Category Archives: Review

December 6, 2020 · 10:53 am

Joya de Nicaragua Cinco Decadas, Antańo 1970 and Quatro Cinco Cigars

I decided to go on a bit of a bender on some cigars from one of my favorite cigar factories. No, not that one, I’m talking about Joya de Nicaragua. Joya de Nicaragua was actually the first real factory I really had the pleasure of touring. It was early in 2011, coming up on ten years ago. I walked in smoking one of my favorites, an Antańo Dark Corojo El Martillo. It was really hot and I was nearing the band and ended up putting the cigar down as I felt some feelings coming on and the last thing I wanted was to get a case of the nicotine sweats there. It was there that I saw them rolling the Cabinettas, and Jonathan Drew had introduced us to the brand new #13 Lancero the night before, still a favorite of mine. I have a sentimental attachment to the brand, and it help that I love the cigars the make, there are very few that I won’t smoke. This extends to cigar they make for other people as well, of course. So I’m more than grateful when they share some of the great cigars they make with me. This is especially true in the case of the Cinco Decadas El Doctor. This is named for the owner of the company, Dr. Alejandro Martinez Cuenca, who I met at the IPCPR show in 2011. This is a 6″ x 52 torpedo with a box press. The Cinco Decadas line is unlike some of the more popular cigars in the JdN portfolio. It isn’t the powerhouse Nicaraguan that they are famous for, it’s refined and elegant. There are some sweet spices and nutiness involved in the flavor. I think these are wonderful cigars. If you want a hint of what these are like on a budget, give the Joya Silver a try, there are similarities.

 

I went back to the Joya de Nicaragua Antaño 1970 yesterday afternoon in the Robusto Grande size and was, as usual, delighted. I vacillate between this 5½ x 52 and the Gran Consul size being my favorite size, although I think I’ve smoked a fair number of Consuls over the years. Oddly, I don’t think I’ve smoked the Toro in this line! Weird. The Robusto Grande is close enough, and it’s a great cigar. It’s full bodied, it’s got the pepper and coffee that I like, and it’s completely satisfying. This is another one of my long time favorite cigars. 

 

Last night I came across a Quatro Cinco Torpedo in the humidor. I think this was my last Quatro Cinco, unless there’s another one hidden someplace. This line precedes the Cinco Decadas by five years, it was the 45th anniversary celebration cigar. I’m not sure if there’s something significant about celebrating an odd numbered anniversary or what, maybe they were afraid that FDA regulations would screw up the 50th? The Quatro Cinco to me shares more of the DNA of the Antaño Dark Corojo. It’s a full bodied cigar with espresso and spice, but more refined. Perhaps it has longer aged or vintage tobacco, and uses a Barrel aging process on some of the leaves. Perhaps today I’ll smoke a Cabinetta, it’s been a while!

 

What doe everyone think of doing a Secret Santa again? We did it once before, this time I’d use Elfster to run it I think. Is it too late? I don’t think it is. Let me know. That’s all for today, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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December 2, 2020 · 9:22 pm

Providencia Moonwalk, Boombox and Game Over Cigars

For those of us who came of age in the 80’s, there were some things that defined the era. MTV played videos 24/7, it was like a radio station on TV. Our version of portable music was large radios with cassette decks and D-cell batteries, then the walkman. Video games were in arcades and required quarters and mostly standing up. Times have changed. The guys at Providencia Cigars remember these times, as I do, and created some limited edition cigars to commemorate that decade. I still need to get together with Ray, either in person or via video chat, to compare notes, we share some common ground, I managed a record store, he was in the home video business, we are the same age more or less. He was kind enough to share some cigars with me again. I started with the Moonwalk because Monday was a not so cold evening, and this was a large cigar. All three are made in Esteli at Tabacalera Flor de San Luis. The cigar is 7 1/8″ x 57 and a Salomon shape. It has a Connecticut wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan and Ometepe fillers. I’m sure it’s wrong of me to say this, but it would have been clever if this had started with a dark wrapper and transitioned to a lighter wrapper. This cigar was on the mild side, and had a light flavor with sweetness like white confectioners sugar. It was really quite enjoyable all the way to the end, which was well over two hours after I lit it. I was quite impressed with the flavor of this cigar, and was actually surprised when I read that it had a Connecticut wrapper, I never would have guessed. The light, sugary sweetness was really nice.

 

Next up was the heavy maduro Boombox. This 6″ x 52 toro with a half-covered foot has a dark San Andrés wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and filler from the Somota region of Nicaragua. This area is about ten miles from the Honduran border, north-west of Esteli. Like it’s namesake, this cigar had some power, a full  set of fresh  D-cell batteries. The flavor was dark and rich, like coffee that had been on the burner for most of the morning, you know, the good stuff, taken black. Oddly, Macha has down right been refusing to take evening walks lately. Not sure why. Over the weekend we went for some walks during the day and she was fine, although when we went for a walk at Valley Forge park we got to a point where she stopped and we had to turn back and go to the car. I’m not sure if the fact that my son’s dog, who lives with us now, wears her out during the day or what. I get enough exercise at work, so I don’t miss the walks too much, but I still like to start my cigar with a walk. Anyway, the Boombox was good, but I’m quite happy that I can listen to podcasts and music with a bluetooth headset through my phone instead of toting around a boombox on my shoulder! 

 

It seemed appropriate to finish the trilogy with the cigar called Game Over. I remember the first time I saw Pong in the local bowling alley (which was recently torn down and is being replaced by apartments. Some of my earliest memories are from that building since my mother bowled there and stuck me in the nursery until I started school, then I bowled there in my 20s). Before that there were pinball machines. Game Over brings to mind the music of Pac Man. this 6″ x 52 toro alwo had a semi-shaggy foot, and has a lighter shade San Andrés wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. I initially thought this had a Sumatra wrapper, it had that same sweetness. It could be Sumatra grown in Mexico, who knows. I smoked this while I was on a roundtable discussion on the Kaplowitz Media podcast. This was my first appearance on this show, I’ve been listening for a while, it’s a wildly entertaining show, assuming you have a tolerance for dry wit. Hopefully I added to the discussion, and will be invited back, I haven’t checked to see if I’ve been deleted from the group chat or not. Anyway, like the others, and most every Providencia cigar I’ve smoked, the cigar burned well and tasted great. It was smooth and creamy with some sweetness and had a medium body. I liked it very much. Obviously, these are all very limited, I see them available now and them at Underground Cigars out of Fort Worth. 

 

That’s all for now. So far, the Reader’s Choice thing isn’t going as well as I had hoped. I’d love to see some more input, so please e-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the year. I’ll compile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. Heck, leave them in the comments if you want and I’ll work it out! Until th enext time, 

 

CigarCraig

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November 29, 2020 · 10:06 am

Sobremesa Brulee Blue, Platinum Nova, HVC Black Friday and Triqui Traca Cigars

We had a really low key Thanksgiving. We didn’t have a big meal, just the immediate family hanging out around the house. We actually ordered sandwiches from Wawa for dinner! It was much more relaxing than the stress of preparing a big meal and cleaning it all up in all honesty! I, like many days, treated myself to some great cigars. I realized that I haven’t written anything about the Sobremesa Brulee Blue yet, so I figured it was about time. This is a 6 ¼” x 46 lonsdale cigar with a pigtail cap. I used a cutter because I’ve evolved to use tools, I’m not an animal. Also, even though Saka sent me this cigar, it’s a $15 cigar and I’m not risking screwing it up by manhandling it. Of course, I’ve smoked a few Brulee’s, including the STFU! set, and I don’t believe this had a sweet cap. It certainly has a natural sweetness to the tobacco, and a creaminess to the smoke that’s really nice. There’s plenty of body and some spice to the smoke too, making it a really interesting and entertaining cigar to smoke. The bands a re really pretty too.

 

I guess I had the blue in the Sobremesa bands in my head when I went to select my after dinner cigar. Full disclosure, while the rest of the family had “Gobblers”, I had an Italian hoagie, as I am not a fan of the turkey sandwich with the thanksgiving meal fixings on it. It’s my holiday, I’ll celebrate it the way I want! So I went to the humidor and selected Limited Edition Platinum Nova Torpedo. This was a cigar that Ari and Leo of Nova Cigars gave me at the TPE show last January, and I’ve probably mentioned it here before. It’s a 5 ½” x 55 torpedo that retails around $30, so it’s no cheap date. It’s got Dominican Binder and Fillers with a Habano 2000 wrapper. Remember when the Habano 2000 wrapper came on the scene and it didn’t burn? Now it’s on $30 cigars! This cigar has a really delicate, floral flavor profile. If you like that sort of thing, this is a cigar for you. It’s an entertaining change of pace for me. Of course, it burned perfectly, I’d have been disappointed for it hadn’t. this company makes some really good cigars. You don’t hear about them a lot, I hear about them on the Smokin Tabacco podcast/show, a show which Matt Tabacco (his real name) and Jon Carney which is entertaining. It’s a good thing that Ari and Leo started Platinum Nova when they did, because they worked for Nat Sherman, and would have been looking for jobs now anyway.

 

Friday I smoked the HVC Black Friday Firecracker. I thought I might have missed out on this, but when I went to 2 Guys website on the Tuesday after they came out, I was still able to get some. From the hype, I thought they would sell out. I got lucky, I guess. So I added some to my stash of various Firecrackers, and smoked one Friday before my granddaughters came over for the afternoon. This is a 3½” x 50 little smoke with a long “fuse” and a closed foot. Initially the spicy “hotness” covers any flavor to me. It was overwhelmingly strong off the bat. The Corona Gorda was strong, but this little bastard was really strong. It eventually settled down, but by the time it settled down, it started ramping back up because it was getting near the end. It’s pretty much pepper and strong, black coffee flavors, which is OK. If you aren’t prepared for the strength, it might me troublesome, and it’s a darned good thing it’s only 3½” long.

 

When I ordered the Firecrackers, I added on a few of the new sizes of the Mi Querida Triqui Tracas that recently came out that weren’t included in Saka’s media pack 😁. Here’s a couple of ethical disclosures: I buy a lot of cigars, and I get samples of cigars from vendors. If there is a problem with a cigar I get from a vendor, I don’t trash it, I talk to the vendor. I try to smoke cigars that I like. There has been an instance recently where I was given an item to review, I found it to be sub-par, I gave the vendor a draft of the review, told them I didn’t want to post the review and offered to return the item to them, which they agreed to do, even though two other items I’ve been given and reviewed in the past have been excellent. I can’t damage someone’s business with my opinions. I don’t have a problem endorsing something I can stand behind, but I’m not going out of my way to tear something down. Anyway, not quite sure why I went on that tangent, but I took Macha out to Valley Forge Park yesterday for a walk and took the huge Triqui Traca 764 along. This is a big cigar, as the name suggests, it’s 7” x 64, clever guy, that Saka. I suppose it’s better than calling it Donkey D*ck, but not quite as good as Gran Buffalo (which is what he called the same size in the Mi Querida). I lit this up and used it to maintain social distance, with both the smoke and physical size of the cigar. We walked for a while, then turned back, drove home, then I spent another few hours on the porch finishing the cigar. There are monuments at Valley Forge smaller than this cigar. It’s larger than some of the canons. They built cabins for the soldiers out of logs smaller than this cigar. It was a lot of good cigar, and I look forward to smoking the 652, because I felt like the 764 was maybe less flavorful, or maybe just a lot of work getting to the flavor. I bought more than one, so perhaps next summer I’ll work on another one.

 

Keep those Reader’s Choice Cigar of the year entries coming! Please e-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the year. I’ll compile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. That’s more than enough for today, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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November 22, 2020 · 11:04 am

Tabernacle Goliath and a Mi Querida Triqui Traca Cigars

Let me start out by bitching a little about the USPS messing with my plans for this post a little. I had ordered some of the new Triqui Traca sizes because I was unable to find them locally, and they were supposed to have been delivered yesterday and they weren’t. How USPS manages to goof up Priority Mail that ships Tuesday and is scheduled to be delivered Saturday (already a stretch), is beyond me. A few weeks ago I sent a box to Washington state on a Saturday and it was delivered on Monday. Sure, it cost me more than $8, but c’mon. And I recently cashed in some rewards points for an Amazon gift card and they are mailing it….what sense does that make? OK, now I’m just bitching about stuff for for the sake of bitching…forget about that last part. Point is, I

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had to switch up my whole plan for this post at the last minute. Fortunately, it’s not hard for me to convince myself to smoke a great cigar, so I made other plans.

 

Last week when I was at Cigar Mojo, one of the cigars I picked up was the Foundation Cigar Co. Tabernacle Goliath. I probably should have gotten both the David and the Goliath, but I was trying to moderate my spending. In retrospect, it would have made this post easier, and perhaps, more interesting. Apologies. The David and Goliath are perfecto shaped cigars, both have a gorgeous Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, San Andrés binder and Nicarag

uan and Honduran fillers. I would venture a guess that the blend is the same as the regular Tabernacle line. The Goliath is a 5” x 58 perfecto, it’s chubby. The David is 5” x 54 and is more of a pointy perfecto. This is where I regret not buying both and comparing the two, because the shape can make a big difference in the flavor. The Goliath was a wonderful cigar. Despite the fact that once it burns past the first quarter inch its basically a gordo or fat robusto, the burn was perfect. It was loaded with the rich espresso and cocoa that I love, with the spice and earth from the San Andrés and the fillers. This was such a good cigar, and burned nice and cool all the way down to the nub. Again, now I need to go get the David, because I can imagine that the smaller ring and the pointy shape would sharpen the flavors some and cause a different experience. Darn my frugality. So if you like the Foundation, you should love the Goliath!

 

As I alluded to above, I was hoping to receive some of the new sizes of the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust Mi Querida Triqui Traca, the 652 and the 764. So I followed the Goliath (after dinner, of course, not immediately) with a Triqui Traca 552. I realized that I had never really featured that size on these pages, and I’ve smoked a few

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. I like the 648, it’s close to a Toro, and I’ve been looking forward to trying the 652, and I just figured “Why not” on the 764. It’s a ridiculous size, but people rave about the Mi Querida Gran Buffalo (same size, next on my list to try). The Triqui Traca is another Broadleaf wrapped cigar that is based off of the Mi Querida Firecracker blend (of which a third, and tweaked, release is imminent. Damn, that’s another order I’m going to have to place with 2 Guys…) which is an amped up version of the Mi Querida. I’ll be honest, I love them both. If the Mi Querida is a Hershey’s Special Dark bar, then the Triqui Traca is one of those dark chocolate bars with the hint of cayenne pepper. It’s got some extra kick, but not too much, just enough to keep things interesting. Of course, it burns perfectly, if it didn’t, Saka wouldn’t sell it. Here’s a secret, because I’ve known him as long as I have, and he’d kill me for revealing this: he makes each cigar a half an inch longer than advertised and personally smokes a little bit each one to make sure it’s right before the cap is applied and it’s banded and packaged. That’s how much he cares! :-). (Before someone believes this and Saka comes after me for defamation and slaps me with a cease and desist, it’s a joke. He only does it with about half). If you like the Broadleaf cigars, you can’t go wrong with either cigar mentioned in this post, and of course they share some common ancestry.

 

So far there is a tie for the CigarCraig Readers Poll Cigar of the Year, so get your votes in! Please e-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the yea

r. I’ll compile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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November 18, 2020 · 10:22 pm

My Father Fonseca Robusto and Some Other Fonseca Cigars

Last week while I was out and about,

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I picked up a couple of the new My Father Fonseca robustos. I’ve been looking forward to trying this cigar for a while. It was a bit of a surprise when Quesada sold the Fonseca brand to My Father, and it took a year of two before My Father came out with their version of this iconic brand.  I’ve personally smoked a bunch of Fonseca cigars over the years. I had a box of Havana Fonseca Cadet KDT many years ago that were really very nice. A few years a

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go I really got into the Fonseca Nicaragua, more on that in a bit. This new My Father Fonseca Robusto is 5½” x 52 and has a shade grown Corojo 99 rosado wrapper, and Garcia grown Nicaraguan fillers. At $9.50, it’s not an inexpensive cigar, but after smoking it, I certainly wasn’t disappointed! This was a really terrific tasting cigar, I think it captured the spirit of Fonseca quite nicely. It’s medium bodied, and has a delicious sweetness. It’s a nice, sophisticated blend, really nice. It’s got that hard candy sweetness I like. The Garcias did a really nice job with the Fonseca brand. 

 

I found a few older Fonseca cigars in the humidor, so I figured I’d see how they compared. I smoked the

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Fonseca Nicaragua toro, which was new a few years ago and was fairly inexpensive. This was Quesada‘s last iteration of the Fonseca I believe.  These were actually made by Placencia for Quesada, and had tobaccos from Jalapa, Esteli and Ometepe. I really liked these and smoked a bunch of them when they came out in 2016. I remember smoking one at the IPCPR show with Terrance Reilly in the Quesada booth and loving it, and seeking more out when they hit the stores. I smoked the 6″ x 50 toro and it had held up well over time. There were similarities to the new version, which is also Nicaraguan. It had that sweetness, it had some earthiness, and was as I remembered, a very good smoke. I enjoyed it and will miss these when I smoke the last of the few I have left! 

 

Finally, I found a Dominican Fonseca, and I  don’t even know how old this one was, where it came from or much about it at all. If I had to guess, I’d say it had a Sumatra wrapper, based on looks and flavor. There was a hint of that same candy sweetness that is in the new version that I love so much. This is another cigar that had aged well. The burn was perfect, it just was a pleasure to smoke. I wish I knew how old this one was, or where it came from! I’m just glad I had the chance to smoke it. I still have one Cuban KDT Cadets from the box that I had maybe in the middle of the 2000s. They were pretty strong little cigars, but I imagine fifteen years might have mellowed it out a bit. 

 

That’s all for today. Remember the CigarCraig.com Readers Poll.  E-mail me at craig@cigarcraig.com with your choice for the 2020 cigar of the year. I’ll c

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ompile the results and post them on December 31. Please be as specific as possible. It’ll be fun! Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

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