Tag Archives: CDMCigars

by CigarCraig | April 24, 2016 · 9:23 am

Sobremesa, Alec Bradley Prensado, and Tatuaje The Jackel Cigars

Last Sunday my wife and I spent the day in Philly, it was a Pops day. We went to the Art Museum for a Pop Art exhibit, and then to the Philly Pops concert. On the walk from the Art Museum to the Kimmel Center I enjoyed the heck out of a Sobremesa Corona Grande, the smallest in the line at 5¼” x 44. For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, here is the blend details of Steve Saka’s freshmen release: Capa (wrapper): La Meca Ecuador Habano #1 Rosado, Capote (binder): Matacapan Negro de Temporal, and Tripa (filler): Nicaraguan Gk Condega C-SG Seco, Nicaraguan Pueblo Nuevo Criollo Viso, Nicaraguan La Joya Esteli C-98 Viso, Nicaraguan ASP Esteli Hybrid Ligero, and USA Lancaster County Broadleaf Ligero. I wish every cigar maker provided half the blend information that Steve does. This little guy was a great cigar for wandering the streets of Philly, it burned well, has the same refined, nuanced flavor of its larger siblings, but with a little sharper “Pop”, which was appropriate for the theme of the day. Stopped by Holt’s on the way back to the train after the concert and picked up a couple of cigars for no real reason, it was nice to see Zack again. It was a good Day.

Later in the week I smoked the Alec Bradley Prensado Robusto which was the subject of last week’s The Cigar Authority show, and part of their Care Package. I smoked it while listening to the podcast, as I never seem to catch it live. This cigar had a couple year’s age on it, and was quite smooth and flavorful, but I didn’t get the “cinnamon roll” flavor Dave Garofalo got. For the last few weeks Dave has been finding obscure song snippets to play when he finds the flavor, one week it was Poptarts and butter, we can only hope he doesn’t find a peanut butter and jelly flavor, or we’ll have to hear the incessant “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” bit…if this shows up on the show I’ll know he stole the idea from me! Anyway, it was a good smoke, to bad it gave me a head cold…

This is the first head cold I’ve had in a long time, and it moved through pretty quick, thankfully. It was annoying enough that I didn’t want to smoke anything I wanted to mention here, so I smoked a few favorites that I have a handful of, and the were good. I still have a little congestion, but yesterday I was ready for something a little bit special. I selected the Tatuaje The Jackel, an exclusive to CDMCigars, and Casa de Montecristo in Chicago. This is a big torpedo, 6¾” x 56, with the wrapper coming up short on the foot by about ¾”. I had a good time with this cigar. It started off pretty bold with some sweetness and spice, then when the wrapper started burning it got a bit creamier. The Sancti Spiritus wrapper leaf really tamed this down from the brash start. It was very enjoyable, burned well enough only requiring an occasional touch up, and was hard to put down. I’ve been trying to broaden my limited Tatuaje experience as of late, I’ve been missing out on some great smokes, so prepare to get bored with my new-found attention to this brand.

That’s all for today, I’ve got a Noon appointment with my TV, the Flyer’s try to avoid elimination once again. I’ll need a great cigar after the game either way, I think. Before I forget, give a listen to The Stogie Geeks lastest show with Glynn Loope of the CRA. they give a lot of great information on the looming FDA regulations. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

6 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Alec Bradley, Casa de Montecristo, CDMCigars, cigar, cigars, Sobremesa, tatuaje, The Cigar Authority

by CigarCraig | April 10, 2016 · 10:48 am

An Epic, an EP Carillo and a La Palina Cigars Event

After last Sunday’s cigar adventure, I spent the beginning of the weeks going back to some favorites and cigars I’ve posted about recently, then sometime around Thursday I grabbed one of Dean Parson’s Epic Habano Robustos from the humidor and lit it up. I will come right out and say it, the Maduro in the Epic line is one of my favorite cigars, it’s hard for me to not smoke them when I have them in the humidor. However, the Habano is right up there. This is a 5½ x 52 Robusto (I love that extra ½ inch!) with an Ecuador Habano wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. All of Dean’s Epic cigars are rolled in the same Dominican factory where Kristoff cigars are made (and I’m at a loss for the name of the factory, but I’m pretty sure that’s right…). These hit the market in 2014, which makes me wonder why there’s still no mention of them on the website. The Habano for me was sweet with some cedar and spice. I quite enjoy this, not quite as much as the maduro, but it’s a close second. I’ve found little fault with the Epic line in general, Dean is a cool cat, if you get a chance to meet him do it.

Friday I grabbed a E.P. Carillo Generosos Toro, which is an exclusive of Casa de Montecristo in Chicago. This is weird, as much as I am a big La Gloria Cubana fan from way back, I’ve not smoked a great many EPC cigars. It may be because the first couple I smoked didn’t really “wow” me, but there have been a few recently that make me want to dig deeper into the line. I’ve had great success with the Robolo size made for Best Cigar Prices. This toro is 5 7/8″ x 52, with a rosado-ish Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Dominican binder and Nicaraguan fillers. It’s a solid medium in strength, had a lot of woody, nutty flavors and burned quite nicely. These have been around a few years, and I wish I had known about these when I visited the Casa de Montecristo shop in Chicago a couple of years ago, although I’m sure the Chicago pricing would have scared me off. this was a very nice smoke, thanks again to Craig at CDMCigars.com for sharing it with me.

Yesterday it snowed pretty good for the majority of the day. Fortunately, since it’s spring in PA and the ground has been warm, it didn’t really accumulate all that much and the roads were fine. I took a trip over to the Wooden Indian again for a La Palina event. La Palina has been on of this site’s longest and most loyal supporters, of course I wanted to show up and pay my respects (and restock some favorite cigars). I finally got to meet Clay Roberts, the COO and co-president of the company, who has been a notable name in the industry, having worked with Rocky Patel, AJ Fernandez and Alec Bradley prior to making the move to La Palina. I’m surprised we hadn’t met before, but that’s probably due to my own negligence. So, as you would expect, I picked up some La Palina Maduros, which fall under the El Diaro line and are made at Raices Cubanas in Honduras. I lit up the 60 Maduro, which is their 6″ x 60, and was quite happy. This is a great San Andrés wrapped cigar, very dark and oily and delicious. It’s got a Honoduran binder and Nicaraguan Corojo and Criollo fillers. I had a bit of a time getting the wrapper to burn at the start, but that was quite possibly an environmental issue which some time in the humidor will surely fix. Sweet with some spice, like the Epic Maduro mentioned above, I have trouble keeping my hands off these. It seems like many of my favorite cigars are maduros, which has been the case for 20+ years! That doesn’t keep me from trying everything though. Cigar events at the Wooden Indian are always top notch.

I also picked up a couple of the Black Label petite lanceros. Funny, I thought I had some of the Black Label robustos in my humidor, but to my surprise and delight, it turns out they were actually Family Series Miami Babes, which I selected for my evening walk after the snow stopped. Now, if I had to do it again (and fortunately I will be able to), I would have selected a different cigar for this wintery spring evening. The Babe (5¼ x 50) is made in Miami at El Titan de Bronze, wrapped in Ecuador Corojo 98, an Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This is a refined and sophisticated smoke, with delicate flavors that would probably have been better represented in more comfortable surroundings. You can bet I’ve learned my lesson, and the other cigars in this line that I am fortunate enough to posses will be smoked in as close to ideal circumstances as possible. I’ve smoked very few of the Family Series, it’s just hard for me to open my wallet that wide, but I think they are worth it for a special occasion cigar, very well made and delicious.

Rant

I’m going to vent, and this isn’t going to go over well with a certain local (to me) cigar store chain, but I can’t hold it in. Said local chain has a show they do on local cable access (and YouTube) that is really terrible. I love the idea of having some cigar programming on mainstream media, don’t get me wrong, but it has to be of a sufficient quality, in both content and video/audio, to promote the cigar culture. Bufoonery, bad information (for instance, pulling a cigar out of a tube and explaining the white fuzzy blotches as plume instead of the mold that it obviously is) and simple things like a patron eating in the lounge outside of the room the show is recorded in don’t present the cigar culture positively. I was suffering through an episode last night and, thankfully, just as one of the presenters was showing one of the store specials and explaining that a particular cigar was not to her liking, the screen went blank and after waiting a few minutes I moved on to something entertaining. It would be one thing if this were only online where the audience would be largely cigar-geek types, but this is going out to the general public, who will either be mis-informed by watching it, or turned off by the off-color, juvenile comments and jokes. I don’t watch it because I can’t take it (and I’ve been invited to be on the show, that probably won’t happen again…). I could hold my tongue no longer.

That’s all for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

8 Comments

Filed under Review, Stores

Tagged as Casa de Montecristo, CDMCigars, cigar, cigar store, cigars, E.P. Carillo, Epic, La Palina, wooden indian

by CigarCraig | March 13, 2016 · 10:28 am

Smoking Alec Bradley, CAO, Macanudo and My Father Cigars

Finally it’s here, the day we’e all been waiting for (me at least), it’s Daylight Savings Time! I don’t even really mind losing the hour, it’s a good trade-off for the extra evening daylight hours. It also means spring is coming, which means summer’s coming, which I like. I’ll try to find a good cigar to smoke to celebrate today, but for now, I have a few cigars I smoked this week to discuss. I found myself a bit torn between smoking something “new to me” and smoking an old familiar friend, so I did both. Balance is the key to life. Thursday I lit up an Alec Bradley Post Embargo in the 6½” x 54 Toro size. This one falls into the “new to me” category as I have only smoked one before back in November of last year around the time they were released. I stand by my original thoughts that the wrapper isn’t the most flavorful, but it was a very nice, medium bodied smoke, with some leather and earth, no real sweetness to my palate. I don’t know that 5 months in the humidor did anything to this cigar one way or the other, but I think it’s another solid Alec Bradley cigar, of which they have many. Their Nica Puro still remains my favorite in the brand.

This week was a beautiful week, weather wise, which made for a long week in the office, stuck behind a desk while it was sunny and in the 70s outside. As I mentioned in my last post, I was able to take two wheels to work this week, which makes the commute a little more bearable, but by the time 4:30 hit on Friday I was ready for a sure thing to wrap the week. After a delicious diner featuring corned beef, I grabbed my final CAO Flathead 554, which was probably a leftover from samples I received when they were first released. I punched this with my ScrewPop 2.0 punch (the website lists a 3.0 now, I’ll have to find out how they improved this already fine tool) and lit it up. This must have had one vein in a leaf near the foot with a lot of oils left in it, because I got a runner that got nearly an inch ahead of the rest of the burn. This didn’t have any effect on the flavors of dark, black coffee and cocoa, which I love in this Broadleaf wrapped beauty. At some point in the future there’s going to be a box of Flatheads in my humidor, I’m just now sure which one. CAO has just announced the release of two smaller sizes in the Connecticut Habana wrapped Steel Horse line, the Handbrake (4.5” x 50 – SRP per cigar is $6.99) and the Roadkill (5.5 x 54 – SRP per cigar is $7.00) which I’ll need to try before making a decision. I might just have to load up on singles of all the sizes just to have variety.

Saturday afternoon I took a walk with a Macanudo Maduro Vintage 1997. I bought a handful of these a few years back at my local shop, they were reasonably priced, and there were only a few left in the box, which I wanted as I had seen them making these boxes in the factory when I was there in 2011. That box sits on my desk holding things like cords and flash drives and is a pleasant reminder of that trip. I’ve had this cigar floating around the humidor for about four years now, and with the big metal band it has, it’s always been a bit awkward. I worried about it damaging other cigars, or having the 1997 Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper damaged by something else since it’s uncello’d. So I smoked it, and it was good. This has a Honduran binder and fillers from Nicaragua, Brazil and the DR, and is a really nice maduro cigar. Macanudo’s are often dismissed as mild and flavorless, I’ve not found that to be the case with the maduros. This was a refined blend with some sweet and spicy notes, quite entertaining. I think these are still around and worth trying if you like a good maduro. One thing that was very surprising on that trip back in 2011, by the last day my palate was pretty fried after smoking cigars nonstop for several days, so I grabbed a regular old Macanudo Maduro and I could taste it! Now, I just need to figure out what to do with the metal band (and where I stashed my other ones…), it reminds me of my old Boy Scout neckerchief slides, although I hardly think that would be tolerated in this day and age.

Last night I was in an exploratory mood, so I selected a cigar from CDMCigars.com‘s exclusive collection, the My Father Oro de NicaraguaRobusto. Holy crap was this a great cigar! There’s not a lot of information about the blend on the website, as I’ve complained about before, so I can’t tell you what differentiates this from the regular My Father line, but I can tell you it’s very good. It’s smooth, rich, loaded with a bunch of flavors and is interesting right down to the nub. If I’m not craving a sweet, mocha maduro, this is exactly what I want a cigar to be. It wouldn’t be a My Father cigar without a little spice right at the start, and this one had it, although it was far more subtle. I’m going to have to pick up some of the regular My Father line , or rummage through the humidors to see if I have one, which happens more than I’d like to admit…Thanks to Craig at CDMCigars.com for sharing this great smoke. I imagine they have these in the Casa de Monteristo store in Chicago? These also come in a bunch of cool sizes.

That’s it for now, I have somethings that need doing today that I’m going to try to get out of the way early, then find something good to smoke this afternoon, and maybe something this evening to celebrate the extended daylight! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

8 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as Alec Bradley, CAO, Casa de Montecristo, CDMCigars, cigar, cigars, Flathead, general cigars, macanudo, My Father, Post Embargo

by CigarCraig | February 21, 2016 · 10:42 am

La Boheme, Nomad Therapy and a Quesada Cigar from Casa de Montecristo

Since we last spoke, which was only Friday, I’ve not had the chance to smoke too many cigars, but I did try to smoke good ones! I’ll have to rewind to Thursday, when I selected a La Boheme Pittore (5 1/8″ x 52) from a prior month’s Cigar Authority Care Package, to smoke while I listened to last week’s show. I should have smoked the Eiroa Classic Prensado, which I really look forward to smoking, but it was a 4″ x 48 size that I knew wouldn’t fit into the time allotted, it would leave me wanting. I’ll get to the Eiroa eventually, but I had the La Boheme that I missed previously, and I was looking forward to smoking Rafael Nodal’s latest creation too. The La Boheme, named after the famous Puccini opera (and I didn’t have to look that up, just so you know!) with sizes are named after characters in the opera, attempts to blend Rafael’s passions of cigars, music and Cuba, and I felt a little bad that I was listening to a cigar podcast while smoking this instead of listening to the opera. This is yet another cigar that I will be smoking again, it was very good, with a hint of that twang that’s a signature of most Havana cigars. Burn and draw were outstanding and it was a very enjoyable smoke. Another job well done from the folks at Aging Room Cigars.

Friday evening I celebrated the end of another week, as well as my youngest son’s 22nd birthday, with the Nomad Therapy Maduro Toro. This line is made at Tabacalera Fernandez in Nicaragua, and the maduro uses a Pennsylvania broadleaf wrapper, which Abdel Fernandez is reasonable famous for working with. Besides the PA wrapper, which I like a lot and it’s grown right down the road from where I live, this cigar had a Habano binder grown in Jalapa, and Nicaraguan filers. One can’t buy boxes of these, they are presented in trays that retailers can refill with bundles, lowering the cost. That’s not to take anything away from the premium nature if the cigar, it’s not a cheap bundle offering. I had no issues with the burn and draw, and the flavor was awesome! A little sweet, a little spice, a lot of flavor, and it’s right up my alley. Great, another cigar I need to buy…thank you to Fred for including this and it’s Connecticut Shade and Habano siblings with the 12SDOCG offering back in December!

Yesterday we had an odd February day with temps in the 50s, so I grabbed a big cigar and took Macha for a nice long walk, 3.1 miles to be exact. The cigar came in a selection of cigar sent to me by the online arm of Casa de Montecristo in Chicago, CDMCigars.com. I’ve been to the Casa de Montecristo in the Chicago area and it’s spectacular, and the members lounge which I weaseled my way into is just about as good as it gets. The cigar I selected was the Quesada Sellecion España Fabulosos, a 7″ x 54 corona doble. This line was originally blended for the Spanish market to offer an alternative to Cuban cigars, and was a bit of a unicorn for a while, now they are available in the US, although not widely. The blend consists of a Ecuador grown Arapiraca wrapper, Dominican binder and fillers from Connecticut (broadleaf), the DR and Nicaragua. Here’s wear my general laziness bites me in the ass. The cigar could have been a little dryer, and that’s my fault, as I placed the bag of samples, along with the Boveda pack, in the bottom of the cabinet. I’ve found before that this is a bad idea, and I didn’t learn. So I’ve removed the Boveda pack and put the rest of the cigars on the top shelf to lose a little moisture. While this cigar didn’t smoke as well as I’d have liked, it still was a terrific tasting cigar and smoked for over two hours. It was rich and creamy with hints of spice. I only have the H-Town lancero to compare this to, and it’s quite different, as the lancero is a lot more potent as one would expect. The folks at CDMCigars.com also included the Beli-Lance, a 7″ x 40 with a belicoso head, along with a bunch of other exclusive cigars that I look forward to smoking. If you find yourself in the Chicago area make Casa de Montecristo a destination.