Tag Archives: CAO

by | March 26, 2017 · 10:01 am

La Aurora, a Cornelius and Anthony Event, Avo and a CAO Cigar

Don’t forget to go back to Wednesday’s post and enter to win a ticket to the Philly Cigar Festival being held on June 3, 2017! I will select a winner on Wednesday, so if you think you can make the trip to south-eastern Pennsylvania, put your name in the hat! This promises to be a very cool event!

 

So, I smoked a few cigars this week, I’ll mention a few of them, there were some I won’t mention either because I’ve talked about them before, or there was something strange going on…for instance, one cigar I really enjoyed in the past had a very strange and awful flavor about mid way through akin to burning plastic. My guess is that a piece of the plastic string they use to tie the hands of tobacco together in the fermenting process may have gotten mixed in the bunch somehow, at least that’s what I want to believe. It’s easier to wrap my mind around that explanation than think of what other foreign objects might have made their way in there. Stuff happens and it’s just unfortunate that it was my last example of this particular cigar. Fortunately, there are plenty of other great cigars to choose from! Mi Queridas seem to be smoking very well, and a 2015 LG Diez Lusitano from La Flor Dominicana was a real treat this week.  Another treat was a La Aurora 1903 Cameron robusto, the third new cigar from La Aurora’s Time Capsule series, following the LaAurora_1903Cameroon_Robusto 1987 Connecticut and the 1962 Corojo. This has a Cameroon wrapper, Ecuador Sumatra binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. I have a special affinity for the La Aurora line, it’s special to me personally, but that’s not to say I enjoy a great many of their cigars. I half expected this one to remind

me of the first box of cigars I bought back on 1996, the La Aurora Bristol Especiale (I think it was around $40 for the box). I never really took to those, they seemed to have a vegetal flavor that I didn’t care for. I didn’t find that to be the case at all with the 1903 Cameron, it had that unique Cameroon sweetness (Camerooniness, I call it), and was a very pleasant cigar. I know I’ve enjoyed the Connecticut in the past, but that’s coming up in the rotation real soon, I think, as I somehow failed to make mention of smoking it in the past. Good stuff from La Aurora and thank you to Jason at Miami Cigar and Co. for keeping me up to date on these.

 

stevenbaileyFriday evening I finally made it back to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA for a Cornelius and Anthony event where I finally met Steven Bailey, the owner of the company.  I’ve been pretty high on this newer brand for the better part of a year now, with the Cornelius toro making an appearance on my end of year memorable cigars list, and will be the subject of my Cigar Notes feature in the May/June issue of Prime Living Magazine (due on Texas newstands in May). I learned a few things about Steven, who has a successful cigarette CorneliusandAnthony_Meridian_torocompany which basically bankrolls the premi

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um cigar start-up. Steven has experience with the FDA, having one of two cigarette brands that has been approved by the FDA, out of something like 12,000 applicati

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ons. He has the experience (and the financial wherewithal) to keep his four excellent lines on the market. Of the four lines, I like the Cornelius the best, with the Meridian a close second, with the Daddy Mac close behind.  I haven’t smoked enough of the Venganza to make a good judgement yet. The Cornelius is made at El Titan de Bronze in Miami with the other three coming from Eric Espinosa’s La CorneliusandAnthonyTableZona factory in Esteli. As I sat chatting with Steven, Todd Vance and Jose Galvez (Steven’s faithful minions), I smoked a Meridian toro, which I liked better than the robusto, and I liked the robusto a lot. In the toro I think the strength was tempered a little, and there was an interesting cinnamon note midway through. I think buying a box of these is in my future. It was a great time at Mojo, great cigars, and very happy to meet Steven and his crew. Cornelius and Anthony is a brand to watch, and is high on my list.

 

AvoSyncroYesterday I smoked a little Avo Syncro  robusto since Avo Uvezian passed away on Friday at the age of 91. I never had the pleasure of meting Avo, but many people I know knew him and spoke highly of him. The Avo line (not unlike many of the La Aurora cigars) doesn’t line up with my particular tastes all the time, but he’s certainly left a legacy with many fans of his cigars. I do like the Syncro, perhaps the Nicaraguan component works better for my palate than the Dominican. Not only did Avo lend his name to cigars, but he also wrote “Strangers in the Night” for Sinatra and was obviously an accomplished musician. I never shook the man’s hand, but he was beloved by many, another cigar industry icon has left us (at an advanced age if that says anything).

 

CAO_AmazonBasinLast night I finally got around to smoking a CAO Amazon Basin. I recently picked up the last one in a box at a local shop, and this is from the second generation of the line I would think. These got rave reviews, it’s certainly unique in its presentation, with a band made from what I guess to be twisted tobacco coiled around the cigar. CAO is another brand that I really love a couple of their lines and other’s are just “eh”, sadly this one fell into the second category. Give me any Flathead over this any day of the week. Not that it was a bad cigar, although it took a bit of coaxing with the lighter to get lit right, then tunneled a little on my at the midpoint. I didn’t find it to be spectacular, although the last third was getting there and by the time I peeled off the band it was pretty hard to put down. Not sure if  I got a flukey one or it need more time in the humidor or what. I am an optimist when it comes to cigars, and it takes a lot for me to give up on a cigar, usually seeing it through to the end, with worked in this case, because the cigar redeemed itself, but it’s sometimes tough to poser through when a cigar starts out questionably. CAO’s Rick Rodriguez was in the area Friday night at another of my favorite shops, sadly I missed him this time around.

 

That’s all for today, don’t forget to enter the contes

t! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | December 31, 2016 · 10:38 am

CigarCraig’s Top Five Memorable Cigars of 2016 and A Contest Winner!

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for another great year at CigarCraig.com. If you all keep reading, I’ll keep writing! Heck, I’d probably be writing this if nobody was reading.  I’m posting on a Saturday instead of Sunday for a couple reasons, mostly because I don’t feel like getting up early tomorrow to post something when nobody will be around to read it, and I slacked off and missed my Wednesday post, it happens. So I figured I wrap up the year with some of the cigars that were memorable to me this year,  and my criteria was simple, the cigar, no matter how many I smoked, made a positive impression on me to the point where I really want to smoke more of the cigar. These are presented in no particular order, and I know this keeps me off of Halfwheel’s annual conglomerate list, but so be it, why break the streak?

 

Maya Selva Flor Mayade Selva Grand Pressé Box Pressed Toro. This really shouldn’t be included as it was an IPCPR sample smoked on the show floor, and I typically think this is a bad place to properly evaluate a cigar. However, my approach was that I only smoked one cigar on the show floor all day, and I practically did smoke this all day. I would let the cigar go out while talking to someone, and relight it and it was still amazing. This was a brand that I had heard of but not tried, and was very impressed. Sadly, I don’t see these around the stores here, but I have to hunt some down. I know this is only based on one example, but it was memorable and fits my criteria!

 

RoMa_Neanderthal_HNRoMa Craft Neanderthal HN. Technically I smoked this cigar at the end of last year, but since I smoked it’s little brother, the Shallow Gene Pool, later in the year I’m going to mark it down as Memorable. I really did love the candela wrapped  Fomarian ,  and smoked more of those this year than the Neanderthal, the Neanderthal stuck out in my mind as memorable. It had some strength, but most of all the flavor was exceptional and left a definite impression. The pricetag keeps it out of this cheap bastid’s rotation, but it competes favorably with other cigars at similar prices, such as a Padron 94 Exclusivo or similar. Bottom line is, there aren’t a whole lot of cigars I’d pay $12 for, but the Neanderthal is one of them.

 

Mi Querida_GorditoIt should be fairly common knowledge by now that Steve Saka and I go way back and I consider Steve a friend. Actually, in March it will be 20 years since Steve and I met face to face. So if that puts a bias on my inclusion of the Mi Querida Gordito (as well as the rest of the sizes) in this list, so be it. It could be argued that knowing Steve shaped my palate and preferences, and if that’s the case than I’m pretty lucky. I first smoke the Mi Querida Ancho Larga (toro) at the IPCPR show at the insistence of Stace Berkland, who was working in the Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust booth, and my initial impression was good, but that age would benefit the cigar, which might have been construed as saying I didn’t like it, which wasn’t the case at all. I’ve smoked several sizes in the line now, the Ancho Corto (robusto), the Muy Gordo Grande and the Gordito, which I am listing here as the most memorable. Hey, I love them all, they are exactly my style of cigar, I like the mellowness of the Muy Gordo Grande, but the punch that the little 4″ x 48 Gordito has really made an impression. I was going to include the Sobremesa Elegentes en Cedros in my list, as I found it to be an awesome cigar, with a slight edge on the also awesome Short Churchill, but I didn’t want to appear totally biased! Unfortunately the Mi Querida Gordito size might be hard to find as I think it’s fairly limited.

 

CorneliusandAnthony_Cornelius_ToroI’ve developed an affinity for milder, more complex and sophisticated cigars lately, and one new one that I find myself going to frequently is from Cornelius and Anthony, and is the Cornelius. This is a cigar that’s made at the El Titan de Bronze factory in Miami, and is just a really tasty cigar with a lot of subtlety and class. I’ve smoked several of the sizes and think the toro suits me best, although the corona gorda certainly has a lot going for it if you want a little bit of an edge to the flavor. The Cornelius and Anthony  Daddy Mac is a great smoke as well, but not nearly as memorable as the Cornelius. It’s another cigar in the over $10 range that I think is worthwhile. I put it in the same category as the Sobremesa, Davidoff, or some of the Havanas, it’s “clean” and delicious. There are some times that I chose to smoke this cigar that I remember fondly.

 

Fratello_Bianco_TheBoxerFinally, the cigar that was most memorable for me this year.  I was tempted to number this list because I knew this was number one, but really couldn’t assign numbers to two through five. At the time I said about this cigar “This was the best cigar I’ve smoked in recent memory” and I stand by that. Of course, the cigar Im referring to was the Fratello Bianco The Boxer. This is a box pressed torpedo, with  San Andrés Negro wrapper, binder from the Dominican Republic, and the fillers are Nicaraguan, Pennsylvanian and Peruvian. I dig the Bianco blend, and this tweaked version was just off the charts in flavor, and again, hit my particular flavor preference on the nose. Friggin yummy. Omar de Frias made news this year by quitting his day job at NASA to concentrate on the Fratello brand, a bold move given the whole FDA nonsense. What an amazing cigar.

 

That’s five, right?  There were a lot of runners up, the Hoyo La Amistad, the Foundation Tabernacle, the Foundry Time Flies, Leccia Des Nudos (it should have been in the top five…so close).  There were a lot to choose from but these were the most memorable.

 

Contest Winner!

 

GCCThe last contest of the year was some great stuff from General Cigar Company. We had a Flathead sign, a nice Macanudo Colibri cutter, some La Gloria Cubana scissors and a Punch bobble head. Maybe I should have included a cigar from each brand from my humidors in the contest, because that’s what I intend to include. Many people who have won my contests before can tell you that things often fall into the box when I’m packing it up (has anyone seen my keys?). The FDA says that manufacturers cant give away cigars for free, but they don’t have any say over my personal collection and what I do with it! The winner of the last contest of 2016 is Timmc71. Please send me your info so I can get these goodies out to you!  

 

That’s all for today!  Happy New Year again, and here’s to a successful 2017!

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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by | December 26, 2016 · 10:19 am

CigarCraig’s Holiday Contest Number Four: General Cigar Co. and the Tommy Bahama Winner

Davidoff GolfI hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. As JJO suggested in his comment on the last post, it turns out I did have better things to do yesterday than post the winner, including having a big breakfast at our daughter’s house with the granddaughters and our kids, then taking a drive to visit more family in New Jersey. While at my bro-in-law’s in Jersey I got to smoke a glorious Sobremesa Short Churchill, which was wonderful. Christmas Eve I managed to smoke a Davidoff Golf Scorecard Edition, a gorgeous 6″ x 55 toro. These are presented in a five pack, ostensibly four cigars for your golf foursome, and one with a gold secondary band for the winner. These carry a pretty hefty price-tag , $114 for 5 at CI, who starts off the description with “Some things Bolivarare matches made in heaven – like bacon and eggs, mac and cheese, and of course, golf and cigars. “, which I find to be a rather pedestrian way to start a paragraph about a pretty expensive cigar! Anyway, it was a spectacular smoke, even though I don’t golf. It had loads of creamy, spicy flavors that were quite entertaining. It turned out to be pretty hard to find something suitable to follow such a stellar smoke, so I went with a Bolivar Royal Corona that had been floating around the humidor for 5 years or so. It was up to the task and was a great smoke, on the milder side, on par with the Davidoff. It was a pretty great couple of cigars on a reasonably nice winter’s day.

 

Contest!

GCCLet’s keep it going! I have some goodies from General Cigar for today’s giveaway!  There’s a Punch Bobblehead, a tin CAO Flathead Steel Horse sign, a pair of very nice La Gloria Cubana Cigar Scissors, and a Macanudo Inspirado Colibri Grip cutter, which is rubberized with orange blades, very sharp-looking. It’s hard to say what else might fall into the shipping box while I’m packing it up too, it’s been known to happen. Anyway, usual rules apply, leave a comment to enter,  I’ll announce a winner on Wednesday!

 

Winner!

 

Island LifestyleI almost forgot to announce the winner fo the Tommy Bahama ashtray and travel humidor, and Island Lifestyle Cigars!  I wore my blue check Tommy Bahama shirt yesterday with my blue check Vans, it was quite the look.  Many thanks to Ryan at Island Lifestyle Importers for providing this wonderful present! I can’t say how much I like the Tommy Bahama branded stuff, my wife told me I was crazy to give it away! But, giving is so much fun, so it’s off to Random.org to find the winner!  I’m not sure how this happened, but the winner is Andy Klueber.  Every once in a while someone calls their shot, but Andy chose the opposite, pessimistically entering saying he wasn’t going to win, several times! His number came up this time, and I’ll be sending him some great stuff!

 

That’s all for now! I got some chicken harnesses for Christmas so I can try taking chickens for a walk instead of Macha, that should get the neighbors talking….until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

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by | October 5, 2016 · 10:17 pm

CroMagnon Firecracker, Mi Querida, Belstaff Bond, CAO Flathead and Cigar Prop

I had a long day Sunday with my brother-in-law framing out two walls in my living room. I guess in the late 50’s when the house was built heating was cheap and insulation wasn’t a big concern, so putting drywall right over brick and block walls was OK. Over the years people also thought it was a good idea to wallpaper, then after wallpaper was out of fashion it was OK to paint the wall paper. We’ve been systematically removing old drywall and insulating the outside walls. This is all irrelevant except that it was a long day, and by the CroMagnon_Firecrackertime I got to a cigar, I wanted something short, but satisfying. At the IPCPR I finally met an old friend, Dave Payne, and he generously shared with me some cigars, one of which was a RoMaCraft CroMagnon Firecracker, this years Two Guys Smoke Shop special edition. In years passed they have had the Firecracker vitola made by La Flor Dominicana and Tatuaje (I think?). It’s a 3″ x 50 with a closed foot and a long pigtail “Fuse”.  I have to think this is a goosed up version of the CroMagnon blend, it’s a power

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ful little cigar and was just what I needed to wrap up a productive day. While it was strong, it was loaded with those deep, dark flavors that I love in the CroMagnon blend. Of course, I wanted it to be longer, but it was a great little smoke. Thanks to Dave for sharing it with me, Skip for making it, and Dave Garofalo for dreaming up this vitola. I have a suspicion that this will be a very hard cigar to find.

 

Mi Querida Monday! Taking a walk with an Ancho Largo - @stevesakaMonday I figured it was time to give Steve Saka’s Mi Querida another try, dubbing the occasion “Mi Querida Monday”. Maybe we can make this a thing, #miqueridamonday needs to enter the lexicon. Anyway, I smoked one of these at the show and saw the potential, trade show samples smoked in the Las Vegas environment is rarely a good way to sample a cigar. I found another one in my samples, and had been salivating over it waiting for the right time to smoke it. Monday was the night. I’m anxiously awaiting these showing up in one of my local shops so I can put some more in my humidor. This cigar had everything I love about cigars, great construction, perfect draw and the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper was delicious. This could become one of tho

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se “goto” cigars that always satisfies. I obviously have a bias, I’ve known Steve for 20 years, but I know him well enough to be honest with him if I don’t like something he made, but I would like this cigar no matter who was behind it. Another winner from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust.

 

BelstaffBond_ToroTuesday I came across a cigar that came from the Bugatti Cigars booth, which was within the Meier and Dutch booth (the distribution arm of Cigars International). This was a toro called Belstaff Bond, and is made in General Cigar’s Santiago, DR factory. This cigar had a nice, dark Ecuador Sumatra wrapper,  and was quite a good smoke. I have smoked several cigars from the Bugatti line, and found them to be quite nice. This reminds me that I’ve been using the new Xikar Xidris lighter pretty exclusively for the last few weeks and am finding it to be an excellent lighter. It holds a lot of fuel and lights every time. It has a solid, hefty feel, and Xikar says that it has super car styling (see the tie in?). It’s a classy lighter, I just have to make sure I have it oriented the right way or I’ll burn my palm one of these days. It’s a very nice lighter.

 

In the mood for a CAO Flathead Steel Horse Apehanger - @caocigars @xikar @cigarpropTonight I got a hankering for a “goto” cigar, and opted for the CAO Flat Head Steel Horse Apehanger, a 5½” x 58 cigar with a Connecticut Habano wrapper. I really love the Flathead line, the Steel Horse series is round instead of square pressed, but still has the flat cap, which is best approached with a large-bore punch. The released two new sizes this year at the show, and I’ve yet to get my hands on either one (the Handbrake and the Roadkill, both in the robusto range at 4½ x 50 and 5½ x 54 respectively), and as soon as I come across some I’ll be picking them up, but the Apehanger does it for me. I once joked about putting Apehanger handlebars on my Yamaha Majesty 400 scooter…

 

CigarProp1Finally, you’ll recall a year or so back I mentioned some nice cigar tubes that Kevin Shahan was making in his Florida machine shop, and he’s moved into making another useful cigar product, the Cigar Prop. This is a machined aluminum cigar stand that is very handy. I tried to make a poor man’s version of this a few years ago out of a piece of bamboo and a 1″ hole saw. I would walk to the local convenience store, set my cigar on the ice cooler outside (or the top of the Red Box machine) while I went into the store. CigarProp2One day a Liga Privada number nine rolled off and I had to reach under the machine to retrieve it and it had been damaged in the six-foot drop and just wasn’t the same after that. That’s when I started carrying the bamboo stand with me. Not that I have too much of a need for that anymore, but this Cigar Prop is a handy addition to the collection of cigar tools. It’s very nicely machined, cradles the cigar nicely and is attractive. You can see it in use in two of the photos above. Give Kevin’s Cigar Prop site a look, and for you bearded guys, he also has a line of beard products called  Irish Beard Balm.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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by | August 28, 2016 · 7:02 am

A CAO Cigars Event, an EP Carillo and a Padilla IPCPR Release

IMG_3694[1]Thursday we went to G & G Cigars in downtown West Chester, PA to see Ricky Rodriquez at a CAO event.  G & G changed hands in the last couple years, and while the selection in the  humidor changed a bit, it remains a very nice shop managed by Mike, who keeps a clean and inviting lounge.  I picked up a few Flatheads in the 660 size and the Steel Horse Apehanger size and wandered into the lounge and sat down next to Ricky, who was deep in conversation with another patron.  I have known Ricky since probably 2010, having spent some time with him in the Dominican Republic in 2011, and seeing him at the IPCPR show just last month.  My son and I actually hung out with him and Ed McKenna the first night we were in Vegas at the Circle Bar in the Venetian, where he shared the new CAO Consigliere with us (the re-release of the Sopranos).  I sat next to Rick smoking my Flathead 660 for close to ten minutes before he got up and my wife “introduced” us…it was a very IMG_3697[1]amusing moment.  It was fairly quiet in the lounge, so we had a great time talking about the cigar world, and the world in general with Ricky.  He had been at another location about two miles from

home that afternoon, but who among us working folks can make a 12-3 event on a Thursday? It worked out well, the Flathead line remains one of my favorites, and the one I smoked was quite satisfying and lasted until the parking meter expired.  Ricky knows his tobacco and is always a treat to hang out with.  If he comes to your area don;t miss the opportunity to hang out with him.

 

EPCarillo_Dusk_ObscureFriday I opened the IPCPR sample humidor (which, by the way, is a reasonably large Psyko Seven humidor that my wife won on a Best Cigar Prices Facebook Contest, totally legit and above-board, I checked! It’s a pretty darned nice humidor that can be had at a very reasonable price. It’s been working very well with Boveda packs. Enough of the commercial, and there will be more on Psyko Seven in the near future. Please note that nobody asked me to say anything about this) and pulled out an EP Carillo Dusk Obscure, the largest in this new line at 7″ x 54. The Dusk has a US grown wrapper, clearly a Broadleaf, an Ecuador binder and Nicaraguan fillers, made at Ernesto’s factory in the Dominican Republic. Having been a fan of Ernesto P. Carillo’s work over the last 20 years, it was a treat to finally sit down with him and meet him at the trade show. I don’t get starstruck by many in the cigar world anymore, but Ernesto was one of the people who I was nervous about meeting.  The Dusk was a great cigar, and another cigar I will seek out to further sample.  It was sweet and had the dark flavors I prefer.

 

Padilla_Anniversary_ChurchillSaturday I wound up a busy day with another IPCPR sample. Remember I said there seemed to be a lot more larger sized samples at the show this year? Well, I’ve been selecting the larger cigars as the weather allows, I’ll have plenty of robustos to get through the winter. I selected the Padilla Anniversary in the 7″ x 50 Churchill size. I’m not entirely clear which anniversary this line celebrates, the company has been around for about 14 years, but I don’t suppose it matters as special anniversary releases will be severely limited moving forward thanks to the FDA regulations. The Padilla Anniversary is a  Nicaraguan puro made at Raíces Cubanas in Honduras. It’s got a Habano wrapper, Nicaraguan Corojo binder and fillers from Esteli and Jalapa.  This cigar started out pretty smooth and built in strength, ending up to be quite a powerhouse. The burn and draw were perfect, with a good amount of smoke.  The band is really beautiful, with the Padilla signature lion holding a trident. It’s quite stunning, and the presentation is completed by a cedar sleeve. This will be a regular release, although limited. It was quite a nice smoke for a Saturday evening.

 

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

 

CigarCraig

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