Rewind back to April of 2013, I was in the northern part of New Jersey killing time while my wife was at a Beatles festival, and visited Cigar Emporium in Lyndhurst. I met up with a few people I’d been corresponding with in the cigar blog world at the time, one of which was Alex Martinez, a police officer who had a blog called StogieCop. Later Alex would retire and manage Mane Street Cigars in Woodbridge, NJ. He ended up being the first buyer of the LFD NFT cigars, maybe the second as well, as well as the Tatuaje NFT (or two). Alex launched UnicornSmokes.com to sell NFTs and other hard to find cigars, and has recently started Exile Cigars, a brand celebrating his Cuban roots, and memorializing his father’s shoe stores in Havana. I don’t consider myself a sneakerhead, but I like having a variety of footwear choices, I have maybe a dozen or so pairs of sneakers I rotate through. Nobody cares about my footwear issues, let’s talk cigars!
The first cigar that caught my eye was the La Dalia. La Dalia is named in honor of the first shoe store opened by the Martinez family in Santiago de Cuba. This had a beautiful, oily Mexican San Andrés wrapper, with an Indonesian Sumatra binder and & fillers from the Dominican Republic, where these are rolled at the La Union factory. I can’t find any info on this factory, as familiar as it sounds. Perhaps Alex will weigh in. I smoked the 6″ x 50 toro, of course. I may get into the Limited Edition Corona Gorda later today. I really like this blend. It starts with some pepper, then eases into a spicy espresso, just what I like in a cigar. Kudos to the factory, this is a perfectly made cigar, burn and draw were perfect. This was a really enjoyable smoking experience! These run around $12 each, which is reasonable.
I have a habit of smoking first, and researching later, which can be a good thing I guess. I selected the M67 Habano knowing nothing about it. This one has nothing to do with shoes, it’s named after a grenade for some reason. This is a mixed filler cigar, with a Habano wrapper, Indonesian Sumatra binder with the fillers being the bench cuts from the La Dalia production. I’ve become snobby in recent years and generally avoid mixed fill cigars, although there are certainly some decent ones out there. It’s my understanding that one out of every six cigars that comes out of Nicaragua is a Quorum from the PENSA factory, which is an astounding statistic, but I still favor a long filler cigar. This M67, which also comes in a Connecticut version, was actually really good. Except for a bit of a flaky ash, one wouldn’t guess it’s mixed fill. This had what I perceive as a white sugar sweetness, which appeals to me, along with a subtle spice. This is probably the best $5 cigar I’ve smoked in a long time!
Wrapping up this round of sampling, I went with the Edición Limitada 2025 Exile Alaska. This is named after the third shoe store the Martinez family opened in Cuba. Juno why the called it that, I don’t know, Alaska! That joke doesn’t work well in the written form. The cigar is a 6″ x 46 Corona (I call it a Corona Gorda, which would be 5 5/8″ x 46, close enough). I have always liked this size. This one has an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Ecuadorian Sumatra binder and the fillers are Dominican. This is another perfectly made cigar, and it was quite delicious. There’s an odd sourness to start, along with some sweetness, which seems contradictory, but it worked. It’s creamy, in a coffee with cream and sugar kind of way. Another winner. I’m looking forward to trying the two Connecticut offerings, the M67 Connecticut and the Versalle. Alex is doing a great job with this line.
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
