Category Archives: Review

May 10, 2020 · 10:16 am

A Micallef Leyenda and a BOTL Cigar from Drew Estate

I finally decided to smoke the Micallef Leyenda No. 2 that I had picked up at the Micallef event I went to just over a year ago at the Cigar Cigars store in Phoenixville, PA. That reminds me, I need to reach out to my friends at CigarCigars and inquire about the status of their stores. When I passed the Phoenixville shop the other day it looked like it was open, and similarly with the Frazer shop. I haven’t had a need to stop in, but I need to drop a ew people a note or two. Anyway, the Leyenda No. 2 was one of several cigars I had bought at the event, and I hadn’t gotten around to it because it was in a really cool little coffin sorta thing, and I tend to hold on to those too long, mostly because I don’t know what to do with them when I smoke the cigar. It seems a shame to toss the coffins out, but I haven’t worked out what to do with them. Stupid, I know. This is why I have a shelf in the wineador tied up with single cigars in coffins. This one is unique because it’s open in one side, and it’s form fitting to the torpedo shape. This poses another ethical dilemma in my mind as I see it as something that a lot of time and energy went into making. Clearly it’s something I need to work through. I did take the first step and smoked the cigar, so that’s something. The cigar was brilliant, I must say. the wrapper is a 5 Year Old Ecuadorian Habano, with a 5 Year Old Nicaraguan binder and 5 Year Old Nicaraguan, Dominican, and Honduran fillers. This was a torpedo with a sharp taper and measured 5½” x 52. It should come as no surprise that it has some woody flavor, having been surrounded by wood on three sides for quite some time, although there was a layer of cellophane as a buffer. It had some slight citrus and spice too, and was quite enjoyable. It burned perfectly and was a fun cigar to smoke. Considering the presentation and the quality, I don’t recall these having been terribly expensive. I’d buy more if I could figure out what to do with the little coffins!

 

Last year Drew Estate re-issued a cigar that they made for the web forum BOTL around 2010. I had the pleasure of going on Cigar Safari in 2011 with a few guys from BOTL, and I remember hearing about this cigar, although I was rather ignorant of it at the time, not having been a BOTL forum member. Tim seemed to have been the guy who worked with DE to make this happen back then, and it wasn’t something that was widely available. Never having smoked one, I can’t make a comparison between what was then and this new iteration, but I have smoked a few of the newer ones over the last year and really quite enjoyed them. They only have what I would call “connoisseur” sizes: Corona, Lancero, and a long Corona Gorda, which is what I had on hand to smoke. There were a couple included in the PA Barnsmoker cigars that I smoked, including the Lancero. The Corona Gorda is 6″ x 46, not a bad size, and has a Broadleaf wrapper, Ecuador Connecticut binder and Nicaraguan fillers. It’s a little bit “Liga Lite” to me, it’s got the Broadleaf sweetness, and is full bodied, and it falls somewhere in between a Liga and an Undercrown and I really like it. It’s still a $10 stick, and, for the money, I’m still going to Nica Rustica for my Broadleaf fix, but the BOTL doesn’t have the rough edges that the Nica Rustica has. So if you want something more elegant, in those elegant sizes, this is a great choice.

 

I smoked a Joya Silver this week, and I had every intention of following it up with a  Joya Cinco Decadas, just to compare, because I think there’s some commonality between the two. I backed off for a few reasons. The dumb reason was that I didn’t feel like I deserved to smoke a $20 cigar at that particular time. The better reason was that the particular evening I thought about doing it happened to get cold and rainy. I’ll get to it one of these days. Anyway, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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May 6, 2020 · 7:17 pm

Some Toscano Cigars and a Viva la Vida

My wife decided she wanted a picnic table to go with a couple of benches we had made years ago, so I bought some lumber and started building one. In an effort to reduce the profanity count during this project, I decided to break into a pack of Toscano cigar I purchased in Rome when I was there in May of 2018. I bought a pack of the Garibaldis and a pack of Extra Vecchio, not remembering having seen them in the states. The Garibaldi were introduced here earlier this year (or late last year) and I guess the Extra Vecchio have been here, at least that what Michael Cappellini, the brand ambassador for Toscano cigars in the US tells me. My wife brought me a pack of Toscano Antico from Italy in 2000, and I’ve been enjoying one now and then ever since. I especially like the Modigliani, although it’s quite expensive. The five packs in Rome were much less expensive than here, I think I paid seven or eight euros each, they push $20 here. $20 is still a deal for five cigars, especially since they are rugged, taste great, burn a long time, and you don’t need to keep them in your humidor. I smoked the Extra Vecchio yesterday over the course of about four hours, relit it several times of course, but it tasted great the whole time. These are heavy on the fire cured tobacco, so if you like that, you’ll really like these. It’s also quite OK to cut these in half for a shorter smoke or to share! The Garibaldi is quite tasty too, as well as the Antico. I had a random oddball Toscano that I don’t know what it was, but it was unusually mild and I wasn’t overly fond of it. Toscanos are great cigars to keep one from swearing at projects!

 

Last night I was looking for something interesting to smoke and I remembered I had picked up a Viva La Vida Diademas Finas some time ago. I haven’t sm

oked anything from the Artesano Del Tobacco Company yet, but I’ve heard plenty about them. I remember meeting Billy Fakih when I visited Cigar Inn in NYC several years ago, now he and his brother Gus have launched this brand, made by AJ Fernandez in Esteli. I picked this up at a newer local shop that is largely a warehouse operation that ships cigars to China and has a shop and lounge in the front. It’s an odd sort of arrangement, I haven’t stopped back. Apparently I chose the top end of t

he Viva La Vida line in this limited edition figurado. It’s a 6½”x52 cigar beautifully rolled. It has a Habano Oscuro wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers. I let this rest because the first cigar I smoked that I had bought at this shop was quite over humidified, I played it right and this cigar burned perfectly, just lighting the “nipple” it drew perfectly and evenly throughout. The flavor was good, although I’d have to say it was unremarkable, there was nothing that really distinguished it from another really good cigar. It had very good tasting, well fermented tobacco, but nothing that really wow’d me, or made me excited. I wasn’t disappointed in any way, I was just ambivalent. Obviously, the art of rolling this cigar is without question, and I have no regrets, I just wish there was a flavor sensation that caught my attention. 

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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May 3, 2020 · 10:59 am

El Titan de Bronze Grand Reserva Cigar and Some Interesting Links

To end the week, as if weeks had beginnings and ends anymore, I smoked a few interesting cigars from deep in the humidor. A Rauchvergnügen #42, which is a “German engineered” cigar made in the Dominican Republic which had spent the last four years in my humidor. This was one of an initial production of 2000, and it held up well. I originally wrote about it here. I also dredged up a five year old La Aurora Untamed which had maintained much of its strength. I enjoyed this blend, although I can see where it wasn’t in line with what La Aurora is known for. I smoked this on my first granddaughters 9th birthday, I have a sentimental tradition of smoking a La Aurora cigar around milestones in my daughter’s life. This post explains a lot of that. I also sprinkled in some favorites in a La Sirena King Poseidon and a MUWAT Swamp Thang, the latter of which I. enjoy greatly as a change of pace cigar. Yesterday was beautiful, and after pressure washing the deck and doing some other stuff, I decided to check out something new.

 

When we were in Miami back in September, we m

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et up with Kevin and Jess of CigarProp fame at El Titan de Bronze and Sandy gave us a great tour and spent a lot of time with us. I had bought their corona sampler, which consists of an El Titan De Bronze Gold Corona, MyWay Dark Habano Corona, Grand Reserve Maduro Corona, Redemption Maduro Corona and the Redemption Sun Grown Corona. I selected the Grand Reserve Maduro Corona, which measured 5-5/8″ x 48. When I say “measured” I literally mean I measured it because they don’t list the measurements on the website, might be something they could look into doing. I’m not generally a corona guy, but a Corona Gorda is great, and a chubby corona gorda is better! I dig the size of this “corona”. These cigars are rolled in the very small factory in the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami, and I highly recommend visiting if  you find yourself in the area. They also make Herrera Esteli Miami, some La Palina and Warped, and they made my favorite Cornelius and Anthony Cornelius. I’m guessing I picked out the strongest cigar of the lot, as

Photo: Jessica

this sucker packed a punch! It. Was. Awesome! It has a Brazilian wrapper, Ecuador binder and Dominican, Nicaraguan and Honduran filers, much of which must be Ligero. It has a lot of dark, rich

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espresso flavor, and loads of pepper. Something triggered my first migraine in months last night, and I hope it wasn’t that cigar, because it was really a great smoke. I’ve smoked the My Way in the sampler before and loved it, so I’m looking forward to trying the rest of the cigars in the line. I’m sure they will be stellar, I’ve always enjoyed the cigars from this factory, going back to Sean Williams’ Primer Mundos and their Hemingways from the ’90s!  

 

There has been talk in the mainstream media about how tobacco use relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, from its use in the development in a vaccine, to whether users have a lower rate of serious infection. Steve Saka provided this list of links to some articles on the subject in a Facebook post among some friends that I thought I’d share. 

 

https://thedispatch.com/p/what-we-knowand-still-need-to-learnabout

https://theweek.com/speedreads/911429/scientists-are-perplexed-by-low-rate-coronavirus-hospitalizations-among-smokers-nicotine-may-hold-answer

https://nypost.com/2020/04/22/french-researchers-to-test-nicotine-on-coronavirus-patients/

https://www.marketwat

ch.com/story/this-new-evidence-shows-nicotine-might-prevent-smokers-from-catching-coronavirus-2020-04-24

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/02/smokers-seem-less-likely-than-non-smokers-to-fall-ill-with-covid-19

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/scientists-must-discover-why-so-few-coronavirus-patients-are-smokers

 

I’m not saying that tobacco use makes us immune and we should do anything different to protect ourselves and others from possible infection. Let’s continue to follow whatever guidelines needed for social interaction and get through this nonsense without protests or armed insurrection, or whatever that may prolong the situation and make things worse! I want to get a job again some day for crying out loud! Enjoy some cigars knowing that if it’s not helping us get through this physiologically, it’s helping p

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sychologically! And with that, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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April 29, 2020 · 9:08 pm

Platinum Nova Congress Cigar

Before I get into the cigar, I’ve found myself noticing maybe people getting a little antsy on the Facebook groups and either providing bad information or berating people for doing things “wrong” with their cigars. In the spirit of positivity and to be helpful and educational, I’ve offered my advice where I see fit. A few examples: one poster removes the wrappers (cello) in his humidor because having plastic next to his cigars doesn’t seems natural. This was offered in what I took as a condescending way. This was my gentle response: “it’s not plastic, it’s cellophane, which is made from wood fiber and is water permeable. I figure if cigar makers are ok putting cellophane on the cigars then who am I to second guess th

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em? If it’s an aesthetic thing and you like the look of naked cigars in your humidors, that’s another story, but there’s absolutely no functional reason not to store cigars in cellophane long term.” In another group a gentleman posted a photo of a cigar with a severe runner. He was lambasted for not touching it up, told that he was smoking in the wind, ripped up and down for what he did wrong, and he defended himself, said he tried to touch it up. I offered the following “Some
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times the Ligero isn’t placed right in the bunch and the cigar doesn’t burn right, it happens and it isn’t the poor guys fault for not touching up his burn, being in the wind or not rotating his cigars in the humidor or having bad karma or whatever. More positivity folks!” Hopefully these replies were helpful and taken in the spirit in which they were offered. When I see bad information or piling on for the wrong reasons I have trouble keeping my mouth shut.

 

This afternoon I selected a cigar from the new cigars that came back with me from the TPE show. The supply of these is running low, but I still have a few. The folks at Nova Cigars were quite generous and treated me to a wide range of their offerings. The Platinum Nova Congress is a 7” x 43 cigar, not entirely sure what to call it, it’s to big a ring for a Lancero, and too long to be a Lonsdale, but it has a nice “bun” style cap. It has a H2000 CT Ecuador wrapper and Dominican binder and f

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illers, made in the DR. This cigar is in their lower priced line, but it’s still $18, well abov
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e my typical price threshold. This is a beautiful cigar, and the burn and draw are what I expect from a cigar of this caliber. I smoked this cigar slowly, so as not to overheat it, as is my custom with thinner ring gauge cigars. I was struck with a distinct caramel flavor especially on the retrohale. This was a very elegant cigar, smooth, creamy, and very tasty. I enjoyed it quite a bit on a nice spring day.  

 

It seems like I’ve smoked a bunch of cigars since Sunday, notable, to me at least, have

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been a RoMaCraft Cromagnon Fomorian, a Macanudo Red, a LFD Reserva Especial, and another Danli Honduras Tabaco The Clown. Tonight’s cigar was an oldie from deep in the humidor, a Rauchvergnügen No 42, a bit of an obscure “German Engineered” cigar, which had aged quite nicely. I wrote about this cigar almost four years ago (here). That’s all for today, until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

 

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April 26, 2020 · 12:08 pm

Cohiba Royale, Providencia Barrel Aged Old Fashion Cigars

I had a busy week working on a side project, and I slacked of on original content and made up for it with a bunch of news pieces through the week. So I had the luxury of smoking some old favorites, some older than others. One notable cigar was a Fuente Hemingway Classic. For along time I preferred the Signature over the Classic, it seemed like the Classics I smoked all had a metallic flavor to them I didn’t like. Granted, this was in the ’90s, and several factors change. The box I’ve had in the humidor for the last three or four years has been spectacular. A La Sirena Trident (Churchill) from he first batch that La Zona made was equally enjoyable. Yesterday I smoked a Nica Rustica Belly from a bundle I bought at the release party in Louisville, KY in July of 2015 that was wonderful, and a Room 101 Uncle Lee from the end of Matt Booth’s Davidoff years. And then, there was the new stuff…

 

It seems like every blogger and his brother has been reviewing the new Cohiba Royale. I apologize for being another one of them. I suppose when General Cigar sends a bunch of folks samples in the mail, and people can’t get to stores to buy new cigars to review or talk about, this sort of redundancy, repetitiveness, repeating oneself, saying he same thing over and over, will happen. I know that my inventory of newer cigars is running low. Enough excuses. This new Cohiba is interesting. It’s also expensive. Granted, it’s less than one third the price of the Cohiba Spectre, but it’s still not a cheap date. The Royale runs from $23.99 to $28.99, which is much more than my usual cigar budget, so smoking this falls into “treat” territory. I suppose the special occasion is surviving another day of global pandemic madness. Anyhoo, this particular Cohiba hits a few milestones for the brand. It’s the first to be made at HATSA in Honduras. This factory makes Punch, Hoyo and the like. This is also the first to use a Nicaraguan Broadleaf wrapper, and this is what really makes this cigar special in my opinion. The binder is Dominican Piloto Cubano and the fillers are from the Jamastran Valley in Honduras and Jalapa and Esteli in Nicaragua. I personally find the cigar to be quite delicious, and I can’t wait to see what some age does to this blend, even though they say that the tobaccos have five to six years age already. It has some sweetness and spice, but there is a little sour note here and there that makes it interesting. I smoked the toro, which is the largest size, and I would have liked a better burn and draw from a cigar in this price range, but that should come with some humidor time as these samples were only about a week off the truck. I look forward to the day when I can catch up with Sean Williams and smokes one of these with him.

 

The other new cigar I smoked  was another one from Providencia Cigars. This one gave me pause, being a non-drinker. It’s the Barrel Aged Old Fashion, and had a pronounced “boozy” aroma to me. After almost thirty years of not drinking, it’s not like something like this is going to make me fal of the wagon, there’s nothing to worry about there. I actually have some liquor in the house for guests, it’s never a temptation. What it means is that I really have no frame of reference for booze related flavors. I don’t think I have ever had an Old Fashion, if I have it was over 30 years ago. I was more of a beer and shots guy than a cocktail guy when I drank. So this cigar was a toro sized cigar, wrapped in a San Andrés wrapper with an Indonesian binder and Honduran and Nicaraguan Ometepe in the filler blend. The magic happens when they age the cigars for four months in barrels that contained Old Fashion cocktail drink from the Little Water Distillery in Atlantic City, NJ. I was a little surprised that the cigars were in the barrel in cello, but that goes to show you that cello

is permeable, and I’m sure it reduces damage to the cigars. The cigar smoked beautifully, like every Providencia cigar I’ve ever smoked. There are a couple small Honduran cigar factories that are making exceptional cigars, and Providencia is one of them. I suppose an Old Fashioned has some sweetness, because there was a nice sweetness to this cigar. This is basically the Providencia Bloodshot blend, aged in the barrels, so the cocoa and dark chocolate are enhanced with the sweetness. I enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t relate to the liquor aspect of the cigar. I may have to root around and see if I have a Bloodshot to compare it to! Providencia Cigars never seem to disappoint, and I am so grateful to Ray for sharing his new blends with me. 

 

That’s al for today, be safe out there, support your local retailers so you have somplace to go when things open up again, and enjoy your day. Until the next time, 

 

CigarCraig

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