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December 7, 2025 · 9:38 am

Some Alec Bradley, Panacea, Stolen Throne and CAO Cigars

I didn’t do anything as interesting this week as I have the last few weeks! I have been working on the daunting task of putting my Secret Santa package together, I hope everyone who participated is having an easier time. If I recall, I got stiffed last year, so the person who had me wasn’t invited back. If anyone was going to get the short end, I prefer it’s me anyway. It’s nice getting goodies, but I prefer the giving part. If only buying my wife gifts was as easy as sending cigars! Anyway, I managed to get some new-to-me cigars in this week, more or less. Starting out with a new release from Forged and Alec Bradley Cigars, the Do Not Disturb. The press release explains the name: “Alec Bradley’s latest offering encourages cigar lovers to press pause, unwind and let the world wait.” Honestly, that’s pretty much every cigar for me. Anyway, this cigar comes out of Tabacalera La Isla, which makes other cigars I like, so I was looking forward to trying this. It’s a Ecuador Connecticut shade cigar, which doesn’t really excite me, with a Dominican Criollo binder (not a big criollo fan), and Dominican and Mexican fillers. My first thought was along the lines of “gee, another shade cigar”, but I smoked it and it was very nice. My notes say sweet cream with a hint of bitterness, which. doesn’t really sound as good as it was. This held up well as an end of the day smoke, but would be really nice in the morning with coffee (in the summer). I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

Next up was the Twisted Hitch from Panacea/Flatbed Cigar Co.. Of course, Panacea is an advertising partner here, and I probably use all of the ad revenue to buy Panacea cigars. There’s always a discount code (CCFS25 for 25% off and Free Shipping on your First Order) and there’s a widget on the left sidebar with daily specials. There’s some great cigars at good prices there every day. I encourage people to try this Dominican brand that’s been around for a long time. Anyway, I saw that the Twisted Hitch was recently released, so I picked up a 4 pack. This is a 6½” x 55 Toro Grande with a Brazilian Maduro wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan filers. This is a fairly full bodied cigar with an interesting light spice, nuts and maybe a little dark dried fruits. I think it’s got some similarities to the White Label. Looking forward to smoking more of these.

I smoked the Stolen Throne Castle 919 in the belicoso vitola a while back and was enamoured with it. I had picked up a robusto at the same time and lit it up yesterday. I needed a sweet treat after a hefty lunch, and this was it. This has an Ecuadorian Habano Claro wrapper, with a Nicaraguan binder with Nicaraguan & Dominican/Peruvian fillers. The robusto is 5″ x 50. I didn’t get much of a difference in flavor between this and the belicoso, maybe it was a little shorter smoke. I get white sugar on this, it’s a flavor I enjoy in a cigar, and I really enjoyed this one. I’d pick up more, but my local shop has been low on Stolen Throne, and I haven’t been out to the Wooden Indian recently, it looks like they have them in stock. Personally, I’d pay the 50¢ more for the slightly larger belicoso, but that’s me. You aren’t going to go wrong either way, just like it’s hard to go wrong with Stolen Throne cigars (I don’t like the Yorktown, apparently some people do). Oddly, this isn’t on their website yet.

I have had some mixed results with the CAO Arcana line. I really liked the Mortal Coil and Thundersmoke, but thought the Firewalker was an abomination. The Stokk is an interesting addition to this line. It uses some Adullo, Cyprian Latakia, some Honduran fillers , A nicaraguan binder all wrapped in US Broadleaf. It’s only available in an 6½” x 52 Belicoso, where as the rest of the Arcanas are Toros. I think it’s called Stokk because of the collaboration with pipe maker Stokkebye, I doubt it’s a coincidence. The Latakia is mostly used in pipe tobacco. This pipe tobacco thing in cigars is becoming a little over done. There is the Deadwood line, Stillwell Star, Outcast, now this. Does anyone remember Sam Leccia’s Bumpy Root? That might have been the first. Anyway, the second one of these I smoked was way better than the first, moving it ahead of the Firewalker in my rankings. While note my favorite in the range, it has some interesting flavors in the beginning, transitioning to some nice, sweet tobaccos in the end.

That’s all I have for today, until next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review

Tagged as Alec Bradley, Arcana, CAO, Castle 919, cigar, cigars, Do Not Disturb, Flatbed Cigar Co., Panacea, Stokk, Stokkebye, Stolen Throne, Twisted Hitch

August 31, 2025 · 10:12 am

Stolen Throne 919, Tatuaje Cohete Corojo, Howard G Cigars and the Giveaway Winner!

Photo credit Micky Pegg

Here we are, 16 years of writing CigarCraig.com! After all this time I still have to talk myself into going to a cigar shop after work! It’s nothing personal, and I always regret it when I pass up an opportunity, but it’s a struggle for me to leave the comfort and safety of my home smoking lounge! Weird, right? I’m actually an introvert, but I do my best to hide it. Anyway, Thursday evening I visited the Wooden Indian where Lee Marsh from Stolen Throne Cigars was doing an event. I consider Lee to be a friend, and it wouldn’t have been right for him to be in the neighborhood and miss seeing him. I love some of his cigars, add the Castle 919 to that list. I picked up a couple of the new Castle 919 cigars, a Robusto and a Belicoso, the only two sizes offered. Castle 919 has an Habano Claro wrapper, over Nicaraguan binder and fillers, made at the Rojas factory. I smoked the Belicoso, which is 5″ x 54 (the Robusto is 5″ x 50), and was delighted. This has the sugar cane sweetness I enjoy and was really good to the last drop! This may rise to the top of my Stolen Throne list of favorites, although the Crook of the Crown and Three Kingdoms will always rank highly. It was a treat to see Micky Pegg there as well and learn that All Saints Cigars is healthy! It is disappointing that they dropped my favorite size from their lines (Churchill), but glad they are still around! Lee and I stopped by Cigar Mojo – The Grove afterwards where I smoked a Yorktown Fleet Robusto, which is still not my favorite, but growing on me. Lee is deeply hurt that I don’t care for this blend (or the Call to arms).

Friday was my birthday, my whole family (8 of us) went out to a nice dinner. It makes me happy having all of us together. We got home a little late, so it was the perfect time to smoke a 4″ x 50 Tatuaje Cohetes Corojo that I had picked up when I visited Cigar Mojo – The Grove. I should get over there more often, it’s literally a mile from my house, refer back to the first couple sentences of this post. This is the first Cohetes I’ve smoked in the Tatuaje line, it’s curious to me that it exists along with the 4 3/8″ x 52 T110, they are different blends, but similar sizes. This was a really good little smoke. It started out with spice, but an interestingly different spice. Starting with spice is expected, but this was a different flavor. It sweetened slightly as it smoked, and was a really delicious little smoke, that lasted at least an hour for me. Looking forward to the T110 Corojo I picked up as well to see how they compare.

Once again, a Smoke Inn special sucked me in, who can pass up $20 for five cigars delivered to your door in a couple days? This one was two Rocky Patel Cameroons and three Howard G Cameroons. It’s a no-brainer. While I was interested in trying both, the Howard G cigars were my first priority. I think I met Howard at a trade show, it would have been outside the bar in the Venetian, but I don’t recall formal introductions. I’ve been hearing good things, so I wanted to sample the brand, and I like Cameroon, always have. It looks like this is in the Magic Stick line, which also has a Habano and Connecticut. I notice that they also have a Golf themed line which has a Front Nine and Back Nine. I hope Ryan Gallimore (check out the new Cigar Circus site!) is OK with that, as he had a Front Nine and Back Nine in his Swinger Cigars line many years ago. I will be on the lookout for the Magic Stick Habano, but this Cameroon wasn’t bad! It has a raw nuts sort of nuttiness, and I seem to get some kind of nuts flavor from Cameroon. It was a fairly bold flavor, the cigar smoked very nicely.

OK, now to announce a winner in last Sunday’s big giveaway. Apparently I guessed right on what the mystery Freestyle Live cigar was. which surprises me more than anyone. It’s a really good smoke, and I look forward to getting my hands on them when they hit stores. I consulted Google’s random number generator, and 4 was the number, and the number of the counting was 4. This corresponds to Jeff W., who needs to email me his contact information so I can get this out. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with some more stuff for future giveaways! Thank you all for reading over these last 16 years!