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CigarCraig’s Top 10 Blogs with Top 10 Lists

You know, everyone posts their top whatever lists this time of year and I had way too big a list to try to include every cigar I became enamored with this year. There were some great San Andreas wrapped cigars this year that really did it for me, like the ORTSAC 1962 S.A., Room 101 S.A. and the La Palina Maduro. On the other end of the spectrum, the Foundry was refreshingly different and surprised my tastebuds. The 1502 Black Gold was mind-blowingly good, as was the La Aurora Cameroon. The Recluse from Iconic Leaf Cigar Co. is definitely worth mentioning as well. It is a great time to smoke cigars, it’s really hard to find a bad one. In light of this, I thought I’d highlight some of my fellow bloggers hard work in compiling their lists. Some may not be lists of 10, but I give extra credit for originality! These are listed in no particular order to avoid any unnecessary ego inflation :-).

 

www.stogiereview.com – They have 6 reviewers and I wasn’t going to give them 6 out of 10 spots on my list, even though I consider all those guys friends.  Click through to see each of their respective lists.

 www.cigar-coop.com – Coop isn’t even done counting down his top 30 yet so tune in over the next few days to see what his top cigars of the year are.

www.casasfumando.com  – Both Tony and Daniel have their top tens posted.  Again, love these guys, but they have to share a space on my list!

www.tikibaronline.com – David takes things two steps further and posts his 12 favorites of the last year.  The Pinolaro is one that would also be on my list if I were to have one.

www.acigarsmoker.com – Peter does David at the Tiki Bar 3 better with his top 15.  It’s not a competition here guys!  We are in this for the common good!  The Ortega Serie D would make my list too, but in maduro over the natural.  I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m a sucker for the Mexican Maduro leaf.

www.mikesstogies.com – This piece lacks any attribution that I can see so I don’t know which of the contributors list this is.  He (or she) provides a simple list of pictures.  I have to say that the Concert, new this year from CAO, doesn’t get enough airplay (see what I did there?), it’s nice to see it on this list.

cigarbrief.com – Anthony at CigarBrief has his split his top 5 list up into two parts. Check back to see part two.

nicetightash.com – Kudos to Shawn for naming a $3.50 cigar as his number one. I’ve enjoyed cigars front the La Zona factory and look forward to trying this one. Well done!

leafandgrape.com – Stace takes it up a notch by publishing three lists and breaking it up into light, medium and full. Brilliant.

imnctnetwork.com/cya/ – Covering Your Ash is another site with a team approach, so each of the contributors have their own lists.  The Ezra Zion Inception certainly deserves the top spot as it’s a stellar smoke.

stogiegeeks.squarespace.com – This final link is a podcast, which as far as I’m concerned is a just a blog in audio and video format (it’s my list, it counts if I say it counts!).  They have three lists and you can either listen to the show or read the lists on the website.  I have to agree with the Cain F Lancero and the Undercrown Corona Viva on their lists.  The Cain F Lancero is even  fairly inexpensive.

 

So there you have it.  Check out everyone’s lists and thanks to all of these sites for publishing their lists (so I don’t have to!).  I’m sure there are some that I missed, and if that’s the case, I’m sorry.  This is by no means a comprehensive list, just ten sites that I thought did a great job.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

CigarCraig

 

 

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IPCPR: I Want You To Want Me

I’m conflicted. Last year, the IPCPR decided to try out having a membership level for members of the internet media, such as myself. They published a fairly stringent series of guidelines, had an application process, as well as a fee that was fair in comparison to the other levels of membership that they offer. I mailed in my application along with my check, and felt honored to have passed their vetting process. I attended the trade show, which certainly cost me quite a bit out of my own pocket to fly to Vegas, eat and get a room.

 

If I may digress a moment and offer some disclosures: I do this for the love of cigars. I have a full time job in an unrelated industry. I have a part time job that I use to fund my blog and cigar adventures. I spend several hours a week on my blog, and a good bit of money on hosting my site and related expenses. CigarCriag.com operates in the red. I’m not complaining, I defy you to introduce me to a cigar blogger who is making money from this. The advertisements I do have are a flat rate and not tied to traffic, although I’m sure my advertisers want to see that I have a readership.  I’m not saying there aren’t side benefits, and not trying to be altruistic, just saying that I’m not in this for the money. I do it to promote an industry that I find interesting and truly enjoy. All that being said, it recently came to my attention that the IPCPR increased their membership fee for the Internet Media (basically doubled) to the same level as the retail, distributor, broker, etc. while maintaining the level of benefits (less than half) of last years.

 

Without getting into specifics, the other levels of membership get two passes to the show and access to the Tobacconist University certification. Media members get one pass to the show and would have to pay for a Tobacconist U. course if they so desired. Media members are expressly forbidden to ask for samples. If I want to be really petty, retailers get lunch at the show, media members don’t. Bottom line, a media membership enjoys less than half that of the other memberships at the same cost.  Bill Spann, the CEO of the IPCPR, was kind enough to give me a call this week to explain the reasoning, which I appreciate. He said that this was in response to the membership (retailers, manufacturers, etc.). They want to eliminate the “trick or treat” that has gone on in the past with consumers and, I guess, some bloggers, as well as reduce the distraction of interviews going on during the show.  These are issues I fully understand and appreciate.

 

Here’s my take, and I have been known to be cynical.  I can certainly see that the venders are there to sell to the retailers, the retailers are there to buy from the venders, and this is not a consumer show. I get that. I also think that maybe the professional media, the magazines both on and off-line, may see little guys like me as some sort of competition. Bill Spann himself made the point that the annual membership fee is a drop in the bucket to those guys, whereas for me, it represents nearly half of my blog’s annual “income”. As an independent blogger, I feel as if I support the industry, provide basically free publicity, and in the worst case, offer my opinions of how things could be better.  Allow me to make a comparison: Currently 47 states have taxes on cigars that are, ostensibly, meant to discourage the use of those products. Is the IPCPR taxing me in an effort to discourage me from attending the show? Bill said that it was the membership that requested this. Nobody asked my opinion. Am I not a member? I feel honored and validated being a member, but I’m also feeling some resentment. They will happily accept my money, but really don’t want me as a member. The IPCPR does great things to protect our rights to enjoy cigars, and I do my best to support them with my wallet as well as my time and voice.  I really don’t know how much longer I can afford to pay top dollar to be a member of an organization that doesn’t want me around.

 

I’m going to ask my readers, my “membership”  if you will:

[poll id=”3″]

 

I invite you to leave your thoughts in the comments, I know that Mr. Spann as well as others in the industry read this and I’m sure they are interested it your thoughts.

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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General Cigar Domincana Trip Report: Introduction and Blending Exercise

Time for some details!  Last week, accompanied by 14 fellow bloggers and all around cigar fiends, I had the distinct pleasure of touring the General Cigar Company‘s Santiago, Dominican Republic facilities.  Most of us converged on Sunday at the Miami Airport, as well as Michael Giannini, Yuri Guillen and Rick Rodriguez. Those of us who had met previously greeted one another and those of us who had not met made introductions. Upon our arrival in Santiago, Victoria McKee Jaworski, Director of Public Relations for GC, met us at the gate and shepherded us to a private lounge while our checked bags were retrieved, then filed smoothly through immigration. We got a firsthand look at the mayhem of driving in the DR, as a couple of young men on what appeared to be Honda Cub mopeds, or knock offs, with no lights, helmets or anything were literally run over by an SUV trying to pass our bus. Welcome to Domincan Republic! Leave the driving to the professionals! Ironically, Micheal Giannini had just been telling us about how the local law enforcement handles such incidents, they just take everyone to jail. We arrived at the Hodelpa Gran Almirante Hotel and were already checked in and there was even a gift bag in the room waiting for us. We quickly met up at the pool bar for cigars, beverages and snacks, and got to meet Benji Menendez and hang out with the group for a while. Already this was a great day!

 

Monday started with a fine breakfast in the hotel, followed by a presentation at the factory where we met Jhonys Diaz, the VP of Operations and his staff. They presented us with a slide show while we had coffee and cigars. The presentation touched upon every aspect of the operation, from seed to box, as well as the social programs they provide for the people. One really gets the feeling of family there, it’s quite amazing.

 

After the presentation, we moved through the factory to our first exercise, blending. Arranged on tables were about 15 piles of leaves, with bags of “fumas” in front of each. The fumas were small cigars of each single leaf. The idea was to smoke each one to get the flavor, then try to determine which ones would taste good together. This activity will burn up your tongue! Whoever suggested starting with the Ligero is an evil bastard! Like most things we’d see over the course of the trip, this is not an easy thing. The next step was to choose a couple tobaccos and have them rolled into another fuma, which we smoked, when that was a big mistake and tasted terrible, you made another. Of course, Michael, Benji, Rick, Yuri etc, were on hand to guide us. I have yet to try mine, and I have rather low expectations, no fault of the materials or guidance.

 

After the blending session it was lunch time. We were served a lovely buffet of Dominican fare (loved the rice and bacon!) in the conference room, along with coffee and cigars. We all relaxed in the air conditioning and reflected upon the difficulty of the blending exercise. By the way, it sometimes takes a year of trial and error to come up with a blend for a new cigar, so we shouldn’t feel too bad. Still, when one has the opportunity to actually play with different leaves like that it is a special event.

 

After lunch we were handed over to Edmundo Garcia, the Tobacco Operations Manager. He took us to one of the warehouses where the bales of tobacco are stored. This is another area where it’s amazing how they track everything with precision. Every bale is marked with the variety, size, color, etc, and kept in the climate controlled warehouse. They actually have tobacco beetle traps all over the place so they can react quickly if beetles are detected. Skip Martin (@chiefhava) was trying to weasel bales the whole time we were there, but he did ask some very good questions along the way, ones I wouldn’t have thought to ask.

 

Next we moved to one of the areas where they condition the leaves and hang them to rehumidify them. Then we saw pilons, or huge stacks of the leaves where the leaves ferment.  There is a dizzying number of steps in the process, sorting, re-sorting, shaking, stacking, re-stacking.  Each step is vital to the proper processing of the leaves and is carefully documented along the way.  If you think the cigar your smoking is a simple pleasure, and that cigars are expensive, you have to see it first hand to know how many people and how much time is involved.  The tobacco they were sorting to go into the production area was from 2003, to give an example of the time the tobacco spends in aging for a premium cigar.

 

After a very long day at the factory, having worked on blending, having toured several aspects of the manufacturing process, a weary group returned to the hotel, then went to a very nice Italian restaurant for a sumptuous feast, and another chance to enjoy one another’s company.  Of course, we capped off the night with more cigars by the pool, and eventually retired to rest up for another action packed day.  Throughout the day we were fed a delicious diet of Macanudo, Partagas, La Gloria Cubana and Cohiba cigars.  Sometimes we dismiss these cigars as pedestrian, however I’ve mentioned before, and it came up among the group, that these are fine cigars, and when you’ve seen all that goes into making them, you change your thought process a bit.  Personally, I’ve never strayed too far from the “Classics”, but still returned to some old favorites.

 

Watch for Day Two, coming soon!  That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

 

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IPCPR Show Report, Blogger Party, Marc Aub from Palio and Esencia Cigars

I’ve been quite busy running around at the IPCPR show, talking to people and collecting great information and education to present to you over the coming weeks and months. Some of the highlights have been a New Media party held by Drew Estate at the MGM Grand, which was a veritable who’s who of bloggers and journalists (and me!). Several traditional print media folks were there, including Frank Seltzer (an old friend who writes for Smoke Magazine, Cigar Weekly and many others, Thor Nielson (Cigar Press Magazine) and his crew, Stephen Boyajian (Cigar Network Magazine), Jerry and Brian from StogieReview.com, Charlie from TheCigarFeed.com, Brooks from SmokingStogie.com, Mario from CigarExplorer.com, Teresa and Tim from SmokingHotCigarChick.com, Mitch from About.com, Patrick from Examiner.com, William Cooper from Cigar-Coop.com, and I’m sure some others whom I’ll be embarrassed about omitting when they tell me I forgot to mention them! Steve Saka, Marvin Samel, Jonathan Drew and Scott Chester all were there as well as Johnny Brooke, who, along with Charlie, were instrumental in organizing the event. We all received and incredibly generous bag of smokes and had a great time schmoozing. This is another example of why I hold Drew Estate in such high regard and think of them as great friends. I also had the good fortune to meet and talk to Tom Navarro, who is the worlds biggest Drew Estate fan, a CigarCraig.com reader and a fellow Cigar Safarian. It was a wonderful night with a balcony overlooking New York, New York and Excalibur hotels with great friends new and old. Thank you to Drew Estate for hosting (even though getting all these people in one place at the same time would have given Seltzer a great opportunity to get rid of us en masse!)

Last night I had the good fortune to have attended the Cigar Journal annual awards, where at one point I was sitting between Mitchell Orchant of C-Gars Ltd. And Jose Blanco, talk about rubbing elbows with giants in teh industry! I’ll expand more on that after I’ve had a chance to go through the video and transcribe all the winners. After that I had been invited to attend General Cigar‘s party, which was held in the Tryst nightclub in the Wynne hotel. Everyone was hanging out on outside by a waterfall smoking and drinking. I again managed to sit with Frank Seltzer along with Victoria McKee, General Cigars PR Director and a great friend of CigarCraig.com, who I thank for her support, the invitation and for rolling out the red carpet once again in the trade show booth and really treating us blogger types well!

I’ve got some appointments this morning to talk to some more wonderful folks on my last day at the show. I fly home tonight after what has been a pretty long but productive and enjoyable week. I’m going to leave you with the first of many short videos I’ve been taking of exhibitors. Here’s Marc Aub, another great friend and supporter, telling us about the great products at Palio and Esencia!

 

Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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Tommy Takes a La Gloria Serie R For a Walk, and a Contest!

Finally!  Tommy has re-emerged and is still walking and smoking!  Here is his latest installment:

“Well, hello! I have been tied up getting ready to buy a new home, shopping for a home, and we just put in an offer today…so wish us luck! Over the past few weeks, I have enjoyed several much needed walks…with a cigar. One in particular that I want to talk about today is the La Gloria Cubana Serie R. This one’s been around for awhile now, but is always a great full bodied smoke. However, I had an issue with it keeping a solid and strait ash. This one kept canoeing on me. I plan to take another on a  walk soon to see if it was the stick, my batch, or just me. But, with the “troubles” slowing me down a few times during the walk I still had a great time smoking this particular cigar. Something about walking, moving around…with a cigar has become very enjoyable. These “R’s” are a great “upper mid-class” cigar with great flavors and I love the look of the wrapper. Overall, it was a good walk…a good smoke, not great…but like I said earlier…I plan on taking another one soon and will report back as to how it went.

Long ashes to ya!

–Tommy”

 

I too have been walking.  I took a couple walks with the new Punch Rare Corojo 10th Anniversary Robusto, generously provided by the fine folks at General Cigar.  I enjoyed the two I smoked, although I can see where some age will smooth them out a bit.  The cigars are very nice looking 5″x50 with a box press.  I haven’t had a Rare Corojo in ages, but I remember them being a little richer in flavor.  Certainly worth trying when they become available.  I also smoked the last Cain Habano and it didn’t make me ill.

In honor of Tommy smoking a LA Gloria Cubana, it’s time to give away another five pack of the delicious Serie N JSB.  Leave a comment to enter, wish Tommy good luck with his new home buying experience, or give him some encouragement in his fitness regimen, whatever.  I’ll pick a winner on Sunday ,April 10, 2011. Thanks again to Team La Gloria for providing these cigars for my readers!

That’s it for now, thanks to Tommy for another fine contribution and my best wishes to him and his family for the momentous occasion of purchasing their first home!

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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