Tag Archives: CRA

by | January 22, 2012 · 11:46 am

A Couple of San Lotanos and a Visit to Olde World Tobacco

When was the last time you had two darn near perfect cigars in a row?  This was the case with the last two cigars I had: a San Lotano Habano Lancero and a San Lotano Maduro Robusto.  Thursday I took a drive after work to Lancaster, PA to a shop called Olde World Tobacco.  I can remember visiting this place when it was just a counter in a leather shop, maybe a dozen years ago.  It’s developed into quite a nice shop.

 

My primary motivation for going was to meet John Demharter, a manufacturers rep for many of my favorite cigars.  He was there with the San Lotano line and I was in the mood for an indoor cigar so I took the forty-five minute drive.  I grabbed a couple cigars and lit up a Habano Lancero.  Up to this point I’d only had the Oval, which, of course, is an exceptional cigar.  The Lancero was smooth, rich and delicious.  I sipped it, as one should with a cigar of this shape, and finished with about a half and inch left. I had a really nice time talking with John, who is a very nice guy, despite the fact that he’s from Pittsburgh and is probably a Penguins fan.

 

Olde World Tobacco is a fairly well appointed shop.  There is a coffee bar as you walk in, a small seating area with 3 tables, then the counter.  Humidor cabinets line the other two walls.  The cabinets seemed to be fairly sparsely stocked, but there is a nice selection there and the prices seemed fairly reasonable.  The area where the shop is located is basically a tourist area, there are outlet malls, a children’s theme park that been there since I was young (which is a long time!) and lots of Amish attractions, so one might expect prices to be a little higher than normal.  There seems to be a regular crowd of guys there smoking, who seemed to be having a good time, and the staff was very attentive.  This store features a Diamond Crown Lounge, and when you get past the shop in front, you move into a series of rooms with leather chairs and TVs that look very comfortable.  There are also some private lockers and I’m told they have an area outside for warm weather events.  It was a very nice experience and I’d go back or stop in if in the area.

 

My Friday night walk featured the San Lotano Maduro Robusto that I picked up at the event.  I’m a sucker for a box pressed maduro, and this one looked too delicious to not smoke.  It’s funny how one can have dozens of choices, but that one new arrival begs to be smoked.  And I’m glad I did, however I’m disappointed that I only bought the one!  It was the perfect choice, like smoking a nice dark chocolate bar.  Rich, cocoa-coffee, sweet and creamy  flavors that I was very sorry to put down when it started burning my fingers.  Have I mentioned that I love a properly made San Andreas Mexican maduro wrapper?   I loved the way it burned, a nice, flat coal.  It is such an accomplishment to blend a cigar that all the tobaccos used burn at the exact same rate.  It’s a rare and beautiful thing.   I can’t wait to smoke more of these, and look forward to a maduro Oval one day!

 

That’s about it for now.  We had a little snow here in SE PA this weekend, it should be gone by Monday.  This winter is turning out a lot better than last year, snow wise, which is a nice change of pace.  Once again, if you haven’t sent letters to your elected officials what are you waiting for?  Our rights and privileges are eroding as we speak, and the FDA will completely screw up an age old industry.  People like Snoop Dogg releasing news that he is bringing a cigar to the market that will be sold in two packs retailing for $1 do more to damage the industry than just about anything.  Here’s the link again: Cigar Rights of America and IPCPR.

 

Also, you might notice some layout changes.  I got a new logo, thanks to Amy at Brandland –brandland.etsy.com, and am in the process of tweaking a new theme.  Let me know what you think!

 

Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | January 11, 2012 · 7:41 pm

A Few Short Smokes: Chateau Real, American Eagles and a Griffin’s

I dipped into the little guys for the early part of the week.  It’s been cold, and time has been limited.  I usually save up the little cigars for this time of year, coronas, half coronas, short 30 or 45 minute cigars that taste good, and are perfect for a quick mile or so walk around the neighborhood.

 

I began the week with a favorite, the Chateau Real Small Club Corona Maduro.  I believe these are discontinued, which is a shame, because I really like the Mexican maduro wrapper on these. As with everything from Drew Estate, they always burn well, and, let’s face it, a four inch cigar doesn’t have a lot of room for error.  I bought a box of these sometime in the fall of 2009, and just dug into the last half of the box.  Nice little smokes!

 

Last night I grabbed an American Eagles Half Corona, which I received a few months back from Chris at Sardell Imports.  This is a camouflage wrapped cigar, it had a beautiful Connecticut shade wrapper that’s overlaid with maduro and candella pieces to give it the camo look.  Sure, it’s gimmicky, but it’s a really solid cigar, perfect burn and draw, and a rich mid to medium bodied flavor that is really nice, smooth, creamy and delicious. It a fun cigar, quite tasty and well behaved. I have a whole comedy routine ready for the day I smoke one in a public place and someone complains about it. Seriously, a  portion of the proceeds from these cigars go toward the Semper Fi Fund, and they are blended by Hendrick Kelner, so they are very high quality. I side note, there was a cigar shop in the hotel I stayed at in the Dominican Republic that sold these.

 

This evening I decided to break into one of the boxes of Griffin’s 500 coronas that I inadvertently won on a face book contest. I swear, I have no recollection of entering, although I must have because a beautiful Griffin’s Humidor and two boxes of these beauties showed up at my door last month.  I can always use more humidor space, and these cigars are nice.  These 5 1/16″ x 42 coronas are a classic Connecticut shade cigar. Mild, but no shortage of flavor. Of course, the construction was perfect, as these come from the house of Davidoff.  I honestly have never had a Griffin’s before, always priced outside of my comfort zone.  This will be a great cigar for that first balmy Saturday morning on the deck with coffee.

 

Don’t forget to pester your elected officials about the FDA nonsense! It’s important!  Here’s the link to the form again:

 

That’s all for now, Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | November 30, 2011 · 8:01 pm

Square Press Week: A Oja Anniversary and a G.A.R. White Label

I seem to be on a square press kick this week.  Don’t know why that is really, I like square cigars, but I don’t really go out of my way to select them.  They are perfect for my bi-weekly walks to the convenience store, where I usually rest my cigar on the Redbox machine while I go in.  I hate it when a cigar rolls off and I find it on the ground when I come out.  I had that happen with a Liga Privada last week and I thought someone stole it, but I found it under the machine!  Phew!  I was scared there for a bit!

 

Monday evening I had a call from Luis of Oja Cigars and felt inspired to smoke the Oja Anniversary Robusto that he gifted me  when I saw him last in Vegas.  This is a pretty square pressed robusto with a dark Brazilian Samba wrapper.  It’s full of dark and decadent flavors and was perfectly constructed.  This cigar was made to celebrate the first anniversary of the brand.  The whole line has been a highlight for me this year, all three wrappers in the regular line are very good, and a toro, torpedo and 6″ x 60 gordo are good sizes, although I have to say this robusto fits my cooler weather smoking needs the best.

 

Tonight I grabbed a G.A.R. White Label Corona Gorda for my walk.  This cigar was sent to my by one of my loyal readers, Lloyd, who seems to be very lucky when it comes to winning cigars!  As a matter of fact, he won a box of Oja cigars right here a few months back.  Here we had a 6″ x 46 cigar with am Ecuador Corojo wrapper, Ecuador Connecticut binder and Nicaraguan Filler.  I’ve only had the pleasure of smoking a few cigars from the Gran Habano lines, and they’ve been pretty good so far. This one was perhaps a little light for a chilly evening, but it performed admirably and provided a satisfying smoke.  Thanks, Lloyd, for the opportunity to sample this cigar!  Best of luck to you in future contests!

 

Don’t forget to send an e-mail to mailinglist@pipesandcigars.com to get on their mailing list and get a free PipesandCigars.com calendar with special monthly deals.  Also, use the “Write to Congress” widget in my sidebar (between the IPCPR and CRA graphics) and e-mail your elected officials asking them to support the bills to keep the FDA out of our humidors!

 

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

CigarCraig

 

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by | August 17, 2011 · 6:36 pm

Top Shelf Cigars in Skippack, PA, An Emilio And A Cusano CRA

Sunday we took a drive to Skippack Village, PA to check out Top Shelf Cigars.  Skippack Village is a quaint little shopping area with all kinds of little shops and businesses.  We located the cigar shop, which is tucked away in the back of a building.  It was pouring, which it hasn’t really done all summer, so I shouldn’t complain, but couldn’t it rain overnight, or during a working day?  It should always be nice and sunny on days off….but I digress.  The shop has a nice little patio area, and I’m told that they have an event there on the first Thursday of every month with a cook out and specials which is very popular.  I may have to try to catch one of these events in the near future.  Anyway, it’s a nice little shop.  They have cabinet humidors lining the outside walls with a counter in the center, so the store is in a “U” shape. On one side they had a couple couches and a TV.  The humidors were well stocked, which is a departure from the mostly empty boxes I’ve seen in a lot of stores recently.  I was impressed with the selection, they had a fair amount of what I consider to be reasonably priced lines, which are often absent in some of your nicer shops.  Most of the major brands were represented, as well as a selection of their house brand, which I believe the gentleman there said was made by the folks at Don Leoncio/Pinar del Rio.  They didn’t have a lot of the new items in yet, but were making room.  The regular Cain line was marked down, for example, and, as if I needed any more cigars, I felt compelled to pick up a couple each of the Habano torpedos and Maduro 660s for $4.95 each.  If you find yourself in the Montgomery County, PA area stop in and have a cigar.  I’m pretty picky about cigar shops, and this one carries my seal of approval (worth the paper it’s printed on…..)

 

Some of this weeks cigars:

 

Emilio AF2 – the last of a pair that Gary Griffith sent me.  I finally got to meet Gary at the IPCPR show. Yup, the guy operates not 25 miles from my home and I have to go 3000 miles away to meet him, pathetic, I know.  Gary is a great guy, and introduced me to a few folks at the show which I’m grateful for.  He also is 3 for 3 with the cigars he’s generously shared with me, the Grimalkin, and the Emilio AFs 1 and 2.  I really dig all of them, and really can’t pin down a favorite, I like each one for different reasons.  The AF2 is just a lovely medium to full bodied cigar that I enjoyed with my last bottle of Reed’s Ginger Brew, on my front porch watching the rain come down.

 

Cusano CRA Edition – I don’t have too much information on this, except that it came as a result of my renewal of my Cigar Rights of America membership last December.  It has what I’m going to guess is an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper that gave the smoke a dry mouth feel and had a little bit of acidity.  Not a bad cigar, but, to me, it wasn’t particularly memorable either.  Unfortunately I went 0 for 2 on the CRA cigars, as the Casa Fernandez wasn’t exceptional either.  Can’t complain, they only cost me $2.50 each over and above the cost of the membership, and are for a good cause.  Every year I hope for a CRA edition Opus or Liga Privada…hasn’t happened yet.  Still, it’s nice for the sponsoring manufacturers to provide some different cigars for joining. If I may vent a little: As a CRA member, I find it a lttle insulting when the CRA gives away a years membership, AND a 10 pack of the CRA edition cigars with the paid admission to certain events.  I don’t want to take away from the events, because we NEED cigar events, and the CRA NEEDS members to fight so that we can continue to HAVE cigar events.  But I feel like giving away the memberships ($35 for the membership, $99 for the 10 pack of cigars, $125 for admission to an all day event, admittedly a great deal for the attendee) defeats the purpose of raising funds for the organization.  I guess I feel like my contribution is going toward giving other people free memberships instead of fighting for our freedoms.  Of course, the gamble is that all the people receiving the free memberships will join next year, but I think the majority will either expect a free renewal at the event next year or won’t even think about contributing because it doesn’t represent a value to them (it was free).  Anyway, I think giving the memberships away dilutes the funds available to fight the fight, and I don’t think I like that…your opinions and comments are welcome and appreciated, maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture and someone will set me straight!  Again, no offense to the event that I have quite obviously failed to name, I wish I could attend, it sounds like a good time!

I haven’t really dug into the trade show samples this week, but here’s a fun little video from the show:

That’s about all I have for now, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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by | July 1, 2010 · 5:14 pm

Vegas de Santiago Cigars Week Continues! – Thursday July 1, 2010

I can’t believe July is here already. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were up to our ears (almost literally) in snow, and here we are in the middle of summer. Anyway, we are in the midst of Vegas de Santiago week here at Cigarcraig.com and last night I smoked a cigar from their “VDS originales” line. This particular cigar has a little history behind it. In 2004 my wife and I hosted the first of two cigar events at the Freehold Raceway in Freehold, NJ. We rented the “luxury box” at the top of the grandstand, which included food, beverages and our own parimutuel teller. It was a great event with about 20 folks from as far away as British Columbia and Alaska. One of the sponsors of the event was Vegas de Santiago, who sent 25 of these cigars in beautiful wooden tubes. I have saved this cigar in the depths of the coolerdor for the last 6 years, and I figured this was as good a time to open it up and set fire to it as any. The cigar measured 6″ x 48, which is is not listed on their website, so is ether no longer in production, or magically changed ring gauge over time. The wrapper was a nice milk chocolate brown, but wasn’t entirely consistent in color. It lit and burned nicely as a cigar that’s had some time to rest should. It was a medium bodied cigar and the flavors were nice, not as rich as the Secretos de Maestro, but not grassy, like I found the Chaman to be. Overall I think this is a nice cigar. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of these to include in the contest prize pack, but there will be several of the Secretos and a couple Chamans. Remember to go back a couple posts and enter the contest which ends Saturday.

In the news

It looks like we’ve dodged another bullet here in the state of Pennsylvania as the proposed cigar and “other tobacco products” have again been excluded from being taxed in the proposed budget. This leaves PA as the only state that doesn’t tax smokeless and pipe tobacco and one of two states without a cigar tax. Obviously this is very good for us consumers, and quite nice for the cigar stores in PA that will get to continue doing business and employing taxpaying citizens. You can read more about this in the CRA’s news alert here. I am amused by the reaction of the acting CEO of the American Lung Association, Deborah Brown. She says: “I can’t believe they left this money on the table and they’d rather see people laid off from their jobs than to tax these products”. I suppose that if there was a tax on cigars, nobody would lose their jobs when cigar stores closed and business moved to Florida taking their business and payroll taxes with them? Sorry to say, tobacco employs hundreds of people in PA and companies like Cigars International and Famous pay millions in taxes. I know tobacco isn’t good for you, and it’s a fashionable target for the pleasure police, but let’s figure out why destroying an industry is preferable to streamlining state government or paying for prisons and welfare? Rant over, I’m sure we’ll see PA try to tax tobacco again next year. Support Cigar Rights of America!

That’s about it for now!  Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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