CigarCraig's Blog

Sorry, I’m short on planning this week, but fortunately the mailman left me something neat to talk about yesterday! But, before I get to that, I have a few cigars to talk about. I didn’t really get to anything new this week, while I had a mid-week “weekend”, consisting of two days off in a row, I busied myself with other things, and smoked some old favorites. Tuesday was election day, and between errands I smoked a Merlion Maduro toro and a La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel, both were really good, and cigars I enjoy frequently. It’s getting cold here, and today’s project will be to winterize the smoking porch and get the propane heater working, it wouldn’t light for me last night, much to my dismay! It was in the 30s and less than comfortable with only a little electric heater! Friday evening I had another favorite while I was a guest on the Cigar Hacks Podcast’s 52nd episode, a Cornelius and Anthony Señor Esugars Toro. They are an entertaining bunch originating out of the New England area, and it occurs to me that I listen to five or six podcasts from that area, I must enjoy hearing that accent or something. Event though they can be wicked hahd to undehstand sometimes, they are a funny bunch, I was honored that they invited me on.

I ran across a La Palina cigar that I wasn’t familiar with and decided to smoke it, then, ironically, I received a package with a few new samples a few days later. The cigar had a purple band and a “120” on the secondary band. A little research turned up that this was a 120th anniversary release for the brand, which makes sense considering the La Palina brand was launched by Samuel Paley in 1896, and this cigar had been in my humidor for at least two years. Some additional asking around turned up rumor that this might have been a pre-FDA deadline release of the El Año 1896 to get the blend in commerce kinda thing.  If that’s the case, this cigar came out of the PDR factory and is the La Palina 120th Anniversary Oscuro Robusto. I want to say I got this from BnB Tobacco, so maybe they were one of a few retailers who had it?  I can’t do more than speculate. I can say that last year I smoked the El Año 1896 made at PDR and really liked it, and I really liked this La Palina 120th Anniversary Oscuro and could see where it might have been the same cigar, although with age differences and time passed between smoking it’s always hard to tell. I do have some new versions of the El Año 1896 now made at Plasencia that are on deck for sampling this week which I’m very much looking forward to. The cigar was a nice smoke with rich cocoa and coffee note that I like, it burned well and had everything I like in a cigar. I doubt I’ll ever see another one of these, but if the new El Año is this good I’ll be quite happy!

The Tatuaje I smoked was a Cojonu 2006 that I had come across in the drawer of my New Air wineador all alone and looking lonely. I had purchased this cigar with a handful of others a while back at one of the Tatuaje bus tour events at Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA.  This cigar is in the Seleccion  de Cazador – Miami range of the Reserva line and has a Ecuador Habano wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and filler. I’m surprised I hung on to this one so long as I don’t like having un-cello’d cigar in the humidor too long as they sometimes suffer from jostling around.  I’m funny that way.  When ever the cello on/off debate come up I always say leave it on if it’s on.  The people making the decision that it’s OK to put it on in the first place know a lot more about cigar than I do and I trust their judgement. If there was any reason not to keep cigar in the cello sleeves, they wouldn’t go to all the trouble to do it, and trust me, it’s no easy thing to put cigars in cello!  They do it all by hand, I’ve tried it and it’s tedious work. I even get irritated if I try to put one back in, try it some time, then imagine doing it for eight hours a day, five days a week. Anyway, the Cojonu is a really great tasting cigar, it’s earthy, with some sweet notes, and fairly heavy. Now I’m sad I don’t have any more of these, and I’d sure love to try this with the Broadleaf wrapper.

Last night I got home from work late and much to my delight there was a package waiting for me from Kevin at Cigar Prop! This is always exciting, as I knew he had a new product coming out, and I was excited to lay eyes on it.  I’ve been a fan of his Cigar Props since he came out with them. They aren’t a new idea, I’ve made rudimentary versions of these myself over the years, but his execution and marketing has been really excellent, and this item is a brilliant extension of the Cigar Prop idea and completes the package. As it was a cold night, and late, I grabbed a Liga Privada T 52 Corona Viva which Pedro Gomez had given me the last time I saw him (note: not an IPCPR sample as I didn’t make it to the show..wink, wink, Joe…:->).  This “Corona Viva is 6″ x 46, not exactly a corona, maybe a corona larga…but not the 5.65” x 46 corona gorda that the Undercrown of the same name is. Lets see if anyone from Drew Estate is reading this: On both the Liga No. 9 and T52 pages on the website it lists the Corona Viva size as 178 mm x 54, which is the size of the Coron Doble. I have print screens to prove it in case they fix it and try to say I’m crazy…serves them right for trying to be fancy and use metric measurements! can’t fool me! Anyway, I actually like the 6″ x 46 format, and it smoked really well, but it was too late to have a cigar, and as happens when I do that, I had really freaky dreams all night.  I hadn’t had a T52 in a really long time, maybe the last one I had was a prototype 60 ring which just wasn’t particularly good, a bit washed out. This one really popped though, the flavor was right there with some sweet earth and leather. I dug it.  To add to the special cigar, I had a new ashtray, complete with a perfect hole to hold my favorite Cigar Prop,

Churchill photo credit to CigarProp

adorned with cigar related quotes (which, regrettably, eventually get obscured by ash). This beautifully hand machined ashtray is called the Robusto, and has a spot for one Cigar Prop rest, and is also available in a larger “Churchill” with places for two Props. The 6061 aluminum (which is used in the automotive industry) is anodized gloss black for a durable finish. I personally like that the tool marks are left in so you know this was machined by hand and not mass-produced.  Kevin launched an Indiegogo campaign yesterday, which was quickly funded, so I’m not sure if you can still get in on it or not, but here’s the link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cigar-ashtray#/ I’m sure these will soon be available on CigarProp.com and perhaps his Amazon store for the holidays, and I’ll include and easy widget on the side here if they do become available on the latter. Like the cigar, this is a luxury product, for sure, but is a worthy companion to the CigarProp. I love the execution and my Instagram followers will be seeing a lot of this item!

That’s all I have for today, Until the next time,

CigarCraig