The latter half of my week was a little goofy with a couple of late work days, and an odd weekend off. Now we have weird weather on top of that with a threatened winter storm, which turned into rain, and now it’s going to go from an unseasonably balmy 40s down to the single digits in a matter of hours today. If I don’t have a migraine today sometime I’ll be surprised! Anyway, this has all conspired to throw my rhythm off a bit. Thursday evening I came home and repaired to the back porch smoking lounge a bit later than normal with a sentimental favorite, a La Aurora Corojo 1962 Robusto. I use the term “sentimental favorite” for La Aurora in general, not this cigar specifically, as a box of Bristol Especiales was my first big premium cigar purchase in 1996. I think they were under $40, it looks like they have gone up by about $100 since then. My daughter might still have the box, I know she has several La Aurora boxes being that her name is Aurora. That might be what motivated me to buy that first box and what maintains my attachment to the brand. When my granddaughters were born my celebratory smokes of choice were the La Aurora Puro Vintage 2003s. There are a lot of cigars in La Aurora’s portfolio that don’t particularly line up with my preferences, but smoking one always brings a smile to my face anyway. The Corojo, is one of the cigars that I like enough, this one was packed a little tight near the head and had a snug draw. Still a tasty cigar and I like everything in this series, the Connecticut, Cameroon and this Corojo. I suspect there will always be a selection of La Aurora cigars in my humidor. One of my secrets is, if we are at a family function and I have a chance to smoke a cigar, and I think my daughter may poo-poo the idea, I smoke a La Aurora, then she can’t be upset with me! Don’t tell anyone!
Saturday I unsuccessfully struggled with a plumbing issue, then took a walk before the alleged winter storm which didn’t happen with a Camacho Triple Maduro 6×60. It’s been years since I had a Camacho Triple Maduro, I think the last time was when Camacho had a promotion with three cigars banded A, B and C, with a story line to go along with it and I can’t remember the details, nor can I find anything I wrote about it, so it may have been pre-2009. I’ll really have to dig through the archives, which are filed in a bankers box in a warehouse in the desert in Nevada, several aisles away from where the Ark of the Covenant is stored. I’ve said too much. Anyway, I remember the robusto being pretty strong, but the gordo seemed to temper the strength and I thought it was pretty smooth and medium for me. It was a very tasty cigar, loads of espresso, low on the sweetness scale, oddly enough, but much to my liking. Brother Kevin, of CigarProp fame, commented that the Triple Maduro made his throat hurt, which made me think he was doing something wrong. BTW, check out Kevin’s latest video interview with Steve Saka, it’s outstanding and your’s truly gets a nice mention, TY!. I guess the point of all this is that I still like the Camacho cigars in the Davidoff era, but is it unreasonable to think that a company like Davidoff would not be able to make quality cigars? They’ve continued to make good smokes, with eye-catching packaging, and kept the prices fair. I’ll still smoke them!
Finally, a couple of weeks ago I gave a way almost all of my Ventura cigars in a contest, but I still had a couple here and there, and I found a Case Study CS/02 from the 2016 IPCPR in the humidor that was about the size cigar I was looking for, so I figured it was a good time to light it up. This one is in their “Master Editions” line, which I believe is regular production, while they have a limited edition line with is more along the lines of a “we found this batch in a aging room, put our bands on them, and once they are gone, they are gone” model. I smoking this cigar and felt like there was a familiarity about it. It had a really nice flavor, a milk chocolate-brown Habano wrapper with a sweetness to go along with it. It was very “clean”, well-balanced, and lacked any aggression, just a nice, well-mannered, luxurious sweet smoke. A little research turned up that this cigar is made at La Aurora. It indeed has an Ecuador Habano Wrapper, a Sumatra binder from Brazil, and an undisclosed filler blend. It was tasty, it was smooth, if I ever see these around, I might pick some up, but I haven’t seen these in stores locally. All I every see from Ventura are Archetype, it seems, I don’t even see the Psyko Sevens in my local shop, which sucks because I’d buy the maduos from them all the time!
To recap: three days, only smoked cigars on two of those days, but smoked three enjoyable cigars. Check out CigarProp’s Youtube Channel. If you haven’t already, check out The Retrohale Podcast, They’ve been kind enough to promote my site for a while, and I’ve provided them some content, have fallen behind on that (as well as my own podcast). I’m going to be a guest on their show this week, so we’ll see how that goes. Finally, I’m proud to welcome J.C. Newman to the sponsor family! Click the banner on the right and enter the contest! That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
regular production size, hang on, let me go look. OK, It’s available, and it’s a terrific size. It’s a hair under 6” x 52, and lit easily and opened up to a perfect burn and draw. This is an all US Broadleaf blend, PA Broadleaf wrapper with broadleaf fillers, aged in bourbon barrels and made in Davidoff’s Dominican factory. I found myself mesmerized by the sweet, medium-bodied flavor of this cigar. I’ve smoked this blend before, but I don’t recall enjoying it as much as I did in this shape. Perhaps it was the several years of additional age? As my regular readers know, if there’s any bourbon flavor from the barrel aging, it’s lost on me. If I ever even had bourbon it’s been over 30 years, and it wasn’t good, I’ll tell you that.
Camacho Corojo Maduro in the Monarca (robusto) size. Camacho Monarca is actually one of the first documented cigar reviews I did back in 1997 in Steve Saka’s Monthly Officious Taste Test, which can be found through some searching through CigarNexus.com via archive.org. It wasn’t even close to this cigar, except in name, but interesting to me at least. The Corojo Maduro came out of an amber cellophane sleeve, and was not the powerhouse it once was. It was still quite rich in flavor, with some punch, but had mellowed. Oddly, I always regretted not just sticking with the natural Corojo as opposed to the Maduro in this line, as I think the darker wrapper somehow overshadowed the great flavor of the original Corojo line. I’ll likely never see another one of these old Corojo Maduros anyway, and it was an enjoyable smoke. Maybe the Nicaraguan Barrel Aged will be on the mine today.
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