CigarCraig's Blog

Back in 2014, La Sirena Cigars acquired Old School cigars, which went back to about 2007, when Danny Ditkowich and his partners founded the brand.In 2014, Arielle Ditkowich,the president of La Sirena, bought the Old School brands and folded them in to La Sirena, briefly marketing them as Jaxx by La Sirena, Jaxx LT by La Sirena and Stixx by La Sirena. What was cool about this, in my opinion, was that it gave the company some pre-predicate date blends, as well as relationships with two more factories (Jaxx LT at Plasencia in Honduras and Jaxx at Rocky Patel’s Tavicusa in Nicaragua). Of course, La Sirena remains a family operation, with father, Danny involved in the day-to-day operation as well as Mariah adding another face to the brand selling and marketing. Danny is also a partner in the Tobacco Plaza retail store in Great Neck, Long Island, a store I look forward to visiting one of these days (add it to the list!). So that sets up a some back story behind the La Sirena LT, which debuted (that’s an awkward word…”debuted”…so is “awkward”…I digress…) at the 2016 IPCPR. This year they added a new size, a double corona, which is a massive 7 ½” x 52 to the line. Danny was kind enough to send me a couple of these to try, heavily over-packaged, I might add, but assured to make it to me in pristine condition, which is much appreciated.

Before I get to the LT DC, since I wanted to give the cigars a rest from their short journey, even though they came in a ziplock with a Boveda, packed in a cigar box, in a bubble UPS mailer, overnighted only about 140 miles, I decided to smoke an old favorite, a La Sirena Trident of a newer vintage. I’ve smoked a bunch of the original, My Father made Tridents, but this is from a newer box, which is out of La Zona. I really enjoy the heck out of these cigars, over the last I don’t know, seven years or so, La Sirena has been a go-to brand for me. There’s something for every occasion in the portfolio, and the Classic line is great evening cigar with some strength and body, and spice. I still have a few of the Don Pepin Tridents left, but it’s unfair to judge a cigar with five years of age to a newer one and expect a fair comparison, but I think the new and the old compare favorably.

Thursday evening I decided the La Sirena LT Double Corona had enough time to recover, so I took it for a walk. I mentioned the Jaxx LT above, and the La Sirena LT is the same blend, made at the same factory, Plasencia’s El Paraiso in Honduras. As I said above, this is a 7½” x 52 cigar, set aside two and a half hours if you smoke at a reasonable rate. The usually large looking La Sirena band looks normal on this cigar, and it lacks the small under-band, but it does have a secondary foot-band. Many of the regular La Sirena cigars have a small band under the large one, so those with short memories, like myself, can remember what we are smoking when we  take the large band off! Obviously, due to its excessive length, this cigar starts out pretty mild, but it builds up pretty quickly to a reasonably robust smoke for a Connecticut (Ecuadoran). It has a rich flavor, with the sweet grassiness you expect from the Connectucut, but it’s not without body. Like I said, set aside a good amount of time to dedicate to this large cigar, I walked a mile, and still had a whole toro left when I got home! This was perfectly built, burn and draw were as they should be. These carry a $10 MSRP, which seems quite fair in this day and age.

I had to continue the La Sirena theme, so Friday I went with another large vitola, from yet another factory that they have making their cigars, Quesada in the DR. I really enjoy the Oceano line, I went with the Atlantic, the large belicoso in the line, at 7″ x 52.  This has a Dominican Habano Vuelta Arriba wrapper, Dominican Criollo binder and Dominican Criollo Visos and Ligeros and Nicaraguan Viso in the filler blend. Oddly, it’s a stronger blend than the La Sirena line, certainly the strongest in the portfolio in my estimation. I’ve had this box for about two and a half years, and they just keep getting better and better. It’s kinda on the sweet, peppery and earthy side of the flavor spectrum to me. I really like the blend. I featured the Indian in an article for a 2014 issue of Prime Living Magazine.

I was going to include one more cigar, a Perdomo Factory Tour Blend Connecticut Robusto that I smoked last night, but I’m thinking it might not fit in with the overall theme. I came across the cigar while rooting around one of the trays in the cabinet humidor (that sounds pretentious…) and remembered sitting with Dave Garafalo and Mr. Jonathon at the “Gala” opening party at the 2016 IPCPR. I put Gala in quotes because that year was about the worst opening reception I can recall in the 8 years of IPCPRs I’ve been to, the food ran out in the first 15 minutes, the cash bar was stupid expensive ($6 for a water, granted it was Fiji, but still!), it was lame. Last year, and what I’ve heard from this year, General Cigar Co. has demonstrated what an opening gala should be. But, since few of my readers can experience that, since IPCPR is an industry event, that really doesn’t mean a lot to most of you. Anyway, we were hanging out with Dave and Mr. J chatting, and Roy Kirby, Dave’s Perdomo rep, came over and handed us these Perdomo Factory Tour Connecticut cigars. He didn’t have to, it was very nice of him to do. I guess this one got shuffled to the back and overlooked over the last two years, it’s not like I could miss what it was given the enormity of the band. I guess it was the week for large banded cigars. Anyway, it was a nice, Connecticut cigar, lots of flavor, and you don’t have to take the factory tour to get them. It has a Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, Jalapa binder and Esteli fillers. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but, I’m still not going to say too much about it…

I posted episode 6 of the CigarCraig Podcast on Friday where I said my peace about the Altria FDA letter, but I’ll add this: Of course I support the exemption of premium cigar from FDA regulation and everyone who’s fighting for it. I just happen to be realistic in my thinking. I think Altria could have worded their response a little better than “we agree with the FDA that there is “no appropriate justification to exclude premium cigars from regulation”, but, as has been pointed out, they supported the passage of the Tobacco Control Act from the get go, as it helps them from a monopoly standpoint. Anyway, I stand by my belief, as pessimistic as it may be, that regulation is inevitable, and Altria’s letter was more positive than negative in that it provided for a common sense definition of what a premium cigar is and that they should be treated with more lenience. That’s it for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig