Noir | CigarCraig's Blog

Thursday evening I went down to Cigar Mojo in King Of Prussia, PA to their Perdomo event. I have not smoked a lot of Perdomo cigars for whatever reason. I may have been turned off to them back in the late ’90s. I’m making a concerted effort to correct this oversight. Perdomo’s sales rep, Joe Winder, was on hand and the place was quite impressively packed for a Thursday evening. Since I’m largely unfamiliar with the line, except for the Lot 23 and a Champagne that I didn’t really care for much a while back, Joe ran through the line with me and a couple other customers. I selected the 20th Anniversary Maduro in the 6½x48 size (which is apparent;y a new size that was the brainchild of Nick Perdomo’s son) a couple Lot 23 Maduro Toros and a 20th Anniversary Sungrown. I lit up the 20th Anniversary Maduro and sat down with Vince, Graham and Steve from The Cigar Lounger Magazine to catch up, after having chatted with Chris (@theLazySmoker), who I seem to run into there more times than not! The 20th Anniversary was an awesome cigar. It was on the high side of medium bodied with good, rich cocoa flavor. I fell in love with this cigar and it made me wonder why I wasn’t sampling more from the Perdomo line. It’s always entertaining hanging out with The Cigar Lounger guys, since meeting them last year, and hanging out with them at the IPCPR show and a few other times, I think I can say they are friends. If you haven’t seen the magazine, check it out, it’s really slick. It’s available as an App for Android or iOS or you can read it on TheCigarLounger.com. I was to find out that they have decided to discontinue their radio show, which I was listening to in podcast form, so I guess I need to find something to fill the gap. After finishing the 20th, I lit up the Lot 23 Maduro Toro. I was half expecting this to be just something to smoke while hanging out. This is another really nice smoke, and the price wasn’t too hard on the wallet. it was a nice, rich, creamy smoke, and I liked it. It’s always fun going to an event at a local shop and hanging out with folks who enjoy a cigar, it’s even better when you hang out with folks who are as passionate about them as we are. Robyn from Villiger Cigars even stopped in. Cigar Mojo continues to impress me also. The space is beautiful, and Wade is an attentive host, and our local CRA ambassador, Alan Price, is a more than capable counter-man. Unfortunately, his son and business partner, Trae, was off with his wife expecting their first child (Congrats again on the birth of James Wade!). It’s always nice stopping in that shop.

Friday I dug out a Perdomo Champagne Noir Robusto for my evening walk. After a less than happy experience with the Connecticut Shade Champagne, I was hoping for the best. The Maduro Noir was much more to my liking. Sweet cocoa and coffee were the predominant flavors in this Nicaraguan Puro. I like the chubby 5″ x 54 size too. It was bitterly cold out, and I didn’t really mind too much because the cigar was so good. I’ve got another cigar around someplace that I thought was just a 10th Anniversary Maduro, without the “Champagne Nior” distinction. I’ll have to look for it in the humidors, I recall like it a great deal too. This cigar is another keeper!

Saturday evening I grabbed the Sungrown version of the Perdomo 20th Anniversary in the same chubby robusto size as the Champagne Noir. This is a really pretty cigar, and after enjoying the Maduro version so much I was quite hopeful that I’d have another positive experience. As I did with the previous three cigars, I gave this a V-cut and the draw was perfect. I can say that all four of these cigars were perfectly constructed, once I lit it, I rarely gave it another thought. I may have touched up one of the two I smoked at the lounge as I was talking more than I was smoking, but they all performed well. Kudos to the folks at Perdomo for making high quality cigars at a fair price. I enjoyed the hell out of the Sungrown, maybe not as much as the Maduro, but enjoyed it none the less. It had a really nice flavor, and I’ll be revisiting this in the future for sure, along with the previous three. Quite nice. Thanks to Joe Winder from Perdomo and Wade (Trae and Alan too!) at Cigar Mojo for making Perdomo believer out of me. As a side note, I stopped back in the shop Saturday to offer congrats again and spent a nice 45 minutes with an Illusione Rothschild and Alan, who’s off to Honduras today (travel safely!). That’s another great little smoke for a very reasonable price.