Another week down. We’re well into November, I have to start thinking about putting up Christmas lights, and decorations, and as fast as time is going I’m wondering what’s the point? I’ll no sooner get them up and have to take them down. My grandmother always told me the older you get, the faster time goes by and she wasn’t wrong! 
Things need to slow down! Anyway, my daily vacation is a cigar, and I try to slow things down for the hour and a half I spend with one. This week I had a trio of new-to-me cigars (actually four, but one needs a second look. I’ll try to get that in next week). The first two I purchased on a visit to the Wooden Indian a couple weeks back. I’ll start with the La Flor Dominicana Suave Grand Maduro No. 6 . This is a 5¾” x 54 torpedo, with a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, binder from Jalapa, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic fillers. It’s a throwback to the original LFD blends back in 1994, before they were known for making powerhouse cigars. I likened the flavors to bakers chocolate, there was a dryness to it, cocoa without sweetness. As it warmed up it got some spiciness, but was never what I’d call strong, just a really nice, medium cigar. I’d recommend trying this, it’s a really nice cigar.
I’ve been making an effort to sample more Rocky Patel cigars, the trouble is, I have a problem remembering what I’ve tried and what I haven’t. I will often search my own website to check, which is kinda why I started doing this in the first place, to create a record of what I smoke, a web log, I guess. There should be a word for that. Anyway, I knew I hadn’t tried the Rocky Patel Emerald yet, I’d have remember the green sleeve on the cigar. It reminded me of Christmas, even though it’s not supposed to. I smoked the Toro, and I’ve mentioned before that I like that a lot of Rocky’s toros are 6½” x 52, I like that extra half an inch. Of course, if it’s a bad cigar, that’s no good, but I don’t think I’ve come across a Rocky Patel cigar that was bad. I digress. The Emerald has an Ecuador Habano wrapper, over a Mexican binder with Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers. They say that this is their first box pressed cigar that’s on the lighter side of medium. I think the green snuck into my subconscious, because it had a Christmasy flavor, baking spices like Christmas cookies. I liked it a lot, so much so that I went out and bought another one. Oddly, my Facebook post about this cigar had more engagement that most of my posts.
I’ve smoked a couple of these Room 101 Namakubi Chingon. I love the blue presentation, long considered a bad color for cigar bands, it’s come around and it really works on this. This is made in partnership with William Ventura in the DR, I’m guessing at his factory in Tamboril. It uses the Ranfla vitola, a 6½” x 50 perfecto. Interestingly, the size is incorrectly stated on the press release (twice) as 5½” x 60, and I’ve seen that parroted on other sites, certainly by people who would know the difference. I’d actually like to try this in a 5½” x 60, I almost feel cheated if I got the wrong samples….almost. This is an exceptional cigar, and it should be for the $25 price tag. It has an interesting herbal start, switching to cane sugar in the second two thirds. I enjoyed the first one so much that I had to go back 
for a second one, which unfortunately I didn’t get to enjoy as much because I was trying to watch the Flyers game, and the sketchy websites I was using were giving me fits. I would pay someone a nominal fee (or send cigars?) for the use of their cable credentials so I can watch on the NBC app, I’m too cheap to spend $38 a month for Peacock, that negates my savings dropping cable. I’m bitching about $38 a month while smoking $25 cigars, first world problems. I like this new Namakubi better than my memory of the old one, and I had an excellent well aged Namakubi Papi Chulo not long ago!
That’s all I have for today, until the next time.
CigarCraig
