Tag Archives: All Saints

by Craig Vanderslice | November 12, 2023 · 10:45 am

Trash Panda Connoisseur Club Over-Runs, All Saints and Micallef Cigars

I had a little different idea about how this week’s smoking was going to go. I got one each of the Connoisseur Club Over-Runs from TrashPanda, which are on sale for a ridiculously low price, by the way. These came with the caveat that they needed to be dryboxwd, as they had been sealed in the humidibags for several years. I opened them out and left them on the desk for a week (I think the house has been around 52% RH this week) thinking they would dry down sufficiently. The Foundation Lonsdales did, the Aganorsa Robustos did not, so you’ll have to wait until next week to read about that cigar and how there;s some left! I can tell you that the is quite a treat, and if you don’t go to TrashPanda.com and pick some up you’re foolish (and there’s nothing in it for me, at $25 each and buy one, get one, there’s probably not much in it for Kevin either!). the cigar is 6¼” x 46, has a Habano Nicaraguan grown wrapper, Habano Ecuador binder and fillers from Estelí and Jalapa. This is going to be a great cigar for the holiday season, because it has some really interesting warm spices, kinda like mulling spices. I thought it was very unique and delicious, and quite different from what Nick usually does. Maybe it’s close to something he’s come out with in the past two years that I haven’t gotten around to smoking? For $2.50 each you can’t go wrong, you might need to beat me to the checkout. I might note that TrashPanda is transitioning away from selling the rare and vintage cigars, and moving toward selling their own branded lines, so there are some great deals to be had all over the site. Again, nothing in it for me! (I just placed an order…as if I need more cigars…)

I’ve probably said this before, but I find that I have to talk myself into going out after a long day at work. I get home, eat dinner, and I just want to grab a cigar and retreat to the peace and quiet of my porch and enjoy that cigar for an hour and a half or thereabouts. Friday evening I had some choices to make, and I talked myself into heading to the Wooden Indian to celebrate All Saints Cigars 4th anniversary with Micky Pegg. When I arrived, Jim from Great Cigar Reviews was several hours in to his live podcast, which I assume was streaming on Youtube? Micky threw me to the wolves and sat me in front of the mic and Jim and I had a nice chat for a while. I had decided early in the day that I was in the mood for a Saint Francis Churchill, which was a motivating factor in going, I’ll admit. The cigar, as always, was delicious, it’s probably my favorite in the line. I came to be in possession of the new Solamente, which is going to be an annual release. I think I have one of the originals still in the humidor someplace. This is a 5″ x 58 cigar in the round, where the majority of the All Saints line is pressed. The Solamente comes in a box of 23, next year’s will be in a box of 24, and so on. How’s that going to work going into 2030? This is a $20 cigar, box buying is going to get a little cost prohibitive as the years progress. Anyway, I smoked it yesterday as I wanted to smoke it on a fresh palate. This. has an Ecuadorian Habano oscuro wrapper with Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers. I found this to be on the leathery side of the flavor spectrum, with some coffee notes, with a nice burn and draw. It was a fine cigar, but I’m in love with the Saint Francis and it’s hard to get me off that one right now, it suits me perfectly. It was fun hanging with Micky, I look forward to smoking the All Saints Collection Plate (my suggestion, doubt he’ll remember!). The Wooden Indian always has great events, they have a great staff and Dave, the owner is among the best guys around.

Of course, Micky Pegg wears two hats, when he isn’t a co-owner of All Saints, he’s the president of sales for Micallef Cigars, and I picked up a couple of their new toros as I’d been hearing good things about them. When it turned out that the Aganorsa Connoisseur Club cigars were still too wet to smoke, I grabbed one of the Micallef Black Toros to smoke last night. The first thing I notice when doing some background research on their website is that the have the measurements goofed up on this cigar. It’s 6″ x 52, not at all 5″ x 62 like the website says. Perhaps they should fix this. This has a San Andrés wrapper, Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan fillers. This is a cigar that appeals to me. The construction was perfect, it was a good, solid maduro cigar with a nice chocolaty flavor, and it was just a good cigar at a great price. I don’t know what more to say about this that hasn’t already been said by others, I’m late to the game, but it’s good, and at $8 it’s great, can’t go wrong if you like nice, medium bodied, sweet, earthy maduro cigars.

That’s all for today. I figure I should get the temperature i n the room about doing a Secret Santa again this year. I’m fairly sure I know one person who will be interested, but who else would like to get in on a cigar exchange? Let me know in the comments. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as All Saints, Black, cigar, cigars, Connoisseur Club, Foundation, Lonsdale, Micallef, Saint Francis, Solamente, Trash Panda

by Craig Vanderslice | March 19, 2023 · 10:12 am

Fratello, All Saints, Casino Real and Yaya Cigars

I’m running low on new stuff to smoke, in a few years I’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel! Seems like there’s always something new, it’s just a matter of getting my hands on stuff. A few weeks after my aborted attempt to be among the first to smoke the new Fratello Vice Versa with Omar when he released it in Virginia, I picked a couple up at a local shop. I would have gotten more, but these are no cheap date. I get it, they are expensive to make, they are bunched in a very specific way, and capped on both ends. Not begrudging Omar the price, just saying I’m a cheap prick and don’t buy more than a couple $15 cigars at a whack. I smoked prototypes last May, they were good. I smoked a Vice Versa this week and started with the strong end. This is an interesting cigar that smokes mild from one end and strong from the other. Seems like I should have gotten a third one, because the one I smoked, unfortunately, had a void in the first half and tunneled. After struggling with it for a while, it eventually corrected itself. I kinda missed the strong part, but it was a tasty cigar. This isn’t a small cigar at 7″ x 52, and it has a six country blend: Ecuador, Indonesia, Pennsylvania (USA) , the Dominican Republic, Peru and Nicaragua. Peruvian tobacco is a in almost all of Omar’s blends. I wonder if I would feel better about cutting this cigar in half, although if I think a $15 7″ cigar is expensive, two $7.50 3½” cigars actually seems pricier. I have one left, I’ll need to get a couple more eventually, I enjoyed the flavor.

Friday was Saint Patrick’s Day, so I smoked the new Firecracker cigar from United Cigars, the All Saints St. Patrick. This is a 3½” x 50 based on the St. Francis blend, which I really like. They accented the oscuro wrapper with a Candela, making a barber pole. It seemed to me to be stronger than the St. Francis, which is kinda the point. I didn’t taste much of the candela, to be honest. A lot of the candela barber pole cigars have that grassy candela flavor present, this wasn’t apparent except it might have contributed to some of the bite. It was good, I liked it. I typically only buy from 3 to 5 Firecrackers, maybe I should have gotten 5. It’s been a few years since I’ve gotten any, the last few didn’t capture my interest. If you find these, buy some, I bet they go fast. I wonder if All Saints will do a St. Bernard one day? It would have to be a large format.

Yesterday I did a little test of a platform that will let me do interviews remotely. Hopefully that is something that interests my readers. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do but finally got around to it. So I tested it yesterday with a couple of friends and smoked a Casino Real Double Toro (6″ x 60) which I think I got at the 2022 TPE show. This is a brand which is, from what I can tell, is distributed by Zander Greg/Nat Cicco. This is a Ecuador Habano wrapped cigar with Nicaraguan binder and fillers. It was a tasty cigar with some woody and coffee type flavors. The burn and draw were perfect. I have no idea what these cost but it was a solid smoke.

I got home from going out to dinner a bit late and decided it was a great time to smoke a short cigar. I said before that my go to is a 6″ cigar, I don’t mind bigger cigars, although I don’t often go over a 60 ring. So shorter cigars end up spending some time in the humidor often. I had a Yaya Short Robusto, which is a 2022 PCA exclusive, which I got from the United Cigars booth at the 2022 PCA show. I like the fact that this had the date on the band, it makes it harder for me to forget where it came from and when. Not impossible, just harder. I’ve heard good things about this cigar, so I was anxious to try it. It’s 4″ x 54, with an Ecuador Habano wrapper over Dominican fillers. These are made in Jose Dominguez’ Magia Cubana factory in the DR. I’ll be honest, there’s not a lot of cigar from this factory that have thrilled me. This one was the exception. It started out with a little bite, which I liked, and had some nice spice notes. It’s a tasty smoke!

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as All Saints, Casino Real, cigar, cigars, Firecracker, Fratello, St. Patrick, Yaya

by Craig Vanderslice | May 15, 2022 · 11:11 am

Cohiba Serie M, ATL Black and All Saints Cigars

Another exciting week! I rather expected an avalanche of press releases from Drew Estate after the event Thursday. I expect a bunch in the coming week. Of course, I smoked a bunch of cigars this week. One of my favorites was a La Sirena Trident, which I think is one of the best cigars out of the La Zona factory. I smoked one of the new size of the Cohiba Serie M this week, which they are calling a Corona Gorda. It’s actually 6½” x 48, so I don’t know what else one would call it, but I do like the size. I didn’t mention it when I wrote about the initial release in the 6″ x 52 shape, but I had some technical issues with the ones I smoked that were frustrating. Burn and draw types of issues that were not typical of cigars made at El Titan de Bronze from what I know, I can only attribute the problems to storage somewhere along the line. I still have a couple in deep storage to smoke sometime down the line. This smaller size was outstanding. It had the same woody profile, with some sweetness, and a sophistication that should come with a cigar priced where this is priced. This is what the press release said about the blend:

Crafted according to old-world techniques and featuring a double binder, closed foot and triple cap with a signature fan, Cohiba Serie M is a medium-to-full-bodied cigar brimming with depth and character. Made with exquisite, aged tobaccos, the cigar is enveloped in a lustrous Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper, a first for Cohiba. The binder is Nicaraguan and the blend features hand-selected Nicaraguan Jalapa and Esteli and Dominican Piloto Cubano tobaccos.

It’s a tasty cigar, and a good looking cigar too. I’m fortunate that I was given samples to try, because I personally would have been scared off by the price tag, but that’s just me, I’m a cheap bastard. I was really pleased that it burned perfectly and I had a great experience smoking it. very pleasurable.

Another pleasurable cigar I smoked this week (I try to reach 100% pleasurable cigars if at all possible!), was the ATL Black in a torpedo format. This is a 6″ x 52, with a San Andrés wrapper. these are made in the Pichardo factory, where they made their “Magic”, which I thought was excellent. I think a recent change, something makes me think these were originally made by Martinez in New York. I never sampled the original, so I can’t be certain of that. I like Martinez cigars. I also apparently like Pichardo cigars, because I really liked the ATL Black Torpedo. It was quite a bit different in flavor that I expected from a San Andrés wrapper maduro cigar. It was a meaty, savory tasting cigar, as opposed to a sweet maduro. This entertains me. As much as I have a sweet tooth when it comes to cigars (not only cigars), I like a nice, tasty surprise. I don’t like bad tasting surprises, but I like good tasting surprises like this one. Quite yummy. If you don’t know much about ATL cigars, I spoke with Leroy at the TPE show, the video is here.

I spent Friday evening hanging out with Micky Pegg of All Saints cigars and smoked a Dedicación Mitre that he handed me that was very good. Micky is introverted and quiet…I lie, he’s quite the opposite. As long as I’m linking back to TPE content, my video with him is here. I’m going to intentionally leave out where I hung out with Micky, and there will more on that at a later date. Let’s just say I won’t be giving a certain place any more free advertising here. Last night I smoked my favorite cigar in the All Saints line, the Saint Francis Churchill. This box pressed 7″ x 48 Ecuador Oscuro wrapped cigar is like smoking desert. I actually smoked one Friday night, and one again last night. Such a great smoke. Micky actually told me that he blends to the Churchill size, which is a bit unusual, but explains why I tend to like that size in his line the best across the board. I suppose it helps that I like that size cigar! The Saint Francis was one of my favorite cigars of last year, and remains a favorite. Big fan.

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

CigarCraig

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Tagged as All Saints, ATL, Black, cigar, cigars, cohiba, Saint Francis, Serie M

by Craig Vanderslice | January 30, 2022 · 8:00 am

TPE2022 Thoughts and a Few Minutes with Micky Pegg of All Saints Cigars

As I’m getting ready to fly home I’m reflecting on the last few days at the TPE show. This was my first major event in two years, mostly pandemic related, but there were also some personal concerns. At the risk of appearing less than humble, I had forgotten how many people I knew in the cigar industry. It was great reconnecting with so many old friends, and making a bunch of new ones! Actually one of the things I was thinking about going in was the media attendance. I have a very narrow sphere of podcasts and sites I follow, I’m less in tune with the “influencers”, be they Instagramers or Youtubers out there. I met a few of the Youtube folks with whom we have mutual friends, or other business crossovers, and I saw a bunch of people taking selfies in the aisles, but I couldn’t tell you who they are. One thing I think the TPE could do better is to put the name of the media outlet on the badge instead of just the person’s real name and “Media”. I learned on my first go around to put one of my logo stickers on my badge to visually identify myself. One of my favorite things about the last few days was hanging out with friends I don’t get to see often, they are in my ear on a weekly basis, but we never share the same space. Over the next few months you’ll hear about the cigars I came across, but for me the show was about networking, and I was able to talk to just about everyone I wanted to talk to.

One of the people I talked to quite a bit at the show was Micky Pegg of All Saints Cigars. Of course, the Saint Francis was one of my favorite cigars of last year. The funny thing is that Micky lives a few mile away from me, and had to fly 2500 miles away to hang out with him. I mic’d him up and we chatted for a few minutes:

Stay tuned for more quick video interviews over the next few days. Other people do it better, but it’s easier than taking notes and typing!

Check out How Bout That Cigar, Smokin Tabacco, Developing Palates, Blind Man’s Puff, HaveaPremiumCigar.com and Cigar Show Tim for lots of TPE coverage! That’s all for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as All Saints, cigar, cigars, TPE

by Craig Vanderslice | January 23, 2022 · 10:08 am

All Saints Saint Francis Colorado and Black Label Intergalactic Cigars

As I’m preparing to head out to the TPE this week, I was rummaging around for something new to smoke and coming up with nuthin. sure I have a couple things I haven’t smoked before that are about two years old, but they hardly qualify as new. I have a lot of cigars I love to smoke, a lot of cigars that I’m just kinda holding on to for my retirement stash, but I need to sprinkle in some new stuff to write about, right? So I stopped by Son’s again, because they are close by, have a great selection of the newest releases, and take great care of me. A few weeks ago Mickey Pegg mentioned to me someplace that he had to get me his new Saint Francis Colorado, so I picked up a few of those in the toro size to sample. Of course, the original Saint Francis placed high on my pseudo-list of 2021, if I were to put a number to it it would be a solid number two. That doesn’t sound right, but I’m going with it, it’s something we all aspire to. The All Saints Saint Francis Colorado toro is a 6½” x 52, which isn’t uncommon for Toros made at Rocky Patel’s factory. This cigar has an Ecuador Habano wrapper, obviously not fermented to an oscuro like the original, and the Nicaraguan fillers were tweaked, so it’s a slightly different blend that the former. I thought it had a sweet cream flavor, and it was very good. Maybe milder than the Oscuro, which packs a punch, and perhaps better suited for earlier in the day, which is when I smoked it. While my palate prefers the Oscuro, it was still an excellent cigar which I would go to over a great many other cigars. I suppose I’ll see Mickey at the TPE and tell him what I think!

A couple weeks back I posted the press release about the Black Works Studio Intergalactic, so I picked up a couple of those in the Corona Larga size. I love a Sumatra wrapper, and I enjoy the Black Works cigars generally. Seemed like a safe bet. To recap, this has a Dark Sumatra wrapper, Ecuador Habano binder and Nicaraguan fillers, and comes in the Corona Larga and Robusto sizes. I picked the Corona Larga on a whim, it looked good. This cigar had a great burn and draw. The flavors included some spice, sweetness and earth, all very nice. Another really good cigar from Black Works Studio. I don’t see BLTC on the exhibitor list for the TPE, they were there in 2020. I guess I won’t visit them there!