Tag Archives: Art Deco

Delaware Cigar Festival, La Palina, Art Deco and Hammer + Sickle

The fifth annual Delaware Cigar Festival will be taking place on Saturday, September 17 at the Delaware Park Racetrack. I’ll be attending this fine event and will bring you highlights. Delaware Park is a beautiful racetrack, and if you like to play the ponies or slots, it’s the place to be.  Many manufacturers and their reps will be in attendance and  it looks like it will be a good time.  I’m a little embarrassed that I I have managed to miss this event in the past and it’s only about 40 minutes down the road from me.  Looking forward to attending, and thank you to Gary Griffith for making this possible (and making damned tasty cigars!).

 

The the best cigar I had this week was the La Palina El Diario Robusto. The El Diaro line is La Palina’s “lower priced” line, compared to the $20 price tags on the original line that came out a couple years ago an is made in the Graycliff  factory in the Bahamas. The El Diaro is rolled at the Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras, and carries a $10-11 price tag. It is most definitely an excellent cigar. It’s smooth and perfectly rolled. I’d happily smoke these all the time if they were a little more wallet friendly, but it’s been well established that I’m a cheap bastard.  Bill Paley is a super nice guy though and he’s producing some exceptional cigars.

 

Nestor Miranda Art Deco Robusto Grande – This 5½ x 54 cigar was one that I bought on my Father’s Day cigar run. They come in a nifty tin instead of a box. If this had a handle on it it would make a fine lunchbox! It was a good cigar, no doubt. I don’t have a great deal of experience with Pepin Garcia’s cigars, admittedly, so I don’t readily pick up his signature on this, but it certainly was well made and it either grew on me as I smoked it, or the flavors in the second half were more in line with my preferences than the first half. I started out thinking it was just another DR blend that was “eh”…worth the try though…and not terribly priced.  Frustratingly, there is no information about this cigar on the website, and it’s not exactly brand new.

 

Hammer + Sickle Robusto and Berlin Wall Robusto  – These were samples from the IPCPR show. An old friend, Mike, was working at the booth, and I was very happy to catch up with him. We had met at a large herf in Vegas in 1999, known in the alt.smokers.cigars circles as Boondoggle 3, which consisted of about 300 cigar smokers taking over the ballroom at the MGM Grand for 3 days. Stories from that event are legend amongst the on-line cigar community of the era, and are easily Googleable, so I won’t go into that further. Anyway, Mike was kind enough to hook me up with some samples and introduce me to Victor, the owner of The Cigar Agency, who imports and distributes the Hammer + Sickle brand, as well as ORTSAC and others. I smoked both the regular Hammer + Sickle robusto as well as the new Berlin Wall robusto. The former I found to be a fairly typical Dominican cigar, well made, but nothing that really grabbed me. Keep in mind that most Dominican cigars don’t hit me the way I like to be hit, flavor wise, so that’s not as bad as it sounds. The Berlin Wall, on the other hand, was much more to my liking, no doubt due to it being made my Camacho and consisting of a blend of Honduran, Dominican and Nicaraguan leaf. The copper band is a very nice touch. I took the Berlin wall on my evening walk, and the ash, although it wasn’t the prettiest, held on for nearly a mile!  Both of these cigars come in unique packaging. The Hammer + Sickle is in a crystal box, and the Berlin wall is packaged in a marble box with a relief of the Brandenburg Gate on the lid.  Very innovative.

Here is a video of Victor Vitale from the show, talking about the Ortsac 1962 cigars:




 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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Filed under Events, IPCPR, Review, Take a Cigar For a Walk, Video

Fourth of July Cigars and a TACFAW: My Uzi Weighs A Ton

fathersday_haul_2I decided to take a drive back down to Light’n Up Cigars in Frazer, PA to use my last LivingSocial Coupon that I got from my daughter for Father’s Day. My sons had some stops they wanted to make, so we made the cigar shop one of our stops.  The shelves were nearly bare.  They had gotten some boxes of Art Decos in, from the looks of the full tin boxes, so I grabbed one of those, as well as a La Traviata natural (which I still haven’t tried, I had the Maduro and wasn’t impressed), and an Alec Bradley American Classic, probably for next July 4th.  Another three new inmates in the asylum.

party_shortI have a couple of traditions when Independence Day comes along. As the 4th is my wedding anniversary, as well as our nation’s birthday, I always like to exercise some civil disobedience and smoke a fine Havana cigar.  This year I went with a very old Partagas Short.  While not a huge cigar, it’s got enormous flavor.  I love these little guys and this one had been sitting around the humidors for the better part of the last decade.  It burned great and was a very nice companion while the grill got fired up.  Nice little cigar.

cao_americaAfter burgers and hot dogs while waiting around for fireworks to start, I decided on a CAO America Constitution that I had received at the CAO party at the IPCPR show in 2008.  High marks for presentation on this dos capas cigar, with a nice Connecticut Broadleaf over a Connecticut shade wrapper, only revealing a pinstripe of the shade wrapper, a very nice spin on the barber pole wrapper.  The cigar was very nice, although not really overly distinctive.  It was a good cigar, no question, but not one I’d go out of my way for particularly.  Love the band and, in this case, I’ll even tolerate the foot band.

Take A Cigar For A Walk

MyUzi5x60Tuesday I felt the need to take a power walk.  Some people will take hand weights on their walk.  I decided to take a heavy cigar.  A couple weeks back I received a package from Jonathan Drew with two of his new cigar, My Uzi Weighs A Ton in the 5″ x 60 and 7″ x 60 sizes, along with a really cool Liga Privada cap, which matches my hair color in black and silver. This new line is from Jonathan’s Subculture Studios and Joya de Nicaragua, using tobacco from both Drew Estate and Joya de Nicaragua and rolled at the Joya de Nicaragua factory.  I opted for the 5″ x 60 for my walk, which took me almost 3 miles.  Based on the description of the blend of this cigar, I must admit I was expecting a little richer flavor.  The burn was perfect, which is to be expected from cigars rolled at the Joya de Nicaragua factory, and has Jonathan’s hand in it.  The Mexican wrapper wasn’t as flavorful as I would have thought, and I expected more from the Brazilian filler.  I still really enjoyed this cigar, and I can’t wait to smoke the 7″ monster.  I think I’ll use a stopwatch with that and a 7″ lancero and see if my theory that length is the biggest factor in smoking time holds true.  Many thanks to Jonathan for sending me these goodies!

In The News

The Monday Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on a new shop in town, Xhale Lounge.  I dropped Brad, the owner a note and hope to catch up with him in Vegas, and eventually visit his shop. Here’s a link to the story: http://articles.philly.com/2011-07-04/business/29736221_1_cigar-shop-cigar-industry-cigar-smokers It was nice to see an article about something so  un-PC as a cigar shop!  The paper had large, color photos and everything!

That’s it for now.  Don’t forget to go back and enter the contest that ends this Saturday.  Leave a comment with a link to a patriotic picture on any post since the contest started back on June 19th.  Since there were some technical difficulties on my provider’s end, I felt like I should loosen up the rules.  There have been three very cool entries and it will be hard to pick a winner so far.  Please make it even harder with more entries!

Until next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Review, Stores