Category Archives: Review

April 4, 2021 · 10:22 am

My Luck and Padilla Cigars from Humidity Cigars

Since I always post on Sundays, every year about this time I make the same joke, but this year I actually had a cigar that I had allowed to dry out, and put back in the humidor to rehumidify slowly over time, just to see how it would “resurrect”. Of course, I forgot all about it, and didn’t think about it until I sat down to write this post. I guess it wouldn’t be that good of a joke then anyway, but it would have been a good experiment, and still will be when I get around to it. Honestly, with everything going on lately, I’ve been more concerned with using cigars to unwind on a daily basis than anything else, the rest seems too much like work. 

 

Last month I had ordered the Flight & Light from Humidity Cigars and it arrived well packaged and on time. All told, this four pack was about $38 delivered, and had the Celtic Ash that I posted about back on March 14, a La Perla Habana Classic Belicoso, a Padilla Fumas and a My Luck Toro. The first and last of which I assume to be house brands of Humidity Cigars. Yesterday I decided to smoke the My Luck and Padilla cigars. I started with the My Luck Toro. The promotional material from Humidity Cigars lists this as a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, San Andrés binder and Nicaraguan/Dominican fillers. It’s my opinion that they swapped the details with the Padilla, which is listed as Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, Nicaraguan/ Honduran fillers (no binder listed). I make this assertion not only based on appearance, which is compelling enough, but on flavor. The My Luck was well constructed and medium bodied, with a mellow flavor, which was on the nutty and creamy side. This was consistent with an ecuador Connecticut wrapped cigar. It was a good cigar, enjoyable, not particularly remarkable, but certainly not anything I wouldn’t be unhappy smoking again. No regrets with this one! 

 

A few weeks ago I had a private conversation on Instagram with Ernesto Padilla where he asked me why there were never any of his cigars in my feed. I explained that I didn’t come across them in my local shops, and I wasn’t buying in quantity on line. There was a time when Oliva was distributing Padilla that they were in stores and I would pick them up. There was even a Studio Tabac collaboration back in 2015. If you search this site you’ll find a lot of hit on Padilla, but recently they have been largely a catalog concern. This Padilla Fumas was probably 5″ x 50 and had an obviously maduro broadleaf wrapper. It had the sweet and heavy broadleaf flavor and was really quite a nice little smoke. I’m a little confused though. This had a white band, and doing some searching around, the Connecticut does indeed have a white band, while the maduro has a black band, but this was absolutely a broadleaf cigar. I was born at night, but not last night. Whatever the band situation, it was a good cigar, and I’m pleased with the purchase. So far, three for three with this pack. To be honest, The La Perla doesn’t excite me. Maybe it’s the cigar snob in me that looks at this as a catalog bundle brand that I wouldn’t be bothered with, or maybe I’ve smoked it before, I really can’t remember. 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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March 28, 2021 · 10:06 am

Altadis Know Your Wrapper Series Event at Goose’s Montecristo Lounge

Friday evening I attended an event, s

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ort of. Goose’s Montecristo Lounge in Limerick, PA hosted the Altadis USA Know Your Wrapper Series event, both in their lounge and virtually. They probably had 15 or so people there in the lounge, which is spacious, no worries there, and a few of us attending virtually, including myself, Tom Stroud, the Altadis USA territory Manager and his wife, John Remer, who host the Facebook Group and show Johnny Smokes Uncut, and a few others.  In this event, each attendee purchased a box which contained seven corona size cigars that were puros of seven different wrapper varieties. The event was led by Travis Pappenheim, the National Education Manager at Altadis USA. He guided us through the tasting of the first couple of the puritos, presenting information on the growing regions and some of the cigars that used the various wrappers. This event

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was interactive, as Travis, even though he was located in south Florida, was taking questions from the lounge at Gooses, as well as interacting with the rest of the guests.

 

A few geeky thoughts on the puros:  The first one was the USA Connecticut: It had some natural sweetness on the lips at first, but I thought it was fairly sour with some bitterness. It smoothed out after a while. The Cameroon was surprising, as a wrapper only it is very distinctive, when the entire cigar is Cameroon it runs over itself and that sweet, nutty Camerooniness I love is overwhelming and exhausting. The Ecuador Connecticut is smoother and creamier than the than the USA version. In my mind, it worked better a

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s a cigar. I don’t care much for Criollo, and a 100% criollo cigar doesn’t thrill me, the saving grace was that it was the fourth cigar in a little over an hour. Travis gave some great advice, which was to smoke the Sumatra on a fresh palate, and since that is one of, if not my favorite, wrapper varitals, I smoked this one

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last night. Once again, it tasted like Sumatra should taste, but too much of a good thing. HAlf way in, I switched to the Broadleaf, another favorit

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e wrapper. This was the only one in the selection that wasn’t a puro, because, Travis said, getting the Broadleaf puro to burnright wasn’t happening. Not surprisingly, this was the best sm

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oking experience of the bunch as a cigar, as far as balance and flavor went, with sweet cocoa and coffee notes that I love. I saved the Habano for another time, maybe today, as I was worn out.

 

As a cigar geek, I found this to be a really entertaining experience, as I always do. I’ve done these sorts of things before and I always learn something, and it reinforces things I knew, and reminds me of things I forgot. My main takeaway is that there’s a reason that these are wrapper leaves and there aren’t puros made from the various leaves. First, they’d be really expensive cigars, and mostly, they aren’t balanced and just don’t really taste good. There was one (the US Connecticut) that Travis mentioned a surprise at the halfway point and suspect he had the leaf tips thee or something and I got a cinnamon sensation somewhere thereabouts, but that was about the only thing close to complexity I got. I also have had indigestion and a sour stomach for the last two days, and it might have something to do with the tobaccos, not sure. I haven’t eaten anything strange. I wouldn’t trade the experience though,  Travis did a great job presenting and Goose was a wonderful host as always. I would have enjoyed being there in person, he has a great lounge, but between the time and “the times”, joining over Zoom was ideal. Thank you John for having me!

 

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

 

CigarCraig

https://www.altadisusa.com/

 

 

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March 24, 2021 · 9:25 pm

Trinidad Espiritu No.2 Toro Cigar

I was out over the weekend looking for some specific cigars and couldn’t find them, so, being me and all, I couldn’t walk out of a cigar shop empty handed, so one of the cigars I picked up that was new to me was the Trinidad Espiritu No.2 in the Toro size. They had the Magnum and Robusto as well, but I like Toros, so

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that’s what I got! I’ll admit, there aren’t a great many cigars in the Altadis portfolio that I get excited about, but I’ve found in the last few years, the cigars that have been made in collaboration with A.J. Fernandez have been to my liking. This is such a cigar. 

 

The Trinidad Espiritu No.2 has a Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan and Brazilian fillers, and is a collaboration with Rafael Nodal and AJ Fernandez and, one assumes, made at A.J. Fernandez’ factory in Esteli. It’s beautiful dark, oily wrapper, very rustic looking, and appealing to my pers

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onal aesthetic. I certainly didn’t mind shelling out over $10 each for a couple of these. I remember smoking a Trinidad Fundadores one New Years Eve about 20 years ago and it was spectacular, but absolutely nothing like this Trinidad. This was a heavy, lush cigar. It was my kind of cigar, loaded with dark chocolate and espresso flavors,

with some spiciness. This flew to the top of the list of my fa

vorite Altadis cigars. This cigar was exploding with flavor and I loved it.

 

That’s a

ll for today, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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March 21, 2021 · 9:32 am

CAO Arcana Mortal Coil and Some Random Thoughts

Before I get to the cigar, let me get some stuff off my chest. Little things get under my skin that maybe shouldn’t. but they do. Simple misuse of cigar terminology, for instance. Call it a pet peeve. One that came up recently was while listening to a podcast that I don’t often listen to, and the host is a large reason why. I firmly believe that if you are hosting a cigar podcast, and consider yourself experienced in the cigar industry, you should have a good grasp on simple terminology. For instance, if someone says they take the wrapper off a cigar and put it in their wallet, I’m picturing peeling the outer leaf off and it making a big mess in someone’s billfold, leaving an ugly cigar with just the binder, basically ruining the cigar and changing the flavor dramatically. I try to correct this when I see the mistake made in forums by laymen, I pretty much correct those who refer to either cello or the band as the wrapper. Generally the question is something like: “should I remove the wrappers from my cigars when I put them in the humidor” and my response is :“ No! The wrapper is the most expensive leaf and takes skill to apply, and adds flavor to the cigar! You probably mean the cellophane” or something similarly smart ass. But I don’t expect this mistake from someone hosting a podcast, writing a cigar blog, or otherwise in cigar media. In talking to other people, this isn’t this individual’s only flaw by any stretch. I find his interviewing style egregius and he’s unentertaining. I’ve gone as far as to remove the link to the show from my site as it’s no longer worth having any association with. This is actually one of the kind of cigar media guys who could give the rest of us a bad name in the industry. That’s the end of my rant, before I go any further down a rabbit hole. I smoked cigars this week, let’s talk about that!

 

I smoked a few cigars this week that I can’t talk about that were really interesting, and a couple that I want to smoke more of before writing about, but the one standout was the new CAO Arcana Mortal Coil. With Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) coming to their senses and hiring back their PR director recently, samples have begun showing up in my mailbox again, and I haven’t had to journey out looking for this cigar, which I would have done anyway, because it sounded amazing. The Mortal Coil has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, with a Connecticut Shade binder and Dominican Andullo, Honduran Jamastran, Nicaraguan Esteli and Dominican Piloto Cubano fillers. It’s 6 1/8″ x 50 and they only made 5000 boxes (I think they left out how many per box!). I found this to be a powerhouse cigar, and I loved it. It was rich and spicy, with some nice sweet flavors, and I really enjoyed it. I wan’t enamoured with the band though, it’s about 7½” long when unfurled. I get it, it coiled around the cigar, but it’s a lot of band to deal with, and must irritate the folks in the STG factory in Esteli who have to apply it to the cigars, as it’s totally different that banding any other cigar. That being said, it’s not a cord of tobacco, so there’s that. Overall, it’s a really good cigar for my palate, and I’ll be picking up some if I see them in the shops, just to have on hand for a treat. I appreciate the interplay of the Broadleaf and shade wrapper/binder combo, the CAO Bones has the same combo and I really like that. 

 

Speaking of bands, my wife is working on another cigar band table project and needs yellow bands! What cigars have yellow bands? Leave comments with suggestions, or if you have some, let me know and we can come to an arrangement (wink, wink). 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

 

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March 14, 2021 · 10:05 am

A Celtic Ash Cigar from Humidity Cigars and a Deadwoods Crazy Alice

After the folks at Humidity Cigars were kind enough to send me a

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sample of their monthly subscription pack to try, I placed an order with them to see what would really happen! I chose the “Flight and Light” pack which, at the time, was on sale for $30. I was hoping for some new and interesting cigars to try, and I did get that. I recently had a conversation with Ernesto Padilla about why I hadn’t posted many of his cigar recently, my answer was that they were not available in the shops I visited, so I now have a Padilla (which I have to find out about). One think I would like to see included with the Humidity Cigars shipments is details on the cigars, maybe that’s just because I’m a cigar geek, or I need the details. Fortunately, Gian, the owner of the company, has been responsive to my questions. Yesterday I dug into the pack and smoked the cigar that looked the most interesting to me, the Celtic Ash.

 

 

The Celtic Ash seems to be an exclusive to Humidity Cigars. I should have measured it, but I think it was around 6½” x 52 or 54 maybe. I suppose I expected to find some information about it somewhere, being the optimist that I am (sometimes). I did confirm that it has a Corojo wrapper with Dominican binder and fillers. The wrapper is a dark shade, which is one of the things that drew me to it, as well as the size, which was appropriate for the time I had available. I assume this was included in a March pack to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day, kudos to them for not falling into the candella trap. The cigar is very good, despite some slight burn irregularities, nothing a little torch work can’t fix. It had some really nice sweet and spice flavors, good, well fermented tobacco. Whoever made this for Humidity Cigars knew what they were doing. I admit, at first look with my admittedly jaded eye, I was concerned with the selection I received, now I’m looking forward to trying the MyLuck and Padilla at least (I think I’ve smoked La Perla a long time ago, but I’ll give it another shot). I’ve been impressed with the serv

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ice so far, the cigars are well packaged and presented. 

 

I have a pet peeve or two, and one big one is when folks insist that Drew Estate‘s Larutan (nee Natural) and the Deadwoods are infused or flavored. I’ve actually seen people argue with Vaughn Boyd, who owned Deadwood Cigars in South Dakota, for whom the Deadwood line was made, about this point. You’d think she would know the answer. I’m going to give you the answer right now, they are not infused or flavored, except that they have a sweet cap in some cases. The exotic tobaccos that are used, the Periques, Syrians and Latakias, that are more traditionally used in pipe tobaccos, are not cased in sweet stuff, they are processed like cigar tobaccos. I know this from discussions with people at Drew Estate and having been to the factory on two occasions. People will still argue that they are infused cigars because they don’t taste like traditional cigars, but that’s because the tobaccos they use taste different! After having this argument yet again yesterday, and correcting someone who should have known better, an “influencer” if you will, I decided to smoke a Crazy Alice. This is a cool shape and a really interesting little smoke. I recently picked up a box of these just because I enjoy them for a change of pace once in a while. They are an explosion of flavor, unique spices and sweetness, I just find them very enjoyable. It filled an hour in between dinner and the Flyers game very nicely. Just because something is different, doesn’t mean it’s wrong!

 

That’s all for today, if this post is an hour late, you forgot to change your clock. Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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