by | May 28, 2017 · 10:01 am

Felix Assouline, Cain and Man O’War Cigars

FelixAssouline_SomethingSpecial_SublimeIt’s Memorial Day Weekend for my US readers, let’s remember that this weekend is about those who serve and paid the ultimate price, it’s not Veterans Day. Memorial Day is for the folks who didn’t come back and I thank them and their families for their sacrifice. I hope every celebrates in a safe and responsible manner! Friday my wife and I went out to the local Movie Tavern and had dinner and a movie, which is a nice way to go. We saw the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie which we really enjoyed. When we got home I grabbed a cigar that my Secret Santa George (thanks George!) sent last December, the Felix Assouline Something Special Sublime. This is a 5″ x 52 box pressed robusto that has a Habano Criollo 98 wrapper, Indonesian binder and fillers from Nicaragua and Honduras. It was a nice looking cigar, I’m generally not a Criollo fan, but the cigar looked enticing with its nic

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e box press. It had an earthy, leathery flavor, not a lot of sweetness, and a really nice burn. I know next to nothing about this brand, but it looks like they sell direct on their website, and the Something Special line is reasonable price, this robusto coming in at $5.60. While perusing the website, it appears that they have a line called EGO, which would have been an appropriate cigar to follow the movie we saw (no spoilers).

 

Cain_Daytona_LanceroSaturday was a two cigar day, and I decided to start out with a cigar from the depths of the humidor, one that has been in there for at least five years. Oliva’s Cain line, and their Studio Tabak division was a pretty big deal, putting a pretty traditional company on the map with a cutting edge line. The Cain Daytona Lancero was, at the time I got it, a bit of a unicorn, I believe it was only available at events. I have one more in the humidor that has a secondary band with the Studio Tabak designation, I think the one I smoked was older. The Cain Daytona follows the Cain tradition of using Ligero in the majority of the blend, this one uses all Ligero from Nicaragua’s Jalapa region, which make it a bit more refined than it’s siblings which employ Ligeros from Esteli and Condega in addition to the Jalapa. The Cain line seems to have lost steam over the years, maybe not surprising as the face of the brand, as well as it’s creator, left the company to form Leccia Tobacco, and subsequent attempts at putting a face to the brands didn’t last. I keep a constant eye out for a great deal on this brand, I wouldn’t mind having a box of Cains in  my humidor.

 

ManOWar_Ruination_SEFiguradoLast night I went with a large Salomon cigar, the Man O’War Ruination Special Edition Figurado. A month or so ago I saw a three pack of Man O’ War Salomons for something stupid like $5, with the shipping it came out closer to $14, but still a pretty good deal. Truth is, I’m a sucker for good deals, this one I couldn’t pass up. the Man O’ War line is made by AJ Fernandez and distributed by Meyer & Dutch, and is probably mostly associated with Cigars International, but they can be found in other major retailers as well as it’s not an exclusive brand. I have trouble finding specifics on this particular ci

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gar,  I think it was only available in a Salamon sampler of some sort (a bit of alliteration for you there), it looks like Cigar.com has a bundle with four each of the Ruination, Legend and Man O’War for $50. The cigar is a massive 7-1/8″ x 58 and is tapered with a nipple foot. This cigar has an interesting and unique flavor in the savory family, I think, or maybe it’s a spice, I’m not sure. Whatever the flavor is, it’s not one I normally come across, but I think I’ve experienced it in another Man O’ war cigar before, one of their limited edition lines. It has an Ecuador Habano wrapper, with mostly Ligero from Nicaragua and Honduras. I guess I had a Ligero kinda Saturday going on, its a wonder I didn’t have crazy dreams last night! Bottom line: I enjoyed the Man O’War Ruination Salomon, but by the time it got the about two inches it lost my interest, that unique flavor passed and I put it  down, got a little bored with

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it. Of course, this is a risk with longer cigars, and I’m not disappointed in the least.

 

That’s enough out of me to

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day. It’s a nice day so far, and would like to get a few things accomplished around the house/yard before it rains and I’m stuck in the enclosed porch smoking cigars! Have a safe weekend! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | May 26, 2017 · 10:22 pm

“With All Due Respect, Mr. Baker, I’d Like to Keep My Job” a Guest Post By Gary Korb

Going  into this long weekend, here’s a special guest post from our friends at Famous Smoke Shop, please visit their cigar smoker’s right hub at http://fda.famous-smoke.com/

 

“With All Due Respect, Mr. Baker, I’d Like to Keep My Job”By Gary Korb

 

When I moved from my native state of New Jersey to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley in 2003, there were some nice advantages. Among them were fewer traffic jams, lower taxes and more places where I could smoke premium cigars, including my place of work, a national online premium cigar retailer. Back then, you could light-up a cigarette or a cigar at most bars, some restaurants, and of co

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urse, the cigar stores.

Eventually, the State passed a more restrictive smoking law. No more smoking in restaurants, offices, or bars, with some very few exceptions. No surprise, since this was the case in my former New Jersey, and anti-smoking regs just tend to go viral. But I could still enjoy cigar in my company office thanks to a special State permit, and fortunately, the retail cigar store and restaurant/cigar bar my company also owns was granted the appropriate licenses, etc. Yes, we played by the rules, and I, along with my fellow employees were able to continue doing one of the things we enjoy most – smoking a good premium handmade cigar. (One half of our building is cordoned-off as a non-smoking area for employees who do not partake.) Besides, smoking cigars is part of my job. That’s what I do. I smoke and write about premium cigars for a living. And I’m not alone. Pennsylvania also happens to be home to several other nationally-known online cigar retailers, not to mention dozens of brick & mortar tobacco shops owned by hard-working businessmen and women across the State.

Everything’s going fine until I see a news blurb on this Cigar Smokers’ Rights page about State Representative, Matthew Baker, who has introduced House Bill HB-1309 to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. If passed it would prohibit smoking in premium cigar retail stores, cigar bars, private clubs, casinos and all other indoor businesses and venues in Pennsylvania. REALLY, Mr. Baker? Isn’t it enough that the tobacco retailers in Pennsylvania have a hard enough time fighting-off tobacco tax increases, and you want to just pull the whole rug out from under all of us? If this bill should pass, a lot of people would be out of work and companies like mine would be hit the hardest. That’s a lot of tax dollars that the State would soon be out of, as well.

Then there are all of the consumers, the cigar smokers who not only buy their cigars at local cigars shops here, but also have the opportunity to light-up in them. NOTE: Most cigar smokers do not smoke inside their homes. They need places like cigar stores, private clubs, or the Sands Casino, for example.

Fighting taxes and the FDA is one thing, but fighting for our right to smoke, which is still legal in the United States, is another. Having spent almost 16 years in the cigar business, I’ve grown accustomed to the shrill harping of the anti-smoking crowd, but this goes beyond the pale. Therefore, I want to encourage my fellow Pennsylvania cigar smokers to fight the passage of House Bill HB-1309 by every legal means necessary. (One of our customers suggested a protest herf in front of Rep. Baker’s house.) Since protests are en vogue these days, maybe that’s what it’s come down to. Or to pu

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t it another way by paraphrasing anchorman Howard Beale’s famous line from the movie, Network, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!”

 

GaryKorbGary Korb is the Executive Editor at CigarAdvisor.com, a premium cigar news, information and review website.

 

Thank you to Gary for sharing this, and Famous Smoke Shop. Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | May 24, 2017 · 9:09 pm

Amador Garcia Cigars

This is a Wednesday quickie highlighting the Amador Garcia Superior cigars. Last August I heard from Antonio Garcia asking if he could send me a couple of the cigars he and his cousin were working on, and a couple of weeks ago I received a package with a couple of samples, the Robusto and Toro in the Natural line and the Churchill in the maduro line. Their website is in its infancy, it looks like eventually the cigars will be available for purchase, but, as of this writing, there are no cigars listed. I was hoping to get some blend information from  there, but I’ll have to rely on the information related in the letter I received with the cigars. They are made in the Dominican Republic, presumably at Tabacalera Amador Garcia. Guess which one I chose first!

 

AmadorGarcia_SuperiorMaduro_ChurchillThe Amador Garcia Churchill Maduro is a 7″ x 50 Churchill, with a dark, rustic wrapper. The Superior Maduro has a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, with Nicaraguan binder and Dominican filler. This cigar was pure espresso from the start, right up my alley! It had the dark, rich bitterness I like with some bitter-sweet chocolate on top of the espresso. The construction was excellent, the burn was straight and even with a flat burn, and the draw had just the right amount of resistance. This was a wonderful smoke, and burned for the better part of two hours. This is a cigar I would have in my regular rotation, if I had one I smoke too many different cigars to settle into a pattern, and you’d get bored reading about the same cigars every week!. Surely it would fit into the go-to category. Thumbs up!

 

AmadorGarcia_Superior Natural_ToroThe Amador Garcia Superior Natural is listed as an Ecuador wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Dominican filler. The Toro I smoked was 6″ x 52, and, like it’s maduro cousin, was exceptionally crafted. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the wrapper is an Ecuador Connecticut, as it was lighter in color, although on the darker end of the scale for that varietal, but the flavor had the creaminess that I associate with the Connecticut leaf grown under the cloud cover of Ecuador. It was solidly medium in strength, but had loads of rich, milk chocolate and coffee with cream. Loads of flavor with a great burn and draw. This one came in under two hours, and built-in strength a bit towards the end, maintaining a flat and even burn. I’m looking forward to seeing where these fall price-wise, and how they end up marketing them, because for an unknown (to me, at least), new brand, they are making excellent cigars that taste great.

 

That’s all for now. Memorial Day weekend is coming up in the US, so pick out some great smokes and have a great weekend! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | May 21, 2017 · 9:25 am

Epic Cigars with Dean and Mick at the Wooden Indian

EpicMaduroGordoFriday evening I went down to the Wooden Indian Tobacco Shop in Havertown, PA to smoke some Epic cigars with brand owner Deans Parsons and his national sales manager, Mick, and of course, Dave and Dan at the shop. I first was introduced to Dean at a cigar shop in Colorado the night before the 2014 Rocky Mountain Cigar Festival, by Eric from Cigar Dojo. Dean is one of those cigar manufacturers that I make a point to visit and support whenever he makes an appearance close by, he and Mick are just really likable guys, and the Epic cigar line is very, very good. As is my custom, I bought a handful of Epic cigars to add to my inventory at home, and lit up an Epic Maduro in the 6″ x 60 Gordo size. As always, this is a great smoke with sweet coffee/cocoa notes that’s well made. this line, to my memory, used be called the Maduro Reserve but that’s been simplified over the years to just Maduro. The Combination of Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper, a Cameroon binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers are rolled in the Charles Fairmorn factory in the Dominican Republic as is all of the cigars bearing the Epic name. The largest output of this factory is the Kristoff line. I love all of the cigars in the Epic line, but I always default to the Maduro for some reason (OK, I know the reason, 90% of the time I default to maduro!) I continued my Epic cigar run through Saturday.

 

Epic_SmokingShieldsExclusiveOne of the special projects Dean recently worked on was a cigar for the Smoking Shields Cigar Club, a fraternal organization of cigar smoking law enforcement officers out of New York. I had the opportunity to purchase one of these special cigars at the event, so I jumped on it. After lightning up the E

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pic Smoking Shields Exclusive yesterday, I want more! Holy crap is this a great cigar for my palate! It’s a 6″ x 54 Toro, with the Brazilian maduro wrapper again, this time with a Dominican Olor binder and Dominican fillers (translated from a German e-tail site that carries the marque, Atlantic Cigars has them too). It’s a beautiful cigar, bearing the Smoking Shields band primarily, with the Epic band in the secondary position. It starts out straight espresso, that great

, rich, a little bitter, but delicious flavor that makes a shot of espresso special!  Right about the time the Epic band needs to be removed, it shifts from medium to full in stren

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gth, something that Dan at the Wooden Indian mentioned and turns out to be true (I’ve found that Dan has an excellent palate). Some of my favorite cigars recently are the Mi Querida, the Tabernacle, Nica Rustica (all broadleaf, by the way) , but this is a cigar that fits into the same category, and it burned as perfectly as a cigar could burn, effortless draw, straight as an arrow and all the tobaccos burned at the same rate leaving a nice, flat ember when ashed. the folks at Smoking Shields are lucky to have such a great cigar to represent them!  Great job on this one Dean!

 

EpicLaRubiaSGAlmost a year ago I smoked a pre-release sample of the Epic La Rubia, the Connecticut shade offering in the Epic range. Since then I’ve had a few of the 4½” x 60 Short Gordos in the humidor waiting for the right time to smoke. Oddly, I love this size. It’s a little bigger than the Nub line, shorter than a 6″ x 60, just right for me if I have to smoke a 60 ring cigar (not that I don’t smoke my share of 6″ x 60s). Not a commercial, but my friends at Best Cigar Prices like this size too, they have a whole bunch of exclusives i

n what they call the Robolo, many of which I’ve sampled and enjoyed.  I guess that was a bit of a commercial. Anyway, Dean told me long ago that his Canadian customers requested this size, which is curious and unexpected in my mind. So after dinner and before a movie was the perfect time to bust one Epic_LaRubia_ShortGordoif these out and light it up. As with all of the other Epic cigars in my experience, it burned well. Like the pre-release sample I smoked last June, this was a solid medium bodied cigar, with a hint of the Ecuador Connecticut twang and a good core flavor. This has a San Andrés binder that gives it a little extra sweetness to offset the grassyness of the wrapper, and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. Another winner from Epic, it’s a great anytime cigar that is neither boring nor overwhelming. I’m happy I have more of these on hand!

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | May 17, 2017 · 8:50 pm

Oscar Habano and Tatuaje Pudgy Monsters Mummy Cigars

OscarHabano_SixtyHappy Wednesday everyone!  Over the weekend I picked up a couple of the Oscar Habano cigars with the candela outer wrapping.  I selected the Sixty for my Monday evening walk. It looks pretty ugly at first glance, the dry, green outer wrapping, a candela leaf taking the place of cellophane, but under that is a beautiful Ecuador Habano wrapper over a Honduran binder and fillers from Honduras and Nicaragua. This Sixty is 6″ x 60 as you would suspect. I got a toro as well, but had the time for the Sixty, so why not?  I’m one of the oddballs in the blogging game that doesn’t mind a 60 ring cigar. This was a terrific cigar, almost worth the $13 price tag, although I expect a lot from cigars in that price range. It was smooth, rich and chocolaty with some woody notes. This is from the same factory that makes the Leaf by Oscar, which is fairly obvious given the presentation, but it’s a totally different smoke.  I’m a fan of the Leaf line, most of the wrapper varieties, at least most of them, and this compliments that range quite well. It may be a little more suave than that line. I wasn’t disappointed.

 

Tatuaje_PudgyMummyLast night I went with another cigar from the Tatuaje tour pack that I mentioned last time. Included were three of the Pudgy Monsters selections, of which I selected the Pudgy Mummy. This cigar is presented in a 5¾”x 47 size, an eighth of an inch longer and one ring gauge larger than a traditional corona gorda. I rather expected the Pudgy series to all be robustos, so this one was a nice surprise. My experience with the Tatuaje Monster series is limited, I can only really remember smoking a Mummy a couple years ago, a Wolfman, and I have a Hyde floating around somewhere, I think. The Pudgy Mummy is a Nicaraguan Puro, with a Nicaraguan Criollo wrapper, and I love a closed foot.  I decided to try a V-cut on this one, once in a while I remember I have the Xikar XV and whip it out. I figure if the draw isn’t right I can always cut it again. In this case, it gave the perfect draw, and the cigar burned well, needing very few corrections. I thought it was a bit mellower than I’m accustomed to with the Tatuaje line, very smooth and dignified. This would be e nice cigar for someone who finds many of the Tatuaje offerings to be stronger than they like. It had some nice, cedary notes with a bit of spice.  Nice cigar, I suppose it was reminiscent of the full size version. I can hardly wait to delve into the other two Pudgy Monsters examples, I believe they are the Drac and Wolf, although the Wolf band looks different from pictures I’ve seen.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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