We’re getting ready to take a road trip to Chicago for the weekend. My wife’s working the Fest for Beatles Fans and I’m going to explore some cigar shops. Again, if you are in the area, let me know and we’ll try to connect! I’m already planning to get to Smokey Bear in Evergreen Park on Friday, and TESA Cigars on Saturday afternoon for some events. I’m going to try something new for me, posting “live” blog posts, so there may be several posts instead of one big one on Sunday. Since ditching my dumb phone for an iPhone, I’m going to experiment a little with it. We’ll see how it goes and I beg your indulgence.
Sunday was a spectacular day, and after a very busy morning of yard work I decided to spend the afternoon in the pool with a big cigar. I picked up a CAO Flathead Big Block a while ago, the square pressed 7″ x 70 monster. I generally feel quite uncomfortable with the 70 ring gauge, but I like the Flatheads, so I thought I should try them all. I gave this a couple punches with my Screwpop punch (by the way, I’m really looking forward to seeing the next generation of this punch. It looks like they took my advice in the redesign. Yeah, I’m taking credit, you heard it here first! They also have another cigar cutter coming out that looks like it could be interesting) and just about emptied my lighter lighting that monster. I spent close to two hours reading in the pool, smoking that big Flathead, and enjoying it quite a bit. The enormous size tempers the blend quite a bit, it lacked the punch of the smaller sizes, and needed a few corrections. I got out of the pool and smoked the cigar for another forty-five minutes, until I just plain got tired of it. Great smoke, but I’ll stick to the smaller sizes.
After a little Sunday afternoon nap and some dinner, I needed to take the dog for a walk, so I grabbed an MBombay Brazil Mata Fina Maduro robusto. The beautiful band dominates this cigar, and it needs to be removed very soon after lighting. this is a super little smoke, smooth and sweet, with a little extra something from the Peruvian tobacco in the blend. I have been really impressed with cigars from the same factory in Costa Rico, which also makes the Atabey (which I have yet to sample, but we gave away some in the December contests courtesy of Dave Garofalo), the Byron and the Bandolero, all exceptional cigars. The MBombay burned perfectly, nice flat and even burn and a perfect draw. I am very excited to hear that a local shop is trying to bring these in, I’m quite taken with them.
Tuesday my youngest son and I went down to Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia, PA, for their La Flor Dominicana event. I’ve not smoked a lot of La Flor Dominicana cigars. Not for any particular reason, I always liked them, I just never managed to pick any up. Litto Gomez was on hand for the event, along with the local rep, Kyle. I picked up a couple Double Ligero Maduros in the chisel shape, and some Colorado Oscuro No.3s (and a couple others I can’t bring to ind at the moment and am too lazy to go to the humidor to check) and lit up one of the Chisels. I asked Litto what the best cutting method was and he suggested just giving it a squeeze which worked well. This is a formidable cigar, loaded with rich, dark flavor. I ended up giving it a bit of a scissor cut afterwhile to open the draw up a little, but other than that, it was a terrific smoke. I was able to have a really nice discussion with Litto, in spite of the fact that the place was packed, impressive for a Tuesday night. I’ve said it before, but the guys at Mojo do a great job. In less than a year they have built a really good shop and have excellent events. It was nice to run into Shaun, the proprietor of D&S Cigar Lounge in Lancaster,PA and Arline, who I met the first time I visited Cigar Mojo before they officially opened, there’s always a good bunch of folks there. My son seemed to thoroughly the Colorado Oscuro he smoked, and he only smoked cigars occasionally.
Since Christian (my son) enjoyed the La Flor Dominacana Colorado Oscuro last night, I figured I had better see what it was all about tonight. Since I had bought two, I took the second one for a walk and enjoyed the heck out of it. I didn’t find it to be as strong as the Double Ligero Maduro Chisel, but the burn was much better and it was totally satisfying, and since I had a lot of stuff to do to get ready to go away, the 5″ x 50 size worked into my schedule perfectly. I have been remiss over the last few years where this brand is concerned, but I will work on sampling through the line in the future. Nice smoke. La Flor Dominicana is one of the great survivors of the cigar boom of the ’90s.
That’s it for now, I have twelve hours of driving ahead of me tomorrow, so I need to get some rest! Stay tuned for my experimental posts over the next few days. Until the next time,
CigarCraig
Tuesday evening we found ourselves, once again, at 
old friend Mike Perry to thank for introducing us several years ago. As always, I picked up a few cigars that I haven’t tried before (and one I had), this time it was some of the new La Antiguedad from 
After I finished that tasty treat, Victor turned me on to his newest creation, the Tortuga 215 Reserva El Coyote Negro. This lovely belicoso is a tweaked version of the regular 215 Reserva with a beautiful dark Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper. I instantly regretted no smoking this cigar on a clean palate, a situation I will certainly remedy once these become commercially available. This had many things in common with the rest of Victor’s cigars, it was perfectly constructed, one of my favorite things is when you tap off the ash of a cigar and it’s burning perfectly flat. This speaks volumes to the care that goes into selecting tobaccos which happen to burn at exactly the same rate, no easy feat. This cigar competes favorable with cigars such as the Padrón 1964, it’s well balanced and very refined in flavor. That’s not to say it tastes like a Padrón at all,but was certainly on a par in terms of it’s overall performance. At about the half way point I got a curious exotic spice flavor that made me take notice, and that sensation went as quickly as it came. What a pleasant surprise, although I wasn’t surprised that this was as good as it was. I enjoy the heck out of the Tortuga line, and I was certain this amped up, maduro wrapped version would be right up my alley.
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