I’ve only got a few cigars to feature today, largely for two reasons. First is I came home from work Friday with a screaming migraine, the second wave of which I woke up with today), and yesterday I just managed to get too much accomplished in one of our new house renovations. I
attribute this weekend’s migraines to the weather, they are calling for snow and rain again, and that’s generally a pretty normal trigger. The room wave been working on lately is a 12×10 room between the garage and the family room which houses the heater and water heater, and will serve as a mudroom/storage room. It got painted top to bottom, ceiling, walls and an epoxy coat on the floor. Not terribly exciting, but progress none the less.
Thursday was another one of those days I knew exactly what I wanted to smoke all day. It was cold, so I knew I’d opt for something short, and it
had to be loaded with straight forward flavor on the strong end of the spectrum. The CAO Flathead Sparkplug was the obvious choice. This was the fifth size released in the Flathead line of square pressed, Connecticut Broadleaf wrapped cigars that I personally find to be right up my alley. The Sparplug is 4½” x 50 with the same flat head as the rest of the line, but has a closed foot. It’s also individually boxed like it’s automotive namesake would be. The flavors are strong, sweet, espresso, the perfect accompaniment for a brisk (read: brrrrr!) evening. I love this line, even the gargantuan 7 x 70 Big Block, it has everything I enjoy in a cigar, and the packaging is pretty spiffy too.
After finishing up with my painting and stuff, I headed to the back porch with a new cigar from Fusion Cigars which are distributed by Antillian Cigar Corp. The Headlines 1st Edition is an interesting cigar from the folks at Fusion in the Tampa, Florida area, where they have a Fusion cigar Lounge. This cigar was a toro, but I swore it was a corona as it came along with the 5½ x 60 Maduro 2nd Edition. It looked smaller than the 6″ x 50 that it actually is and smoked very quickly. I think I was through this cigar in 45 minutes. It had an interesting flavor, I imagine due to the Pennsylvania seed broadleaf wrapper which is grown in the Dominican Republic, where the rest of the components come from. It was medium bodied and meaty, it had a savory flavor that was quite different. Not a terribly bad smoke, and I’ll revisit this after some humidor time.
Today I smoked the Headlines Maduro 2nd Edition, also from Fusion Cigars. I feel like this one had a lighter wrapper than the 1st Edition, it’s listed as Dominican Habano Oscuro, but isn’t as dark as you would imagine. Perhaps this wasn’t the right choice for an afternoon walk, although it wasn’t as frigidly cold as we are expecting snow tonight. It was a mild smoke, and had some trouble staying lit as the wrapper didn’t want to burn. Still, there were some entertaining flavors and it burned much longer than the toro. The remaining samples will get put down for a rest to be revisited on a nice, warm day with little distraction. The draw was on the loose side of perfect, and it had a straight burn, and it definitely had a different flavor than it’s sibling. Proof that timing is everything. If I manage a second cigar today, it’ll be something on the strong side and something familiar.
I understand there’s a game on tonight, and I understand you aren’t allowed to call it the Super Bowl without getting into trouble? We’ll see how that works out since I just said Super Bowl…I see it referred to as “the big game” and such. It doesn’t seem like it’s a big problem saying World Series, or Stanley Cup or anything like that, what’s the deal? Anyway, that’s nonsense, I hope the team your rooting for wins, I know I have readers in both the New England area and the Pacific Northwest. I don’t even tune in for the commercials or halftime show…doesn’t interest me in the least. I’ll just be sitting here waiting to see if the weather people are right again forecasting this winter storm. 🙂
Until the next time,
CigarCraig
Yesterday, after spending time at the new house clearing brush and ancient overgrown hedges for a fence to contain Macha (and keep the 16 year old Cocker Spaniel from wandering off), I came home to a cool package in the mail. This package contained the redesigned 
clip/opener end so that it could remain clipped to something, and the other was to make it self clearing, as the original version tended to keep the cap cuts in the body of the unit. It seems my suggestions were taken to heart, and here we have the new version of the punch. Of course, I had to try it out. I 
Tuesday my youngest son and I went down to 
