Tag Archives: cohiba

by CigarCraig | February 28, 2016 · 10:10 am

An Asylum and a La Gloria Cubana from Famous, Along With Some Other Cigars

The problem with taking Wednesdays off is that I have to decide which of the cigars I’ve smoked during the week to talk about on Sunday. The reason I skipped my midweek post was that I had a Prime Living magazine article deadline, and I wanted to get that taken care of. I have a calendar of the due dates for the rest f the year, let’s see if I can use that to plan ahead so I’m not waiting until the last minute every time! I think it’s been about two years that I’ve been writing the Cigar Notes feature in Prime Living, it’s still crazy to me when I see my name in the byline. I did smoke some really interesting cigar this week, I’m going to touch on these four briefly.

First off I smoked a Swag SoBe Lavish, which is a robusto from Boutique Blends. This was part of the Cigar Authority Care Package and I smoked it while listening to the show in podcast form. This cigar really surprised me in that it had distinctive flavor, I want to say it was like a green tea maybe, and I tasted it for hours after I was done. I’ll be looking for more of these. Yesterday I took a long walk with what I believe to have been a Perdomo 20th Anniversary Sun Grown Churchill, I didn’t take any measurements, but I swear it was larger at the foot than the head. I know it wasn’t a torpedo because Perdomo torps are pretty distinctive in their pointyness. For you cigar walkers, this size is good for five miles. Very tasty, but I prefer the Maduro in this line. The Cohiba Luxury Edition is a stupidly expensive cigar, I can’t imagine dropping $38 on one cigar, but it was an exceptional example of cigar making and blending, and it was very good. This was the subject of my Prime Living piece, so you’ll have to wait until the May/June issue drops to read more about this. Finally, and these were in no particular order by the way, there was one day this week that I was in the mood for an Epic Maduro, so I grabbed a Double Corona, which is really a gordo, for my evening walk. This line is rising to the top of my go-to list, and it takes quite a bit of will power not to just grab one the few of these I have on hand every day. These are frickin delicious and Dean Parsons is a really cool dude. There were others, but these were the ones I had some thoughts on off the top of my head.

A couple of weeks back I received some cigars from Famous Smoke Shop, cigars that are made exclusively for them. One of them was the Asylum Lobotomy in the toro size. Thank goodness they didn’t send the 770, that’s too darned large for winter smoking, shivering knocks the ash everywhere! These are a value priced take on the Asylum line, with a Maduro Nicaraguan Habano wrapper. This is a really nice cigar for under $5 if you like a strong, bold flavored cigar that has enough changes to keep things interesting. The burn on the samples I smoked was pretty good, I had to touch up a few times, but aging will certainly fix this. I imagine these will age well too, although they are good pretty much off the truck. These come in the toro, 770 Double Toro (6×60) and a 4×44 “corona”, so there’s something for everyone. I half expected this to be a lot stronger than it was given the name.

The other new offering in Famous’ exclusives line is from La Gloria Cubana. This is a take on the Serie R line, called the La Gloria Cubana Serie RF (I’m guessing the “F” is for Famous…ya think?). As much as I love just about all things La Gloria Cubana, I haven’t had the greatest experiences with the regular Serie R line. These were really one of the first large ring gauge cigars back in the early 2000s, and I really wanted to like them, but they always came up short for me. I love the Serie R Esteli, and to a lesser extent the Serie R Black (I find the Brick and Mortar exclusive Esteli a bit richer than the catalog/internet exclusive Black). So I went into the Serie RF with a cautious optimism. I smoked the No. 13, which is a 5½x54 robusto. The blend is a Ecuador Habano wrapper, Connecticut Havano binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. I need to smoke some more of these, because I really enjoyed the crap put of the one I smoked. It was smooth, sweet and full of flavor. These are a priced in the mid $8 range, but worth it, in my opinion.

That’s all I can manage this morning. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day, so I need to get something done around here, including getting a nice, long cigar walk in. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Asylum, cigar, cigars, cohiba, Epic, La Gloria Cubana, Lobotomy, Perdomo, Serie RF, Swag

by CigarCraig | November 29, 2015 · 1:48 pm

Padilla, Byron, Cohiba, Norteño, Gurkha and BG Meyers Cigars

I hope everyone out there who celebrates it had a peaceful and nutritious Thanksgiving! Ours was small, with a delicious dinner followed by a good cigar. Lets remember how fortunate we are this time of year and consider that there are those who don’t have great cigars or even a good meal. Throwing a little something to your local food bank now and then won’t hurt. That’s enough of the public service announcement portion of the blog post, what did I smoke this week? Last week I mentioned the new Reserva line from Padilla, so I lit up the Padilla Reserva Corojo 99 robusto this week, since Criollo is generally not one of my favorite wrappers I saved it for last. The Corojo was another really nice cigar, with a unique flavor in the background, not unlike its San Andrés sibling. I’m looking forward to trying the Criollo 98 version now. As I am prone to do, I feel the need to criticize the Padilla website. It’s just white, literally nothing there, and has been for a couple of weeks.

Wednesday I decided to celebrate the end of the holiday shortened week with a Byron Serie Siglo XIX Grand Poemas, a 6″ x 56 toro, with undisclosed filler, wrapper and binder. These are made in Costa Rica (Same factory as MBombay and Vegas de Santiago I believe), under the watchful eye of Nelson Alphonso. Some of come in cool Humiditubes, like the Atabay line from the same company, but this was a sample/gift from David Garofalo, who distributes the company’s cigars. I can see why smokers like Dave, who likes milder cigars, loves these and puts them at the top of their all-time favorite lists. It’s absolutely perfectly constructed, in every way. Burn is straight as an arrow, draw is ideal, and it’s got a very pleasing flavor in the medium bodied range. Obviously every detail was attended to in the making of these cigars, and the quality shows, and it should since it’s not a cheap date. Personally, there are quite a few cigars I consider expensive that I’d buy two or three of before buying one of these, but it’s a special cigar, for sure, and I’m very glad for the opportunity to have smoked them. There are three series in this line, the XIX, XX and XXI, and the significance is that the XXI (19) is how they imagine the cigar was blended in the 1800s, when the Byron brand originated, with the XX symbolizing the 1900s and the XXI the 2000s. Who’s to argue?

After a delicious and satisfying Turkey dinner on Thursday, I was rummaging through one of the humidors when I came across a Cohiba Siglo III in a yellow cardboard box which was a gift from a friend several years ago. It seemed like the right time to smoke this, and I haven’t smoked a great many Cuban Cohibas in the past. I had no idea the age of this cigar prior to it being in my possession, which can be an issue with Cuban cigars, but I considered the source, and figured it was ready to go. 20 years ago Cuban cigars were considered very strong, but I think they are more on the mild side now. Back in 1999 I went to a cigar breakfast in Vegas where Bolivar Belicosos Finos were the featured cigar kind of as an irony, as that cigar was one of the strongest cigars out there at the time. This Cohiba reminded me of the Byron in a way, it was mild, subtle and sophisticated. The cigar was a nice size too, 6.10″ x 42 and burned well. I think it was a great way to end the day. I am certainly thankful that one of the harder decisions I have to make is what cigar to smoke.

After dabbling in the mild, subtle and complex end of the cigar pool for a few days I wanted to switch gears and go for a cigar I knew would be a heavy, rich, uncomplicated flavor factory. The Norteño Edicion Limitada from Drew Estate practically jumped into my hand. This is a Churchill sized cigar with an oval-shaped box press, measuring 7″ x 48, with a San Andrés wrapper, Honduran binder and fillers from Jalapa and Esteli. This is one of those cigars I mentioned above that I’d buy two of over one Byron, just because it has the sweet, cocoa, espresso flavor I really like in a cigar. This is another winning blend from Willie Herrera, pretty limited and exclusive, and $14 too, it’s definitely worth a try.

Yesterday I tuned into the afternoon Flyers vs. Rangers game on my tablet and say in my back porch and smoked a cigar while I watch the second and third periods. A Gurkha Royal Challenge Maduro Toro caught my eye, the colors in the band were what did it, and the dark, oily wrapper. I would have liked a little more resistance in the draw on this one, it was very open, and I worried that this would overheat the cigar and ruin it, so I was careful not to overdraw. I started out with a little bit of a bitter flavor, not the sweetness that the Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper would normally have. It was almost dirty tasting at the start, sometimes I like that. I was initially regretting my choice, but after an inch or so it settled into a pretty tasty smoke that got me midway into the third period, which allowed me to watch the dramatic conclusion on the larger screen (tablet battery was about to die anyway). This was from that orange boxed sampler from the IPCPR show (gave one away here), and was the only true 6″ x 50 toro in the bunch. There were some things I liked about this cigar, but there were also things I didn’t. The game turned out great though, the Flyers have had trouble scoring goals and winning in Madison Square Garden, and didn’t have either of those problems yesterday.

I finished the day off with a BG Meyers Standard Issue toro, which was in The Cigar Authority Care Package. This was 2 Guys Smokeshop/The Cigar Authority’s Cigar of the Year last year, and I have to say that I kinda get why. I smoked it while listening to the show, I got one right for a change! It seems like I either forget I have the cigar, don’t pay attention to which cigar is on the show, or something. I think I still have one cigar from each of the last two care packages leftover because of my lack of focus (to be fair, one wa a Tortuga Cedros No.5, and I have a bunch of them and have smoked them before). Anyway, the BG Meyer is from Camacho, in their Board of the Bold series with Mat Booth, that football guy (Mike Ditka), and this one which is fronted by Rob Weiss, who created the TV show “Entourage”. It didn’t burn as well as the other cigar I smoked this week, but it wasn’t crazy bad, just needed a couple touch-ups. It was meaty, savory and pretty darned good. Camacho did some pretty good things last year, and this line might well be one of them. Again, not unlike the Room 101 line, finding a website to reference was impossible. You’d think the folks at Davidoff would understand that.

Enough from me, have a great Sunday and I’ll be back later. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as BG Meyer, Byron, cigar, cigars, cohiba, Gurkha, Norteño, Padilla

by CigarCraig | July 23, 2015 · 10:35 pm

IPCPR Thoughts and Highlights – Part One

We got back from the IPCPR show yesterday, and it was a whirlwind 3 days at the show. I didn’t do the video interviews like I’ve done in the past, I figure other people are doing them and I don’t do what everyone else does. The only one I did I posted Sunday, and I’ll try to fix the audio when I get a chance. I will have a video montage of the “secret question” which I did for fun. Two years ago I put together the montage (here), and when I get the video put together I’ll post it. It’s a bit of fun and something different. I encourage you to visit my colleagues sites who did run around interviewing everyone, I just didn’t have it in me this time around. Obviously when I got Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust‘s Steve Saka alone at the end of the first day, and was the first blogger type to have talked to him, I had to scoop the competition. I’m not proud of my competitiveness in that regard, but I am proud to have gotten the first interview with Steve out. I asked some questions I’m sure nobody else did. I’ve known Steve for nearly 20 years, which might have given me a little advantage. I’ve gt samples, and you’ll hear more about them as I smoke them. They are taking a rest in the humidor, and I even shipped a box back that’s due tomorrow. Anyway, here’s the quick day by day recap.

Friday we drove two hours to Newark, NJ for a 5am flight which took us through Chicago then finally to New Orleans. Once checked into our hotel, the Hilton Riverside, which is next to the convention center, more or less, we walked to get our badges. This convention center had to have been nearly a mile long, it’s one enormous building, and the IPCPR was on the far end. We went to our hotel and took about a three-hour nap before heading back to the convention center for the gala grand opening reception, which followed the Government Affairs Briefing. This has been poorly attended in the past, and it was quite important to those who make a living in the cigar industry, so it was a stroke of genius offering cocktails to the attendees. The gala offered food and a cash bar, which was exorbitantly expensive. We caught up with quite a few old friends here, spending some time with the Two Guys Smoke Shop crew, as well as many others. I had run into Scott Weeks of Recluse Cigars, who handed me a Recluse Amadeus in Connecticut and the new Habano, and I smoked the Connecticut at the event, which is a great Connecticut shade cigar, lots of flavor. I can’t wait to try the Habano version, as I’ve been a Recluse fan since their release. I also smoked something else, but I can’t recall what it was. The evening was sponsored by Fratello Cigars. It was a fun evening, but even after the nap we were running at a sleep deficit, and wanted to be awake for the opening of the show.

Saturday morning we arose refreshed and went to the opening breakfast at the convention center. Smoking is allowed at the breakfast, but I was holding off until we got to the show. There is a business meeting that takes place, with recognition of the outgoing and incoming presidents and the introduction of the new IPCPR CEO, as well as some industry awards. All quite uninteresting to the consumer, but the officers and board of directors do this in their spare time on a volunteer basis, so there behind the scenes work deserves recognition. They always have a keynote speaker, and this year it was Larry Winget, a motivational speaker who was quite insightful and entertaining. I bought his book. He and I have a similar sense of humor, and many of his observations were quite funny. Breakfast was good, the coffee was great and it was a nice way to spend the morning. The show floor opened to the masses at 10:30 and we ran into quite a few old friends on what seemed like a half mile walk to the entrance of the show. Upon entering, Drew Estate‘s elaborate and expansive booth is straight ahead, so it was mobbed. We had a couple of appointments in the afternoon, so we went to the far end of the show floor and wandered, saying hello to friends, meeting up with fellow bloggers and media types, and getting the lay of the land ( taking note of where the food court was, bathrooms, etc. The first appointment was with Victor Vitale of Tortuga and Legacy brands, where I was reintroduced to the new Tortuga Connecticut, which was my first cigar of the show. This is a very smooth, creamy cigar with great flavor. I have smoked it before, and it’s a very enjoyable Connecticut, not to be missed. You may begin to notice a trend, I do’t smoke a great many milder cigars, but I’ve been to enough events and trade shows that I know how much it can suck if you blow out your palate early with strong cigars. I typically don’t go through a ton of cigars on the show floor as it’s awkward talking to one manufacturer about his cigar with another manufacturers cigar in your mouth (in the interview with Steve Saka I was smoking the new Leccia Luchadore, more on that later, but I couldn’t put it down and Steve didn’t have any samples of the Sobremesa). Victor was struggling with having his display cases broken and not having the right furniture, so it was a rough show for him, but he kept a smile on his face. This is another trend we saw: broken displays and what appeared to be poor service by whoever was in charge of moving things around with at least one booth never receiving a couch or chairs. I attended a media briefing at Rafael Nodal’s Boutique Blends/Aging Room booth with was informative, with Rafael telling us about his current selections. This factory continues to put out some great cigars, I just enjoyed the joint venture between Rafael and Altadis, the Romeo by Romeo y Julieta Aging Room Small Batch F25 in the Cantoar belicoso size and it was very nice. Not a show sample, by the way. After visiting with Rafael and his boys we went to the General Cigar booth for our traditional 3:00 on the first day of the show tour. General always rolls out the red carpet for us, and we saw some great looking new products including new branding on the Macanudo line, a Partagas Aniversario which looks really tasty, Bolivar and Ramon Allones reboots from the Foundry division as well as the Leccia Luchador El Gringo line extension (I mentioned before that I smoked it and really liked it, despite the example I smoked being a 70 ring). CAO has the Pilon, Margaritaville and added a round cigar to their Flathead line, the Steel Horse, paying homage to the motorcycles as opposed to the automobile reference in the previous five sizes. More about all of these as I smoke them after the samples have a chance to rest. Cohiba has a new very expensive Luxury Selection No. 2, which is beautiful, and Dunhill has the Heritage and Seleccion Suprema. Finishing off the tour was the Toraño line with the repackaged Brick bundle brand. I like a lot of cigars in the General Cigar portfolio, so I am looking forward to trying a bunch of the new cigars. Stay tuned for a giveaway here in the near future so you too can try some!

We free-ranged around the show floor some more until getting to sit down with Steve Saka after the show closed. I had to get the video interview out, which meant napping in between video processing, editing, and uploading over hotel WiFi so I could publish it for you first thing Sunday morning. Needless to say, the first day was fun, exciting and tiring, and I’m going to Post about days three and four on Sunday. Lots of great cigars and great people.

Until the next time,

CigarCraig`

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Filed under Events, IPCPR

Tagged as 20 Minutes in Detroit, Aging Room, Boutique Blends, CAO, cigar, cigars, cohiba, drew estate, Foundry, general cigars, IPCPR, La Gloria Cubana, leccia, macanudo, Partagas, Romeo, Tortuga

by CigarCraig | December 23, 2014 · 6:57 am

CigarCraig’s 12 Spectacular Days of Cigar Giveaways 2014 Day 13?: Cohiba Cigars

It should come as no surprise that we are, once again, going to Day 13! It’s a Festivus miracle! I was overwhelmed by the response from my dear friends in the cigar industry. Haven’t they been great? Please remember to thank all the generous participants, without whom this would be VERY expensive for me! Let’s just hope the FDA doesn’t get in the way of our fun, and make sure you join Cigar Rights of America (or Europe, or Canada) so we have a chance to continue to enjoy cigars the way we have. Last night I smoked an Arandoza Red Label toro that I picked up at To’Makao cigars in Bethlehem, PA Sunday. This cigar is a powerhouse, with TONS of dark, rich flavor. If I were making a list, this would be at the top for me this year, I think. Terrific cigar! I know, you want to know who won the box of Arandoza Red Label, and that lucky individual is Xolotal Mungin. Make sure to send me your address so I can get this out to you! And now, on to Day 13!

Cohiba Nicaragua

Day 13 brings us another cigar from General Cigar Co., the new Cohiba Nicaragua. This is Cohiba’s first cigar to be made in Nicaragua with Nicaraguan tobacco from Esteli and Jalapa, wrapped with a Colorado oscuro wrapper. Today’s present is the Cohiba Nicaragua N60, the largest size in the line at 6″ x 60. This is a box of 16 cigars. I’ve smoked the robusto in this line and it’s spectacular. Thank again to Victoria and the folks at General Cigar Co. for their unwavering support.

Rules

All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment on that day’s post and if you like, in one sentence tell us what comes to mind when you think of Cohiba Cigars. It’s not a condition to win, but I’d like for the folks who make this all possible to come away with some consumer feedback. Also, be sure to visit the links for each item. Comments on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else will not count, but feel free to spread the word!

Until tomorrow,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as 12 days, cigar, cigars, cohiba, Contest, general cigars

by CigarCraig | October 8, 2014 · 9:00 pm

A Montecristo, a Gurkha and a Cohiba, and Some Cigar News

I’m sitting here watching the first Flyers game of the season, trying to write. Hockey is the only sport I have any interest in, so it’s nice that it’s back! Anyway, I stuck with some classic brands this week, starting off with a Montecristo which was given to me by Tom, our local Altadis rep a few weeks back at The Smokin Goose Festival. Goose’s Tobacco is a Montecristo Lounge, so they have the exclusive (and aptly named) Casa de Montecristo Exclusivo. Obviously, this cigar is only available at Montecristo lounges. This is a 6″ x 60 with an enormous band in addition to a black and silver Montecristo band. The wrapper is Ecuador Sumatra, with Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The cigar burned very nicely, and it had a reasonably sweet tobacco flavor. I enjoyed this cigar, I suspect I would smoke this again if I found myself in a Montecristo lounge and had $12 burning a hole in my pocket.

Tuesday I heard the news that Carlos Llaca Toraño is now the Director of Operations at Gurkha Cigars. He was previously the Operations Director at Toraño Family cigars until their recent acquisition by General Cigar Co. This prompted me to select the newest offering from Gurkha’s East India Trading Co., The Classic Cigar – Havana Blend in the XO size. The square press on this 6″ x 60 makes it feel smaller than it is. This is another nice smoking cigar which I found to have a pleasing flavor on the light side. Once I realized that this wasn’t a powerful cigar I really enjoyed the delicate flavor. At right around $8 each, this is a nice smoke. I only had to touch it up once or twice, otherwise it burned quite well. This would probably be a nice morning cigar with a cup of coffee.

Tonight I went with the new Cohiba Nicaragua in the N50 robusto size. The samples I received from General Cigar Co. are cellophaned 5″ x 50, which only appear to be available in glass tubes commercially. This is the first Cohiba to be blended and handcrafted in Nicaragua. The fillers are from Esteli and Jalapa and the wrapper is listed as Colorado Oscuro, no mention of country of origin. Obviously the Cohiba name comes with some expectations, whether positive or not, so I was interested to see what this new Nicaraguan blend brought to the table. It started out very sweet, and developed very nicely. It burned like a super premium cigar should, a nice flat and even burn with a perfect draw through a V-cut. I suspect these will age nicely, but they are smoking well now.

As I was getting a lighter out the other day I realized that I have a few of them laying around. One thing that stands out to me is that the lighters I have range from a couple dollars to around $60, and with the proper care, the cheaper ones generally work as well as the expensive ones. In this picture you’ll notice that none of the three Blazer torches I’ve had over the last 17 years or so have survived. The Zippo with the z-Plus insert has been the most impressive, as well as the Ronson. The newest addition is the Jetline triple torch (at about 9 oclock) which came from the Rocky Mountain Festival goodie bag. This is a very nice lighter. The yellow one will be recognized by some of my blogger bretheren, it actually has what is basically a Cricket lighter inside of it and I have had good luck taking it apart and spreading it out through my luggage when I travel. Only the white La Gloria lighter is a soft flame, hence it gets very little use. I have some other ones here and there, I hate not having a lighter handy!

News

The first big news relates to my mention of Carlos Llaca Toraño joining Gurkha, his cousin Jack Toraño, who was also displaced in the acquisition, has joined Roberto P. Duran Premium Cigars. Look for a press release in the coming days announcing this. Anyone who knows Jack knows what a great guy he is, and I’m very glad to hear he’s re-joining the workforce after a reasonably short hiatus.

In other news, The Charlotte Observer reports that the JR Statesville store will be closing at the end of the year. There are three stores in North Carolina, and they are all large outlet stores with all kinds of merchandise from Jeans and toys, to cigarettes and premium cigars. If you ever drove down I-95 through North Carolina you can’t miss the entertaining billboards. Apparently the owner of the property isn’t renewing their lease and has plans to re-develop the entire shopping center that is aging. Seventy-seven jobs will be lost, however JRs says they will open a cigar only store nearby in the future. The full story is here. This is the only North Carolina location I haven’t visited, I’ve stopped at the Selma store on the few trips I’ve made down I-95, and I had a tour of the massive distribution center in Burlington many years ago.

That’s it for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Casa de Montecristo, cigar, cigars, cohiba, East India Trading Co., general cigars, Gurkha, Lighter, Montecristo, Roberto Duran, Torch