This week I’m featuring some exclusive cigars that aren’t widely available. The first two are available via Wooden Indian‘s website, or in the store, and this post is only sponsored by the store in so much as they provided me with samples. I have a history with the Wooden Indian going back to my first visit in 2009 in their old location, where I met Marvin Samel at an event and smoked my first Liga Privada No.9. This is interesting, because the store would become the first (of only 2) Liga Privada lounge and has a long standing history with Drew Estate. They have 
their own Serie Unico cigar, the Pancetta, which I wrote about here. Anyway, this year marks the 20th anniversary of Dave Mayer owning the store, which celebrated 60 years in business last year. Dave is one of my favorite people in the cigar industry. I’ll start with the Perdomo Dave’s 20th Anniversary cigar. Not a lot of folks get a Perdomo exclusive, so this is really special. They made 200 boxes of ten of this 6″ x 54 belicoso, which has an Ecuador shade wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers, and is said to be a never before available blend. I’ve heard that this is Arthur Kemper’s personal blend, and apparently the bands were in the same shipment with the Perdomo Lagacy bands, so this has been in the pipeline for a while. I’ve never been enamored with Perdomo’s shade offerings, but this one was something different. It’s not a mild cigar, which is consistent with Perdomo’s shade cigars, but it has some sweet, nutty tobacco flavors that I enjoyed. This is a very good cigar, If you’re a Perdomo fan, or a Dave Mayer fan, you have to try this one!
Last year the Wooden Indian celebrated 60 years in business, and they had the Aganorsa Leaf Supreme leaf WIT 60, a 5″ x 56 Gran Robusto. This year, for Dave’s 20th, they have the Aganorsa Leaf Supreme Leaf Gran Robusto, a vitola that’s exclusive to the Wooden Indian. I honestly don’t know if this is the same as the WIT 60, the vitola is the same, but I don’t recall the previous iteration being as strong as this one. It’s a Nicaraguan puro, with a Nicaraguan Corojo ’99 wrapper. The first draw was pure twang, I noted that this must have a high nicotine level. It settled a little, but not much, over the course of it’s five inches, but maintained it’s power. This is a strong cigar with a heavy citrus spice. It was satisfying, but I rather prefer the smoothness of the La Validación Series. Supreme Leaf is seasonally released, always in a different size, but this 5″ x 56 is only available at the Wooden Indian. I’ll very likely revisit this after some humidor time.
At some point yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to smoke a Pancetta to complete the Wooden Indian trifecta, but after spending the afternoon with family, then going to a pre-season Flyers game, by the time I got home I had forgotten. I had been looking forward to smoking a cigar that Lee Marsh of Stolen Throne Cigars had given me, ironically at the Wooden Indian, and that one was the one I grabbed when I got home. Lee made this cigar in honor of his late canine companion, Brody. Brody was a Cane Corso who was very special to Lee and his family. It’s my assumption that this is the Argos blend, which was a Winston’s Humidor (in Virginia) exclusive. Of course, the handsome dog on the band barked “smoke me” last night. This is a 5″ x 54 belicoso, made at the Rojas factory in Nicaragua, with a Sumatra wrapper and Nicaraguan fillers. Stolen Throne has two other cigars in the portfolio with Sumatra wrappers, neither of which I’m fond of, and he never lets me forget that. This one was somehow different, I very much enjoyed it. It had an interesting slightly fruity, slightly spicy aspect to the rich tobacco flavor. I was concerned, based on my experiences with the Yorktown and Call to Arms, but I throughly enjoyed this cigar.
I broke down and upgraded some equipment this week. I’ve been using a 2014 Macbook Air for the last several (7 or 8) years, and bit the bullet and picked up a 2020 Macbook Air. I think the 2009 iMac may need to be retired. Both of the old Macs were “rescues”, from the short time I worked for an Apple reseller, I got my money’s worth out of them. I can’t see any advantage a 2025 Macbook would give me over this one for what I do for the $400 price difference, but this is still way more than I’ve ever paid for a computer! I suspect this will last me quite a long time. That’s all I have for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
