Tag Archives: American Eagles

Memorial Day Weekend Cigars: a JD Hightower, an American Eagles and a Humidor Review

JD Hightower_3

Shown with a 5×44 corona

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day, warmer than Saturday, but still breezy. I decided that the time had come to finally smoke a cigar that was given to me last year at the IPCPR show by Victor Vitale. The cigar in question was the JD Hightower 6″ x 70 box pressed cigar. I’ve been waiting for the right time given the size of this monstrous cigar. Its roughly the size of a king size Milky Way candy bar. I also have had bad experiences with Victor Sinclair cigars (made by Jose Dominguez, the JD in the name of the cigar) to the extent that I’ve sworn I’d never smoke another one, but since Victor Vitale made this for Jose, I figured it deserved a shot. The first challenge is finding a cutter that would handle this. Normally a large ring cigar is do-able in most cutters, but I knew the Xikar XV wasn’t going to do the trick. I picked the Drew Estate Bulletproof perfect cutter and it worked fairly well, although I had to trim a little bit of binder off with a pair of scissors. The draw was perfect, and it burned relatively well over the course of the two hours it took me to smoke. I very much enjoyed the blend, it was a tasty smoke. It had nice, savory flavors that were enjoyable throughout the cigar. I can’t say that it was a very comfortable cigar to smoke or hold. While the box press minimizes the 70 ring gauge a little, it’s still huge and unwieldy. While I’ve grown accustomed to the 60 ring cigars, 70 is just too big. I’m not sorry I smoked it, I had a beautiful 2+ hours enjoying it on a lazy and beautiful Sunday afternoon. This was yet another nice smoke from Victor Vitale.

 

 

IMG_0515[1]Monday was Memorial Day, and I decided to take the dog for a walk at nearby Valley Forge National Historic Park. I selected my last American Eagles Robusto to smoke for a couple reasons. First, the American Eagles is a nice cigar, well made and tasty. They support the military by donating part of their profits to Semper Fi, and it’s got a patriotic theme. The final reason was because I always feel conspicuous smoking in a public place, and I figured if the cigar was camouflaged it would stand out less. IMG_0513[1]I always figure someone might say something about me smoking a cigar, and I can respond with something like “a cigar? I don’t see a cigar, what are you talking about?”, but perhaps this is yet another one of those things that’s only funny in my head. Anyway, we started at the Memorial Arch, and probably walked a good 5 or 6 miles around the outside of the park on the multi-use trail. It was a stunning day, the cigar was great, smooth, mild and full of flavor, and nobody looked askance at the fact that I was smoking a cigar. Puccio and I were plenty tired out after that walk and went home for lunch (we had gotten an early start).

 

CC_CigarSafariBlend2013After lunch I decided it was time to try out one of the cigars I blended on my recent Cigar Safari trip. As I said before, I went into the blending session there determined to recreate the blend I had made two years prior, but all the tobacco, like the proverbial shiny object, distracted me and I decided to get creative. I went into specifics in my post about the blending session a few weeks ago.  All in all I really enjoyed the cigar. There was a lot of flavors dancing around between the San Andreas Negro wrapper, the Cameroon binder and the Mata Fina, all pretty sweet tobaccos in my book. I will certainly be interested in seeing how these age, and I’ll compare them at some point to my blending attempt from two years ago. These were rolled by the Liga Privada pairs, so the construction was without flaw, it burned perfect, had a nice, flat coal and an even burn and draw. I hated to put it down.

 

 

Humidor Review

 

AdoriniHumidor2This will be an ongoing project over the next several months. The folks at HumidorDiscount.com sent me their Adorini Cedro Deluxe Humidor to evaluate and report upon. Initially I’m very impressed. This shipped from Germany, and only took a few days. It was packaged very well, it was boxed, bubble wrapped, then had a retail box that was lined with 1/8” styrofoam. The humidor was in it’s own cloth bag inside the box, and contained some dividers, Write-on tabs which attach to the dividers to label your stock, a bottle of humidor solution, and brass humidifier with a polymer media, and a small dial hygrometer. The humidor itself while reasonably plain (I think there is an elegance in it’s simplicity), is solidly built with walls that are a full inch thick, and the lid closes on a nice cushion of air telling me that it seals well and AdoriniHumidor1should be made right. Heck, my The Griffins humidor HAS to be locked or the lid doesn’t close all the way, and doesn’t close with a woosh. It also features “Unique ventilation ribs (“RibTech”) for improved air circulation within humidor”, and I like the hidden magnetic plate in the lid that allows the hygrometer and humidifier to be positioned wherever you want it on the lid without screws or glue or anything. So far I’ve added some of the enclosed solution along with some distilled water to the humidifier and will start seasoning it. When I think it’s ready I’ll fill it up and see how it does. I’ll be keeping track of it’s progress and posting that here on a weekly basis. My personal modus operandi when it comes to humidors is to let them do their thing and not get too worked up about daily monitoring (read: I’m lazy), so that will be a feature I look for, holding temp and humidity and not having to fiddle with it much. Thanks to Silvia at HumidorDiscount.com for allowing me the oportunity to evaluate one of your humidors.

 

 

That’s it for now, until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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A Few Short Smokes: Chateau Real, American Eagles and a Griffin’s

I dipped into the little guys for the early part of the week.  It’s been cold, and time has been limited.  I usually save up the little cigars for this time of year, coronas, half coronas, short 30 or 45 minute cigars that taste good, and are perfect for a quick mile or so walk around the neighborhood.

 

I began the week with a favorite, the Chateau Real Small Club Corona Maduro.  I believe these are discontinued, which is a shame, because I really like the Mexican maduro wrapper on these. As with everything from Drew Estate, they always burn well, and, let’s face it, a four inch cigar doesn’t have a lot of room for error.  I bought a box of these sometime in the fall of 2009, and just dug into the last half of the box.  Nice little smokes!

 

Last night I grabbed an American Eagles Half Corona, which I received a few months back from Chris at Sardell Imports.  This is a camouflage wrapped cigar, it had a beautiful Connecticut shade wrapper that’s overlaid with maduro and candella pieces to give it the camo look.  Sure, it’s gimmicky, but it’s a really solid cigar, perfect burn and draw, and a rich mid to medium bodied flavor that is really nice, smooth, creamy and delicious. It a fun cigar, quite tasty and well behaved. I have a whole comedy routine ready for the day I smoke one in a public place and someone complains about it. Seriously, a  portion of the proceeds from these cigars go toward the Semper Fi Fund, and they are blended by Hendrick Kelner, so they are very high quality. I side note, there was a cigar shop in the hotel I stayed at in the Dominican Republic that sold these.

 

This evening I decided to break into one of the boxes of Griffin’s 500 coronas that I inadvertently won on a face book contest. I swear, I have no recollection of entering, although I must have because a beautiful Griffin’s Humidor and two boxes of these beauties showed up at my door last month.  I can always use more humidor space, and these cigars are nice.  These 5 1/16″ x 42 coronas are a classic Connecticut shade cigar. Mild, but no shortage of flavor. Of course, the construction was perfect, as these come from the house of Davidoff.  I honestly have never had a Griffin’s before, always priced outside of my comfort zone.  This will be a great cigar for that first balmy Saturday morning on the deck with coffee.

 

Don’t forget to pester your elected officials about the FDA nonsense! It’s important!  Here’s the link to the form again:

 

That’s all for now, Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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A 601 La Bomba, a San Lotano Oval, News and a Contest Winner!

While perusing CigarEvents.com it came to my attention that Eddie Ortega of EO Brands was going to be making an appearance at my local shop, JM Cigars, in Exton, PA. After dinner my son and I made our way over there.  We promptly purchased some of the last 601 La Bombas that they had and fired one of these badboys up and visited with Eddie for a while. I have been patronizing this shop since the mid-90s and it’s one of the best around.  The shop was packed and the LA Bomba was awesome. I had only previously had a pre-release sample, which I loved.  These are terrific cigars with a little bit of strength.  It’s always a good time hanging out with Eddie, and I got to catch up with an old friend, Rob, after the shop cleared out.  Nice bunch of folks, and a fine way to spend a chilly Friday evening.

 

Saturday’s walk cigar was a San Lotano Oval which I received from Clay at AJ Fernandez a few months ago.  These cigars are unique in the fact that they, as the name implies, are oval shaped.  I smoked the 6 x 54 toro, which looks like it was squished.  The shape is very comfortable to smoke, and, like a box press, it doesn’t roll off the table when you set it down. there’s a bright flavor in this cigar that I enjoy but can’t put a finger on.  All I know is that this is a tasty, well made and interesting cigar! I look forward to a maduro version one day!

 

News

There were two new entries into the blogosphere recently that I think are notable.  First, Frank Seltzer, who you see writing in all the big cigar magazines and around the web, is now contributing to the JR Cigars blog.   Frank is a real journalist, and I’m proud to say he’s an old friend.  He has a couple articles in the latest JR catalog as well.  Also breaking into the blog world is Gary Griffith of Emilio Cigars, with “From Seed To Smoke“.  Gary’s pretty prolific on Twitter and he’s making some outstanding cigars and is a heck of a nice guy who I’m also proud to call friend.  I look forward to reading what he has to say.  I HAVE to get down to Delaware and visit him at his shop one of these days!

 

Contest!

Let’s get to the part you’ve all been waiting for, the selection of this month’s contest winner.  The prize consists of the following: a Drew Estate cap and a Liga Privada cutter, a Stogieboys.com Cigar Journal, a C-Gars Ltd. ring gauge card, a Liga Privada T52 Belicoso, a Monte Pascoal Belicoso and a American Eagles Half Corona.   Thank you to all of the generous sponsors of this contest. As usual, I created a spreadsheet of the eligible entries and assigned them numbers based upon the time of the entry.  I consulted with the Random.Org True Random Number Generator for the winning number.  The number 19 came up, which corresponds to an entry via Twitter by @s5592c, aka Steve Christopher.  Congrats to Steve and thanks for reading!  Please e-mail me your contact info so I can ship this stuff out to you! Thanks to everyone for entering, and keep an eye out for next months contest!

 

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

 

CigarCraig

 

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A CroMagnon, a Berger and Argenti and a Video

Over the weekend I took a CroMagnon Anthropology out for a walk. This cigar was given to me in Vegas by Skip Martin, the brand owner. The cigar was unbanded, and had a nice, oily Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper.  I really like the gran corona size, at 5¾ x 46, it’s just about the perfect size.  The cigar burned perfectly and had a full flavor that strikes me just right.  I always enjoy the flavor from a Cameroon binder, I think it adds a nice sweet component to the blend.  Thank you, Skip, for the opportunity to enjoy this cigar and I wish you the best of luck with this and future endeavors!

 

Tuesday evening was was such a nice, pleasant fall evening that I wanted a nice big cigar.  I had been eying a Berger and Argenti Entubar Quad Maduro torpedo that I brought back from the IPCPR show, as I had enjoyed the regular Entubar as well as the Mooch and Classico lines.  I have to say that I was sorely disappointed with this cigar.  It had some difficulty burning properly and the dark, rich flavors I expected from this cigar didn’t really kick in until the last couple of inches.  Once it got near the band it came close to meeting my expectations, but by that time I was a little annoyed with the effort.  I have another that I will try at a later date.  I did get a bit of a nicotine hit near the end, which wasn’t unexpected.

 

I threatened to sprinkle in some videos and stuff from the General Cigar trip, so here is a few minutes of our tour of one of the tobacco warehouses.  This was an amazing facility, with bales of tobacco stacked to the ceiling.  Edmundo Garcia, General Cigar’s Tobacco Operations Manager, took us through the facility.  Once again, the audio isn’t great, but it’s an interesting visual experience.  You will notice some bright lights here and there with what look like white boxes, these are tobacco beetle traps and are monitored quite closely.  Imagine a beetle outbreak among this multi-million dollar inventory?

 

 

That’s it for now, please go back to the last post and enter the contest.  I’ve added some cigars to the package, a Liga Privada T52 Belicoso, a Monte Pascoal Belicoso, and an American Eagles Half Corona.  Who knows what else may end up in there…I’m weird that way…so go back and leave a comment, I’ll announce a winner on Sunday!

Until then,

CigarCraig

 

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This Week’s Cigars So Far: Power House, Ashton VSG, American Eagles and Cigar Mechanic

Here’s a brief run down of some of the cigars I’ve enjoyed so far this week, and another short video from the IPCPR show.

Power House by Cuban Crafters – This one one of a handful that Kiki Berger gave me at the IPCPR show last month.  I’ve been trying to find information about them to no avail.  True to it’s name, it starts out with a blast of strength.  I almost thought I wasn’t going to make it through the cigar, it was just too much nicotine for the first inch or so.  It mellowed a little after a while and became a very nice smoke, full of dark flavors.  I have no idea what the make up of this cigar is, but I’m going to guess it has a broadleaf wrapper, and Nicaraguan fillers.  After the initial blast of strength I enjoyed this cigar.  Perhaps some humidor time will mellow that part out of it.  Oddly, samples of Cuban Crafters cigars I’ve had in the past have not thrilled me, but recent cigars I’ve smoked from Tabacalera Esteli have been more to my liking.  Kiki Berger is a really nice guy too, I’m happy and fortunate to have met him at Cigar Safari and spent some time talking to him at the show.

 

Ashton Virgin Sun Grown Torpedo – Came across this one in the humidor after rummaging for something to smoke and figured it’s time had come.  I have been smoking new and different cigars lately and wanted to go old school.  This large torpedo has been floating around the humidors for 6 or 7 years, had some mottling on the wrapper, but was such a nice, sweet cigar with loads of flavor.  I savored it for about 90 minutes, while sitting on my front porch on a stunningly beautiful August evening, catching up on cigar podcasts.  Sidebar: I am up to about 5 podcasts in my rotation, and I get behind in the summer.  During the winter months I have about 5 hours a week in the car commuting that I am able to listen to podcasts.  In the nicer months I may only have to drive the car to work once or twice a week, if that.  I sometimes take an evening walk alone with a cigar and listen to them, which is nice, but it’s better to walk with someone (usually my son or my wife).  Three of the podcasts I like to listen to are pushing 2 hours long, which is a killer year round! For those curious, the podcasts currently in my rotation are: Dogwatch Cigar Radio, Stogie Fresh 5, Blowin Smoke, Cigar Snapshot, and The Cigar Authority.  I’ve had the pleasure to have met the hosts of all of these on various occasions, even slept on one of their couches on a couple occasions, with the exception of Bill Berris, who hosts Cigar Snapshot.  I do “know” Bill from the old alt.smokers.cigars days though, and one day our paths will cross.  I’ve said before that there are some little things that annoy me about some of the shows, but they all provide me with cigartainment and are worth every penny I pay for them :-).

 

When I saw American Eagles cigars at the show I thought they were a novelty, I mean, really, a camo cigar?  What if I drop it outside, how will I find it?  Well, this is a serious cigar.  Not only do some of the proceeds go to the Semper Fi Fund, as a thank you to all the men and women who serve and have served in the United States Marine Corps, but the cigars are actually blended by Hendrick Kelner.  Since I’ve been seeing these show up in a couple of major retailers mailings, I figured I’d fire up one of the samples I got from the trade show. I took this cigar for my evening walk, and it’s a darned nice cigar! I smoked this down to about a half an inch, and it remained smooth and flavorful to the end. It looks to me like it has candela, shade and maduro pieces applied to a habano wrapper to produce the camouflage pattern, and I swear I could taste the candela “freshness” here and there. It’s gimmicky, but a quality cigar that is very tasty. This is one that should not be dismissed, if you can find them (little camo joke there…) give one a shot.  Chris Ramos, the sales director was very helpful and generous with his time, thanks to him for the samples.

 

The American Eagles cigars were sharing a booth with Cigar Mechanic‘s Eric Budman, who was kind enough to not only gift me a couple of his humidifying units to try out, but also took a few minutes to record a little video about his products.  I have to say, since using one of these in a new cooler set up, it’s been holding steady, as has been the smaller unit in my desktop humidor. Check out the video and give these a try if you are in the market for a new humidification device.

Thanks to Eric for taking the time to talk to me and for the samples!

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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