited about (about which I get excited? I regularly dangle participles…I guess I write the way I talk). I’d rather smoke a Diesel Unholy Cocktail as I find that it more closely aligns with my flavor preferences. But that’s me, and if the Whiskey Row is your kind of cigar, great! That’s what’s great about cigars, there’s something for everyone and who’s to say what’s not right for me isn’t right for you! That’s why I try most everything, which I can’t say for food, some foods I look at and know I won’t like…I know it’s wrong, but it just is!

That’s all for today, time to get some things done! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as amazon, Anaconda, CAO, cigar, cigars, diesel, La Vencedora, Villiger, Whiskey Row

by CigarCraig | May 18, 2011 · 9:53 pm

Grimalkin Toro and Emilio AF-1 Toro Cigars and “Old Wave” by Garry Berman

Over the last two evenings I had decided to couple two cigars with a new book, “Old Wave, a Comic Novel” by Garry Berman, author of several books including “We’re Going to See the Beatles”, “Best of the Britcoms” and “Perfect Fool: The Life and Career of Ed Wynn”. The cigars are two toros, generously provided by Gary Griffith of Delaware Cigars.

The Grimalkin is made at a factory in Nicaragua that we all know of, but I’m not at liberty to divulge. It’s a terrific cigar, layered with subtly and complexity. Similar to “Old Wave”, the story of an ’80s New Wave band who had one and a half hits, and owned the first half of 1983. The book is the story of the bands comeback after a 25 year hiatus, where the main character, Terry, has been managing his family health food store in a small New York town. He’s barely kept in touch with his band mates and is convinced to get them back together for a revival tour of sorts with several other bands of the era. It’s a comedic romp through the trials of re-connecting with the group and is loaded with more similes than a simile writers convention. Much like the Grimalkin, the read is easy and entertaining, with characters as interesting and compelling as the flavors dancing around my palate. Even burn, perfect draw with a signature similarity to other cigars from the same factory, yet with refreshing flavors that keep you thinking. The story bounces back and forth from present day, to stories from the past. Two thumbs up for the cigar, and the book is holding my interest much like the cigar did.

The female singer in the band is a beautiful Russian woman named Svetlana, who is dark and glamorous, much like the Emelio AF-1 Toro. Svetlana loves the Brazilian music of the sixties, and the band, Magenta Nun, mixed the Brazilian rhythms with a New Wave style to create their signature sound. The Emilio AF-1 has a dark, sweet maduro wrapper loaded with delicious and exotic Nicaraguan fillers. It’s sweet and savory, and full of flavors that are lush like the tropical flavors of the music portrayed in the book. In the book, the band goes on a cross country tour with periodic vignettes of their comedic experiences, including injuries and incidents which mirror some of the groups escapades of their brief period of fame in the past. The humor tends to be as arid as the Sahara, and there are little names and phases that just make me chuckle. I like dry. The AF-1, however, is anything but dry, it’s sweet and savory, like a Brazilian Churrasco. Again, the cigar is well made and burns perfectly until the dramatic conclusion of the book.

Hopefully I haven’t lost anyone in my attempt to intertwine cigar review with a book review. In my opinion, all three are well worth your time. The book is an easy and entertaining read, especially since I played in a band in the ’80s, and there has been recent talk of reviving the group in some way. It struck a chord with me (a G Major). The cigars while different, complimented the read perfectly. I never had to worry about the ash falling in the pages, as both cigars had an ash that knocked off in solid chunks and the intricate flavors entertained me. Kudos to Garry and Gary for enhancing my last couple evenings. You can find “Old Wave” for sale at Amazon.com or through the Amazon store on the left side of this page.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig