Category Archives: Review

by | November 7, 2012 · 8:23 pm

Cape May, a NUb and a La Gloria Cubana Cigar, and Some News

Last weekend my wife and I took a little trip to Cape May, NJ to just relax and recharge. Fortunately the superstorm from last week wasn’t as mean to the little town on the southern tip of the state and we had a nice visit.  We happened across a nice little cigar shop in the Washington Street Mall, which is a three block long pedestrian mall a couple blocks off the beach.  The store is called “Up In Smoke” and has a pretty good sized walk in humidor.  The gentleman working there, Buddy, seemed to be knowledgeable and helpful, however the combination of New Jersey’s cigar tax, resort prices, and the absence of a place to smoke kept me from making my usual courtesy buy (and I tried to buy an issue of CigarPress magazine, but Buddy hooked me up).  The Opus X Lancero priced at $100 wasn’t even tempting!  I’m, admittedly, spoiled living in Pennsylvania and not having a cigar tax like most of the other states, but seeing cigars that retail around $4 at home priced at $10 scares me off.  However, I had no problem paying $10 each for some beautiful, hand blown glass Christmas ornaments for our tree this year (as un-macho as that sounds!).  These two ornaments spoke to me and I had to have them!  I didn’t have a cigar on the trip, but it was still a really nice weekend away with my wife, we were able to relax and unwind.

 

Monday evening called for a walk and a smoke.  I decided to give one of the NUb 464Ts that I got from the aforementioned Thompson’s auction to see how they were.  I picked a maduro.  I hadn’t had a NUb maduro, and it looked really good.  I snipped a bit off the end and the draw was really easy, a good sign.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that cold weather really increases my desire for maduros, I think because they have such a strong flavor.  Not that maduros are strong

nicotine-wise, it’s just that a lighter, more delicate flavored cigar will get lost in the cold air. This NUb had a pretty potent dose of power right off the bat, but it mellowed out as it got warmed up and was a very entertaining smoke.  One must take care smoking this shape as one wrong move and the cigar can shoot out of your mouth like a torpedo.  I always thought is was called a torpedo due to the shape!  Anyway, I think these need so

me more humidor time, but that probably won’t keep me from trying the other wrappers.  These will be good on the other side of winter.

 

Tuesday evening I opted for a rare treat of a cigar that I like a great deal, which is a shame because I may not get to smoke many of these in the future.  The regular production La Gloria Cubana Artesanos de Tabaqueros have a Connecticut shade wrapper on the first couple inches of the cigar, followed by and Ecuador Sumatra wrapper.  These are excellent cigars, but for special events they made some cigars that start out with the Sumatra wrapper and morph into a rich, dark Connecticut broadleaf wrapper that is just amazing.  I came across a lonely little robusto version of this that I picked up at an event last December and fired it up.  I have to say that I had endured a day of frustration, always happens when one dares take time off work.  It was a day of catching up and putting out fires, and I needed the respite of a great smoke.  It was also freezing cold!  It had been the first “bike-worthy” day in nearly 2 weeks and I had to take the scooter to work. I found out the following: 23 degrees is too darned cold to spend 30 minutes outside driving to work.  I wish the bike had a heater.  Anyway, I digress.  This cigar was awesome.  Rich, earthy and full flavors that gave me a nice hour to settle do

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wn and return to normal.  If

you ever get to attend a La Gloria event, don’t just do it to get one of these awesome smokes, if you can hang out with Michael Giannini you will be doubly rewarded, because he’s a really cool guy who know his stuff.

 

 

News

I’m pleased to be able to say that the 12 Days of Spectacular Giveaways is coming along nicely. I’ve already got five of the days just about completed, with confirmations for another 6 of the days.  If you thought last year’s contest series was spectacular, just wait until you see what’s in store this year! I don’t want to rush things, time goes by fast enough as it is, but I’m getting really excited about this!   Mark December 12

-24th on your calendars.

 

In other news, Smoke Inn announced today the release of the latest cigar in their “microblend” series, the  Tatuaje Apocalypse.  I got a press release, other’s have posted it, so just head over to http://www.tatuajeanarchy.com/ to see what it’s all about!

 

That’s all I got, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | October 28, 2012 · 9:43 am

A Camacho Cigar Event, a Room 101, a Genesis, an El Mejor and a Quick Contest

Last weekend I stopped in at International Tobacco in the King of Prussia Mall (one of the largest in the US, located just outside Philadelphia). I s

top in here whenever I visit the mall, they have a nice coffee bar where you can sit and have a cigar and rest up from all the shopping :-). When I was there I found out that they were having a Camacho event to celebrate the addition of that line to their product mix. I like Tom Smith, the area Davidoff/Camacho/Cusano rep, so I figured since it’s 20 minutes or so down the road I’d stop in.

 

Having picked up a handful of Camacho Corojo Maduro Monarcas that I didn’t need last weekend, I purchased a couple Room 101 Daruma Lanceros and a Mostro (5″ x 60), and a couple of LegendArio just because I hadn’t t tried either and Tom recommended the Daruma. I got 2 of the 5  free for the event, which eased the financial pain a little . I sparked up one of the Lanceros and got to socializing. Tom introduced me to a gent named Chris, who was a former blogger, and we struck up a conversation about all things cigar. Chris introduced me to his friend Jay, who lives down the road from me. We had a terrific discussion of cigars, among other things, and I look forward to running into these guys again one of these days.  The cigars was as outstanding as Tom had indicated.  It was full bodied as one would expect, and the beauty of the Lancero format is that it forces you to smoke it slowly and really savor all that it has to offer.  It was a very nice evening.  Tom, the owner of the shop does a nice job with events, and I look forward to seeing Tom, the Davidoff rep again in the near future.

 

This seems like an appropriate place to throw in the video interview I did with Matt Booth at the IPCPR show.  I managed to catch Matt right as the show closed and he graciously consented to spend a few minutes with me.  Matt is a super-cool dude and his cigars are pretty awesome too. Which reminds me, did they have the Room 101 San Andreas at International Tobacco and I missed them?  Anyway, here’s the video:

httpv://youtu.be/HpSABzpP4mI

 

Back to the retailer sponsored “reviews” I’ve been doing all week.  The last two cigars I receive from Cigars International were the Genesis The Project by Ramon Bueso Robusto and an El Mejor Robusto.  You may recall the last time I said that I started smoking this in order of my personal interest.  I hadn’t heard of the Genesis The Project cigar until receiving it, and the name Ramon Bueso wasn’t familiar to me. The wrapper was very mottled and wrinkly, which doesn’t really show in the picture here.  I thought the band was reminiscent of the Liga Privada band, adding a little to my preconception.  Just a disclaimer, these opinions and biases are my own.  The Genesis was a pretty powerful cigar and, despite it’s ugliness, it performed well.  It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it certainly had plenty going for it.  I’d say if you like a full flavored cigar with some strength, give this one a try.

 

As far as the El Mejor is concerned, I’ll admit to having a bias based on my impression that this is strictly a house brand.  I’ve learned over the years to have lower expectations of house brands, that’s probably wrong, but that’s the way I feel. This cigar had an attractive, milk chocolate colored Corojo wrapper and lit and burned quite nicely.  Once again, this one didn’t exac

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tly wow me, but it was a solid, straight up cigar, certainly not a waste of time, and something I would smoke again, and I did smoke both cigars to a finger-burning nub, if that says anything.

 

I really appreciate Scott sending me these samples, and I hope to get to meet him this Friday when I go up to Hamburg, PA for the grand opening of their newest Super Store.  I know some folks consider CI, Famous and the like, the Walmart of cigar stores, and I can see their points, especially when those people own local shops in the areas where these large companies open stores.  Considering what we face from the government where cigars are concerned, I have trouble finding fault with someone who’s willing to shell out millions of dollars to build a cigar store.  I am looking forward to seeing the new store, but there’s a lot to be said for the personal experience of sitting down in a small, family owned tobacco shop and enjoying a smoke!

 

Contest

One last thing, and you’ll have to act fast!  I’ve been tweeting this week about a little contest.  Today is the 2nd Annual #TickNTweet Virtual Walk, which benefits the Tick Borne Disease Alliance in their efforts to to help us build awareness, promote advoca

cy and support initiatives to find a cure for Lyme and other Tick-Borne diseases. I am a Lyme disease sufferer myself, so this is something important to me, especiall

y since I live in the worst county in the country for Lyme disease.  If you go to our page and make a donation, I’ll choose a random person and send a 5 pack from my humidor, and I promise there will be some great cigars in there.  I personally appreciate any consideration you may give to this.  Today is the last day to get in on this.  Thanks!

 

That’s more than enough for today.  Hopefully this storm that’s been getting all the hype doesn’t cause too much damage (Walmart’s water aisle was empty! There’s going to be plenty of water falling from the sky folks!).  Stay safe out there!

 

CigarCraig

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by | October 24, 2012 · 8:46 pm

A Few Cigars International Exclusives: MAXX, Punch and Man O’ War

The next series of retailer driven reviews are brought to you by Cigars International. I was approached by Scott, a web guy at CI, and he sent along

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some of their exclusive products. Of course, my CDO (that’s OCD in the correct, alphabetical or

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der) makes me worry too much about the order that I smoke the cigars, so it’s a constant battle. Should I smoke them alphabetically? Lightest to Darkest? Shortest to longest? I decided to smoke them in the order of my own personal interest level. I hadn’t previously smoked, nor in most cases even heard of most of the included cigars. So I started with the one which intrigued me the

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most.

 

The Alec Bradley MAXX Brazil was a beautiful, dark robusto. Whether I’ve ever stated it publicly or not I don’t know, but the robusto is my default size. 4”-5½” x 49-54, although a rather broad range, is the size range I find myself reaching for regularly. I rarely have the time to commit to a larger cigar, although I do like toros, and torpedos. I love the occasional corona or lancero too. I guess it would be safer to say my favorite size range is 4” to 7” x 38 to 60 ring. I’ve gotten silly and I digress. The MAXX Brazil was a fantastic smoke. It had that nice balance of flavor and strength. it’s not a heavy smoke, but

very tasty and very satisfying. I loved the dark and rich cocoa flavors. This cigar suits my palate just about perfectly, and they are quite fairly priced, going for $3.00 to $5.00 each.

 

The next cigar I selected was a Punch Bareknuckle, this example being the Belicoso, weighing in at 5” x 50. Where the MAXX was smooth as butter, this Punch was a powerhouse. Despite the fact that the picture on the website shows a cigar with a smoking ¾” ash and an uncut cap, and I don’t care for footbands (another inconsistency in said photo) this is also an outstanding cigar. If you like the standard Punch line, this will appeal to you as well. It’s got a little more oomph, maybe a more concentrated flavor. Burn and draw were perfect and the belicoso shape was fun and interesting. Another winner.

 

Third up was the Man O’ War Side Projects Little Devil. This was a corona which fought with the previous two for my interest, but something in my head told me that this would be a tasty smoke, it being from A.J. Fernandez. I can’t think of a cigar from A.J. that I haven’t liked. I lit this cigar up and BAM!, there was a blast of loamy, musty, earthy tobacco goodness from the uncut foot. All that extra wrapper folded over the foot really shows how much flavor that Habano wrapper has.  This cigar also burned very well and was very nicely presented with the unfinished foot and the little pig-tail head.  These are still fairly priced at around $4.  Steve Saka once told me that coronas cost almost as much to make as larger cigars, but they have to be priced quite a bit lower because of the percep

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tion that a smaller cigar has to cost a lot less than a larger one. So the people who buy larger cigars actually subsidize those of us who buy smaller ones!  Anyway, this was a fun cigar to smoke.

 

I have two more cigars to smoke, I’ll cover those in Sunday’s installment.  Tomorrow evening I’m going to visit International Tobacco in the King Of Prussia mall.  This mall is one of the largest in the country, and it’s nice to have a shop in the mall where one can stop and smoke a cigar.  They are having a Camacho event and I certainly like Camacho cigars.  Probably an uninteresting fact, but the very first cigar I reviewed online was a Camacho Monarca back in 1996 when Steve Saka held a blind taste test on the alt.smokers.cigars news group, which eventually ended up on the now defunct CigarNexus website.  I loved the Camacho, but one of the other cigars in the test was a Havana Montecristo No.2 that I called a dogrocket because it w

as so terrible.  Anyway, thanks to Scott at CI for letting me try these cigars, they were all new to me and I think I found some gems.  Is this post a big CI commercial? Maybe, but the cigars are good and well priced, worth a look if you have the chance.

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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by | October 21, 2012 · 9:54 am

Cuban Bullets, A Tortuga Cigar and Some Random News Items

In the past few weeks I’ve been approached by a few retailers asking me to “review” products for them. This is something fairly new to me, but of course retailers are as much a part of the cigar industry as manufacturers, one couldn’t exist long without the other! I figure I’ll do a quick series of posts highlighting these retailers and the products they shared with me. Unless otherwise noted, all I receive from these companies are a couple sample cigars. I’ll only accept these kind of offers from companies who I have patronized myself, and feel comfortable recommending. My hope is that fostering relationships such as this leads to possible contests so that I can get goodies into the hands of my faithful readers. Enough of the disclaimers and altruistic mumbo-jumbo!

 

I received an e-mail from Sheryl at Stogieboys.com offering to send me some samples for review. I became familiar with Stogieboys.com a few years agoe when they offered a Groupon which I purchased and subsequently turned into a box of Hoyo de Monterrey Sabroso Maduro, a really nice short smoke that I enjoy quite a bit. I talked to Paul, one of the owners on the phone and via e-mail and even featured a discount code here for a while. Anyway, they sent me a couple Cuban Bullet toro maduro cigars to smoke. I can remember the Perdomo releasing the original version of this in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s in torpedo shapes and the cigars were mixed filler and very well priced. These cigars have “Version 2.0” on the bands. The first thing I noticed and questioned was that the two cigars they sent had noticeably different wrapper colors. One of the ways that manufacturers can offer a good cigar at a low price is to cut out costly steps in the manufacturing process, like color sorting. I haven’t had one of these in 10 years or so, and I found this to be a very nice smoke. The smoke was reasonably heavy and it burned and drew perfectly. I have had plenty of cigars that cost twice as much or more that didn’t burn as well as this one. It was a really enjoyable smoke all the way to the end, when I put it down with under an inch left. There was a little bit of a burnt taste off the light, but it smoothed out quickly. That may have been a result of a hasty light.

 

With the second, lighter colored sample I took a little more care in lighting. This cigar had a little bit tighter draw than the first, resulting in a bit less of the full flavor and strength of the first. It was still very nice and was a pleasant and relaxing experience. I suppose this is another concession made to keep prices down, less consistency.  If I hadn’t enjoyed the first one so much I wouldn’t have had high expectations for the second, but I was looking for a repeat performance and I got a bit of a different cigar, which I kind of anticipated given the color difference of the wrapper.  I took my usual pictures of each cigar, but inadvertently deleted them and had to settle for stock photos.  Pissed me off, but nothing I can do about it!  Anyway, this is a nice smoke that is very well priced. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was mixed filler or long filler. A nice, inexpensive smoke from Perdomo that I’ll pick up from time to time.

 

Yesterday afternoon I sat down on the patio in the nice, warm October sunshine and enjoyed a Tortuga 215 Edición Limitada 2011 Torpedo.  This is a really nice Nicaraguan and Dominican blend made by Victor Vitale in the Dominican Republic.  It’s a super smooth yet full flavored cigar with outstanding construction. I smoked this while catching up with the audio portion of Stogie411 and soaking up some fall sunshine.  The Tortuga line consists of this Habano (I think) wrapped cigar, a Connecticut 1948 and a Maduro 1950, all of which are outstanding examples of the roller and blenders arts, with the Maduro being my absolute favorite.  Delicious cigars that are, unfortunately, not widely available.  Thank you to Victor for sharing these with me and congrats on your recent nuptials!

 

News

The November issue of National Geographic arrived yesterday featuring a map of Cuba on the cover with the caption “On the Edge Of Change”.  I’ll be interested to read this article to see what it’s about.  Also in the news, there are rumors once again that Castro has had a stroke and is on death’s door (article here). Certainly rumors of Castro’s death have popped up many times, and how long will Fidel be dead before the Cuban government admits it?  In some real news, StogieReview reports the impending opening of another Cigars International Super Store in Hamburg, PA (an hour north of my location), right next to Cabellas, which could mean a testosterone filled field trip for many of us.

 

That’s enough for now, it’s another beautiful day in SE PA, I may have to smoke a cigar sometime today!!

 

CigarCraig

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by | October 17, 2012 · 6:34 pm

A Xikar Executive Lighter and A Little of This and a Little of That


When we left off on Sunday, I had a cold coming on, and it came on in full force that day, but the worst of it passed quickly.  I still didn’t really feel like smoking too many cigars, so I

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‘m left with not a lot to talk about today.  So I figured it would be a good enough time to showcase a piece of equipment I’ve been using lately, a red Xikar Executive lighter.

 

I won this lighter at an event at the Wooden Indian a few months ago and have used it pretty regularly with generally good results.  The single jet flame is more than adequate to light and touch up a cigar, it has plenty of horsepower and even works OK in a light breeze.  It seems to run through fuel pretty quickly, but many jet flame lighters do, but I find myself filling this one more than other lighters.  I’m going to guess that this is an old model, it looks like the Executive II has replaced it and has a fuel window, which is a welcome improvement.  Another little thing I’ve notic

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ed is that it’s finish is already starting to chip, and I’ve been VERY careful with this lighter.  I make sure to put it in it’s own pocket in my pants, and don’t throw it in the drawer with other things.  It’s still gotten a couple chips, but the important thing is that it works well to light a cigar. If I have occasion to need a fancy lighter, I’ll just pull out the gold Dupont….I can’t even finish the sentence…I don’t have a gold Dupont lighter….wouldn’t know what to do with one if I did!  I bet they don’t do any better job of lighting a cigar.  As an aside, a few years back I was in Vegas and stopped into the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop of Pawn Stars fame, and they had a Punch Dupont lighter.  It had a $3000 price tag on it, but they would have let me have it for $2500.  For that kind of money it better have MY name on it!  Anyway, I like the Xikar lighter, it’s been reliable and easier to put in my pocket than my other favorite lighter (see my post about that lighter).  This review was not solicited by Xikar, I won this as an event attendee, I bought some cigars and got a raffle ticket!

 

Speaking of Punch, head on over to http://www.punchcigars.com/tailgating/ and sign up to win a cool six-pack of Punch cigars. They are giving one away every day until December 28, 2012.  I saw these at the IPCPR show and it is a really neat presentation. It comes with an assortment of Punch cigars, a cutter and a bottle opener.  It’s a very cool piece, go try to win one or pick one up if you see it in your local shop!

 

On a sad note, we lost one of our feline family members last night.  Frank was a good companion for the last 16 years and was never too far from my lap whether I was on the porch

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enjoying a cigar, or on the couch watching TV.  He even made a few cameo appearances in my CAO Last Stick Sta

nding video.  He was pretty straight laced, when the other cats were rolling around in the catnip, he would have nothing to do with it.  But he did seem to like sitting on my lap while I smoked.  He had a good, long life and we will miss him.

 

That’s it for today, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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