An Afternoon at Famous Smoke Shop and Their Dunbarton 80th Anniversary Cigar

I’ve been beset with a head cold all week, adding insult to injury, of course. I did have a productive phone interview with a recruiter which could lead to something hopefully, so it wasn’t a wasted week.  Having a cold like this messes with the taste buds, so after a few days of not even considering having a cigar, I broke the ice with something familiar to see where I stood. I grabbed a Nica Rustica El Brujito, which is a favorite. I know this cigar very well, so if my palate is skewed, I’ll know it smoking this cigar, and it was. It was still good, but tasted different. So I knew not to try anything new for a while, or at least to temper any expectations based on this information. This is important for you to know moving forward. 

Yesterday I took a drive up to Easton, PA to Famous Smoke Shop where Steve Saka was hosting the launch of his contribution to their 80th Anniversary, the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust Famous Smoke Shop 80th Anniversary Edition. Steve had a blending seminar which was attended by 35 or 40 people, who had tobacco ad chavettas and actually rolled and tasted tobaccos with Steve’s instruction. I didn’t attend this event, but those who did raved about it and appeared to have enjoyed it and perhaps were a little overwhelmed! I’ve known Steve long enough to know that he can throw a LOT of information at you quickly, and that the 2 or 3 hour seminar could easily have been 8 if he’d have been allowed. Saka’s a shy guy, but if you can get him out of his shell, you can’t shut him up. I kid. I probably should have gotten a ticket and attended, but I didn’t, so I’m going on what I heard from others. To test my questionable palate, I lit up an Umbagog on my drive up, still a little off, but the Umbagog was still delicious.  I got there while the blending session was going on, and hung out with folks in the shop, including familiar faces such as Ali, our local EPC rep. Eventually the event ended and Dave Lafferty emerged and began selling the new Famous Smoke Shop Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust 80th Anniversary Edition cigars. I did purchase said cigars, and eventually lit one up. This is an interesting cigar in the DTT line up. It’s box pressed, made at NACSA with a sun grown Nicaraguan H2000 wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers. They only made 250 boxes of these, and there will be some available for sale on Famous’ website tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday, but don’t wait on account of me, look Monday). 

Full disclaimer (for the third time, in case you haven’t been paying attention), this cold has my palate screwed up, so my tasting notes on the DTT Famous 80th aren’t what they should be, but really, folks, when are they all that detailed?  I talked to Steve about the wrapper, which looked like a dark chocolate maduro in Famous’ press pictures. Good enough to eat, really, like a Godiva chocolate cigar. It turns out it’s not a maduro, but a H2000 wrapper. 20 years ago when this hybrid came out, it was bred to be disease resistant, but it was also flame retardant! Several brands of cigars were hyped up and basically destroyed because when they hit the market they wouldn’t burn. Tasted great, but you had to relight them ten or fifteen times. I think the lighter fuel industry had a stake in the development of the hybrid. After a while, the tobacco processors figured out how to handle this new leaf in the pre-industry processing, and now it burns right, and tastes great too. So Steve used it on this cigar. It started out on the mellow side for me, although some mentioned it was spicy. I did get a distinct cinnamon flavor on one draw about an inch in, but that was a one and done. For the fourth time, I’m working with a compromised palate here! Considering this was a cigar fresh from the box, which had been in unknown humidification conditions, it burned well, and drew perfectly. This is made in the same factory as my beloved Umbagog (and Mi Querida), by the way. The later half of the cigar was a build up in body, and strength, although I never found it to be more than medium strength. My second proviso is that I was smoking this very slowly too, as I was socializing. Overall, I really liked the cigar and look forward to smoking it on a healthy palate. I know Steve wouldn’t put his name on a cigar he wasn’t 100% satisfied with, especially if it was for something as important as a company’s 80th anniversary. It’s always great to see Steve, Cindy and Dave when they are around. 

That’s all for today. Once it clears up, I guess I’ll get back to trying to see if my palate is still out of whack. I suppose as long as my sinuses are still goofy, my tasters will still be off. Until the next time, 

CigarCraig