Category Archives: Review

by | January 8, 2017 · 10:51 am

Padilla, San Lotano and Nestor Miranda Cigars

Padilla_Reserva_SanAndres_RobustoWinter has set in here in Pennsylvania, with the first snows over the last couple days, thankfully only an inch or two each time. I’m good with basical

ly sweeping the snow off the driveway as opposed to the two foot heavy wet snows we get now and then.  Anyway, I smoked a few good cigars over the past couple days, although not all new to the market. I broke open a pack of Padilla Reservas that Ernesto Padilla gave me at the IPCPR show, which was the same pack he gave me at the previous year’s show, I think. I selected the San Andrès of course, there was also a Corojo, Criollo and Connecticut to choose from. This is a 5″ x 54 robusto made at the Raices Cubanas factory in Honduras, with the San Andrès wrapper, with Nicaraguan binder and filler.  I mentioned this cigar in a post last November, but I feel like this cigar was “dirtier” than the one I smoked before, or else I just didn’t mention that last year. It was like an espresso, strong, with some bitterness that was really enjoyable especially in the cold winter air. Loads of flavor for sure, and I liked it a lot. As I said last time, this is a cigar that’s priced right and well worth picking up if you like that in your face, down and dirty kind of cigar now and then.

 

SanLotano_Bull_ToroLast week I was in a local shop and picked up a few cigars that I hadn’t tried yet, but have been around a while. The AJ Fernandez San Lotano Bull caught

my eye as  such a cigar. I love the San Lotano line, and am a little mystified that I hadn’t tried the Bull yet. So I picked up a couple and took one as my Friday smoke. This was the 6″ x 54 toro size, and the binder and filler are “AJF Select” Nicaraguan with an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper. As you can see in the picture, the cigar comes with a cedar sleeve with a bull on it, this must be removed prior to lighting (hard to believe, but I’ve seen it done!). This was another fairly strong cigar, lots of nice, sweet, creamy coffee and cedar flavors. Why, oh, why did I take so long to try this ciga

r?  I’m glad I bought more than one.  Again, nothing new here, I think AJ Fernandez released this in 2013.

 

NMCCorojoThis cigar is new this year!  I have enjoyed all of the Nestor Miranda Collection Robustos I’ve smoked, and I really should try other sizes, but the Coffee Break 4½” x 50 size is really appealing to me. It’s perfect for those nights when it’s too cold for a walk, but an hour on the porch with the propane heater is pretty comfortable. Such was the case last night.  This line has previously been offered in Connecticut, Maduro and Habano, all excellent, and all made in Don Pepin Garcia’s My Father factory in Esteli. This year they released the Corojo, which might just be the best in the line to my palate. This little cigar has a lot going on, a little sweet, a little coffee and a little nuttiness, in a perfect burning package. I smoked one a couple of weeks ago and was interrupted by something and had to put it down and it made me sad. This one was enjoyed until fingers started burning, so good. I’ve acquired some new tools from the Tommy Bahama line that I’ve been playing with, and so far I’m happy with the cutter and lighters. I used the table lighter to light this and holding the lighter about eight inches from the foot of the cigar made the foot look like an Apollo space capsule on re-entry. lots of horsepower in a large, quad-jet lighter. More on those tools later, but I’ve become a fan of the Tommy Bahama cigar accouterments from Island Lifestyle Importers. I just wish I were sitting on a beach lighting my cigars…

 

That’s it for now. Keep an eye on the CigarCraig.com Facebook page for the next contest, I’m going to try something a little different to mix things up. Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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by | January 4, 2017 · 8:54 pm

Happy New Year! An old Liga Privada, a Guáimaro and a Powstanie

Opus X CedarWrapped 5Well, I

had an exciting New Years, mostly involving removing the old drywall and insulation from my living-room, putting in new insulation, all in preparation for new drywall which is going in now.  I managed to get a li

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ttle cold in the process which, thankfully

, seems to be short-lived. I celebrated progress on the house and New Years Eve with an Opus X that has been in the humidor for a few years. This was a cedar wrapped Opus X, but it was only 5¾ x 48 or 50, so I really don’t know which one it was. This one was given to me by Mitchell Orchant, who is the UK distributor for Fuente, so maybe it was a special size for the UK market. It was a really good cigar, whatever it was, a great way to end a year with a lot of changes for me personally, professionally and for the cigar industry.

 

LigaPrivada No9_TuboAfter a long day of tearing down a ceiling and putting up insulation, I dug deep in the humidor and lit up a Liga Privada No. 9 Tubo that Steve Saka gave me at the 2012 IPCPR show (I think). This year the tubos went into regular production, but at the time, the only way to get one was from Steve’s shirt pocket. This was probably the finest example of the No.9 toro I’ve smoked. It was smooth as silk and the aging in the tube didn’t hurt it one bit. In most cases, I’ll buy two Nica Rusticas over one L

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iga Privada No.9 every day, but it’s not every day you get to smoke a cigar handed to you by the guy it was blended for specifically. Truly a great way to start a year, you have to smoke a great cigar on New Years, right?

 

Guáimaro_RobustoI had Monday off in observance of the holiday, so I finished up the insulation (had to run out to Home Depot as I used all my staples the day before. Helpful hint: an electric staple gun saves potential carpal tunnel, a tool I inherited from my dad, who’s wisdom I appreciate and greatly miss.  I cleaned up and took a nice walk with a cigar I picked up at B and B Cigars in

the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia when I went there a few weeks ago to hang out with Saka. Vince recommended a few cigars made at Nica

Sueno, which is jointly owned my Skip and Mike of RoMaCraft and Esteban Disla. The cigar I chose was the Guáimaro Robusto, at 5″ x 52 with a San Andrès wrapper, Brazilian Arapiraca binder and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers (note to Will Cooper: I believe Nica Sueno is in Esteli, Nicaragua, not the Dominican Republic. See his excellent article on this line here).  If you like the offerings from Nica Sueno, give this one a try. It has some great dark cocoa flavors, but seemed smoother to me than, say, a Cromagnon. Perfectly put together and quite a pleasure to smoke.

 

Powstanie_Habano_BelicosoThe cold came on pretty hard Tuesday, so I went with something familiar and plentiful in my humidor, and I can’t recommend the new Fonseca Nicaragua enough. It had enough flavor to cut through the cold, but wasn’t overwhelming.  Feeling better tonight, I decided to venture into another cigar from Nica Sueno that I picked up at B and B.  The Powstanie Habano Belicoso is a 5 ¼ x 54 belicoso with a Habano wrapper, Indonesian binder with Dominican criollo, Estelí ligero and filler from Condega and Jalapa. This was made for Mike Szczepankewicz, co-owner of Cigar Hustler, and there is a Broadleaf iteration for his brother Greg,  which I need to seek out.  This line is being distributed nationally in a limited manner, and I think B and B is one of the few retailers, at least around me, that has them. I found this to be quite a good smoke, medium bodied with a load of flavor. It had a little burn deviation that fixed itself, otherwise it burned perfectly and was very enjoyable. Vince at B and B (not to be confused with B & B Tobacco) has curated a pretty amazing selection and ships. Check out their website and shop with confidence.

 

That’s about all for now, trying to get back in the swing of writing posts and not giving stuff away! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | December 31, 2016 · 10:38 am

CigarCraig’s Top Five Memorable Cigars of 2016 and A Contest Winner!

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for another great year at CigarCraig.com. If you all keep reading, I’ll keep writing! Heck, I’d probably be writing this if nobody was reading.  I’m posting on a Saturday instead of Sunday for a couple reasons, mostly because I don’t feel like getting up early tomorrow to post something when nobody will be around to read it, and I slacked off and missed my Wednesday post, it happens. So I figured I wrap up the year with some of the cigars that were memorable to me this year,  and my criteria was simple, the cigar, no matter how many I smoked, made a positive impression on me to the point where I really want to smoke more of the cigar. These are presented in no particular order, and I know this keeps me off of Halfwheel’s annual conglomerate list, but so be it, why break the streak?

 

Maya Selva Flor Mayade Selva Grand Pressé Box Pressed Toro. This really shouldn’t be included as it was an IPCPR sample smoked on the show floor, and I typically think this is a bad place to properly evaluate a cigar. However, my approach was that I only smoked one cigar on the show floor all day, and I practically did smoke this all day. I would let the cigar go out while talking to someone, and relight it and it was still amazing. This was a brand that I had heard of but not tried, and was very impressed. Sadly, I don’t see these around the stores here, but I have to hunt some down. I know this is only based on one example, but it was memorable and fits my criteria!

 

RoMa_Neanderthal_HNRoMa Craft Neanderthal HN. Technically I smoked this cigar at the end of last year, but since I smoked it’s little brother, the Shallow Gene Pool, later in the year I’m going to mark it down as Memorable. I really did love the candela wrapped  Fomarian ,  and smoked more of those this year than the Neanderthal, the Neanderthal stuck out in my mind as memorable. It had some strength, but most of all the flavor was exceptional and left a definite impression. The pricetag keeps it out of this cheap bastid’s rotation, but it competes favorably with other cigars at similar prices, such as a Padron 94 Exclusivo or similar. Bottom line is, there aren’t a whole lot of cigars I’d pay $12 for, but the Neanderthal is one of them.

 

Mi Querida_GorditoIt should be fairly common knowledge by now that Steve Saka and I go way back and I consider Steve a friend. Actually, in March it will be 20 years since Steve and I met face to face. So if that puts a bias on my inclusion of the Mi Querida Gordito (as well as the rest of the sizes) in this list, so be it. It could be argued that knowing Steve shaped my palate and preferences, and if that’s the case than I’m pretty lucky. I first smoke the Mi Querida Ancho Larga (toro) at the IPCPR show at the insistence of Stace Berkland, who was working in the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust booth, and my initial impression was good, but that age would benefit the cigar, which might have been construed as saying I didn’t like it, which wasn’t the case at all. I’ve smoked several sizes in the line now, the Ancho Corto (robusto), the Muy Gordo Grande and the Gordito, which I am listing here as the most memorable. Hey, I love them all, they are exactly my style of cigar, I like the mellowness of the Muy Gordo Grande, but the punch that the little 4″ x 48 Gordito has really made an impression. I was going to include the Sobremesa Elegentes en Cedros in my list, as I found it to be an awesome cigar, with a slight edge on the also awesome Short Churchill, but I didn’t want to appear totally biased! Unfortunately the Mi Querida Gordito size might be hard to find as I think it’s fairly limited.

 

CorneliusandAnthony_Cornelius_ToroI’ve developed an affinity for milder, more complex and sophisticated cigars lately, and one new one that I find myself going to frequently is from Cornelius and Anthony, and is the Cornelius. This is a cigar that’s made at the El Titan de Bronze factory in Miami, and is just a really tasty cigar with a lot of subtlety and class. I’ve smoked several of the sizes and think the toro suits me best, although the corona gorda certainly has a lot going for it if you want a little bit of an edge to the flavor. The Cornelius and Anthony  Daddy Mac is a great smoke as well, but not nearly as memorable as the Cornelius. It’s another cigar in the over $10 range that I think is worthwhile. I put it in the same category as the Sobremesa, Davidoff, or some of the Havanas, it’s “clean” and delicious. There are some times that I chose to smoke this cigar that I remember fondly.

 

Fratello_Bianco_TheBoxerFinally, the cigar that was most memorable for me this year.  I was tempted to number this list because I knew this was number one, but really couldn’t assign numbers to two through five. At the time I said about this cigar “This was the best cigar I’ve smoked in recent memory” and I stand by that. Of course, the cigar Im referring to was the Fratello Bianco The Boxer. This is a box pressed torpedo, with  San Andrés Negro wrapper, binder from the Dominican Republic, and the fillers are Nicaraguan, Pennsylvanian and Peruvian. I dig the Bianco blend, and this tweaked version was just off the charts in flavor, and again, hit my particular flavor preference on the nose. Friggin yummy. Omar de Frias made news this year by quitting his day job at NASA to concentrate on the Fratello brand, a bold move given the whole FDA nonsense. What an amazing cigar.

 

That’s five, right?  There were a lot of runners up, the Hoyo La Amistad, the Foundation Tabernacle, the Foundry Time Flies, Leccia Des Nudos (it should have been in the top five…so close).  There were a lot to choose from but these were the most memorable.

 

Contest Winner!

 

GCCThe last contest of the year was some great stuff from General Cigar Company. We had a Flathead sign, a nice Macanudo Colibri cutter, some La Gloria Cubana scissors and a Punch bobble head. Maybe I should have included a cigar from each brand from my humidors in the contest, because that’s what I intend to include. Many people who have won my contests before can tell you that things often fall into the box when I’m packing it up (has anyone seen my keys?). The FDA says that manufacturers cant give away cigars for free, but they don’t have any say over my personal collection and what I do with it! The winner of the last contest of 2016 is Timmc71. Please send me your info so I can get these goodies out to you!  

 

That’s all for today!  Happy New Year again, and here’s to a successful 2017!

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | December 26, 2016 · 10:19 am

CigarCraig’s Holiday Contest Number Four: General Cigar Co. and the Tommy Bahama Winner

Davidoff GolfI hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. As JJO suggested in his comment on the last post, it turns out I did have better things to do yesterday than post the winner, including having a big breakfast at our daughter’s house with the granddaughters and our kids, then taking a drive to visit more family in New Jersey. While at my bro-in-law’s in Jersey I got to smoke a glorious Sobremesa Short Churchill, which was wonderful. Christmas Eve I managed to smoke a Davidoff Golf Scorecard Edition, a gorgeous 6″ x 55 toro. These are presented in a five pack, ostensibly four cigars for your golf foursome, and one with a gold secondary band for the winner. These carry a pretty hefty price-tag , $114 for 5 at CI, who starts off the description with “Some things Bolivarare matches made in heaven – like bacon and eggs, mac and cheese, and of course, golf and cigars. “, which I find to be a rather pedestrian way to start a paragraph about a pretty expensive cigar! Anyway, it was a spectacular smoke, even though I don’t golf. It had loads of creamy, spicy flavors that were quite entertaining. It turned out to be pretty hard to find something suitable to follow such a stellar smoke, so I went with a Bolivar Royal Corona that had been floating around the humidor for 5 years or so. It was up to the task and was a great smoke, on the milder side, on par with the Davidoff. It was a pretty great couple of cigars on a reasonably nice winter’s day.

 

Contest!

GCCLet’s keep it going! I have some goodies from General Cigar for today’s giveaway!  There’s a Punch Bobblehead, a tin CAO Flathead Steel Horse sign, a pair of very nice La Gloria Cubana Cigar Scissors, and a Macanudo Inspirado Colibri Grip cutter, which is rubberized with orange blades, very sharp-looking. It’s hard to say what else might fall into the shipping box while I’m packing it up too, it’s been known to happen. Anyway, usual rules apply, leave a comment to enter,  I’ll announce a winner on Wednesday!

 

Winner!

 

Island LifestyleI almost forgot to announce the winner fo the Tommy Bahama ashtray and travel humidor, and Island Lifestyle Cigars!  I wore my blue check Tommy Bahama shirt yesterday with my blue check Vans, it was quite the look.  Many thanks to Ryan at Island Lifestyle Importers for providing this wonderful present! I can’t say how much I like the Tommy Bahama branded stuff, my wife told me I was crazy to give it away! But, giving is so much fun, so it’s off to Random.org to find the winner!  I’m not sure how this happened, but the winner is Andy Klueber.  Every once in a while someone calls their shot, but Andy chose the opposite, pessimistically entering saying he wasn’t going to win, several times! His number came up this time, and I’ll be sending him some great stuff!

 

That’s all for now! I got some chicken harnesses for Christmas so I can try taking chickens for a walk instead of Macha, that should get the neighbors talking….until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | December 14, 2016 · 10:12 pm

Mi Maria Cigars Maduro, Habano and Connecticut

A few weeks ago I received a message through Instagram about Mi Maria cigars.  Since our beloved FDA has made everyone afraid to share samples, they offered me a discount on their cigars. I never expect anything anyway, and I’m perfectly happy buying cigars. It was generous of them to offer, so I took them up on it and spent some cash on some new-to-me cigars. I bought some of the Maduro Boutique Blend in a Toro, the Habano Boutique Blend in Lancero, and got a couple of the as yet unreleased Connecticut in a pigtailed Lonsdale or Fuma size. I smoked some of each this week and though

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t I’d write a little post about them. I’d like to applaud the folks at Mi Maria cigars on the ordering process and follow through. I received both e-mail and Facebook message updates up to the package landing on my doorstep. They really went above and beyond with the communication, something I appreciated and really deserves mention. I’m not really sure I provided my Facebook contact info or they took the initiative to track it down, not that I’m difficult to find.

 

MiMaria_Maduro_ToroSunday afternoon I dove in, and started with the obvious choice. The Maduro Boutique Blend toro is a 6″ x 52 parejo with a Nicaraguan Maduro wrapper, binder from Jalapa and fillers from Nicaragua, Honduras and Peru.  I typically like blends that include Peruvian tobacco, and I’m a sucker for a good maduro, so expectations were reasonably high. I really enjoyed this cigar, it was well made, had the nice, sweet chocolate flavor I like with that spice that the Peruvian tobacco tends to bring. The burn was perfect, as was the draw, and the over-all smoking experience was very positive.  Maybe I should have tried this one in the Lancero?

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MiMaria_Connecticut_LonsdaleTuesday I went with the Ecuador Connecticut 6″ x 43  with Nicaraguan filler and binder. I’ll circle back to Monday in a bit, bear with me. Apparently this differs from their regular Connecticut line which has a Nicaraguan Connecticut wrapper, Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. The Lancero seems to share the blend of this cigar, and they offer what they call a “Mini Corona”, which at 6″ x 38 is more of a Laguito no 2  (where as a Laguito no 1 is the 7″ x 38 lancero) having a Honduran Habano binder. They all sound interesting, and I may have to get some of them in my next order. I quite enjoyed this cigar too, it was creamy and nutty, but not  overly mild. It was a Connecticut with a ton of flavor. If I had one complaint it was that the cigar was a little spongy, but this really didn’t have any effect on the experience.

 

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MiMaria_Habano_LanceroMaybe I took a risk getting the Habano blend in the Lancero size, but it’s hard to resist a Lancero. Maybe I would have been better off sticking with the toro, or even the robusto size. They also offer torpedos, Churchills and a 6″ x 60 “Chubby”.  So Monday I picked one of the Lanceros, and for some reason it was flat, flavorless and drew poorly. Maybe a sign of inconsistency, maybe I had high expectations, or (more plausible), something I ate didn’t agree with me too much. So tonight I went back to the Habano Lancero. Tonight’s was wonderful, so different from the previous experience.  Burn and draw were good and it had a wonderful light, sweet flavor. I may have been better off with any of the other sizes, and, once again, I may have to order more.  The other shapes in the Habano line have Pennsylvania tobacco in the filler blend, the one leaf missing in the lancero. The PA tobacco may add the strength that I was looking for that lead my to the initial issues the first time around. I was quite pleased with tonight’s cigar though, it was really very good.

 

So, what did I learn from this?  The folks at Mi Maria make some tasty cigars and I probably should have diversified my purchase a little more and gotten a broader selection, although in my defense, three cigars fits into my posting style a little better.  I do want to go back and try the Connecticut and Habano in some other sizes.

 

I was going to announce the winner of the Holt’s gift card, but I figured I’d give it a few more days so everyone has a chance to enter. Look for a winner announcement Friday (and who knows what else could happen?).  That’s all for now, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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