Criollo de Ro | CigarCraig's Blog

It’s been an odd week, another reason I don’t like this time of year. It was cloudy most of the week, but the temps were fairly warm. Then yesterday it was sunny most of the day and nearly 80 degrees and then it stormed and dropped 20 degrees. Of course, this is the perfect set up for a migraine. Anyway, once I got the grass cut (hopefully for the last time), I saw able to smoke a cigar. But let’s back up a bit. I had a choice on Friday evening to either watch the Drew Estate Freestyle Live event, or the Flyers season opener, of course I chose the Flyers. Freestyle Live I can watch the replay, the Flyers not so much. It turns out that I missed our friend CigarProp/TrashPanda Kevin winning the Harley, which was exciting, but I did catch it the next day. I’m happy to have hockey back and have sports to watch again! I lit up a Punch Aniversario, which commemorates the 180th anniversary of the brand. I published the press release back in July, and I take issue with them saying this was an hourlong smoke. It’s a 7¼”x 54 corona doble (same size as a Horo Excalibur No. 1, by the way), certainly a two hour smoke. For a cigar that has a Broadleaf wrapper and binder, I didn’t find that is tasted heavily like a broadleaf cigar! I thought it was fairly medium bodied and not real bold in the flavor department. It certainly was a decent companion while I watched my first real hockey game of the season! The couple more I have will rest for a while and I’ll revisit them later.

Yesterday after finishing chores I sat down with the new La Gloria Cubana Criollo de Oro toro. As with the Punch, this was a sample provided by General/Forged/STG. I’ve had a long association with them and they’ve always been great about providing samples. As I think about it, it’s coming up on the ten year anniversary of the blogger trip to the factory. It’s about time for a reunion, isn’t it? 😉 Full disclosure,I’m traditionally not a fan of Criollo tobacco, so I’m not sure how I’m going to take to this Criollo/Pelo de Oro hybrid. Criollo is one of the few tobaccos I actually kind of find off putting. I’ll avoid it if I can help it. Of course, there are exceptions I suppose, but generally I find this to be the case. On the other hand, I generally like La Gloria Cubanas, but one can’t like every cigar in a given brand, right? This was the first one I tried, and they just came in last week, so I’ll be giving them more of a chance, but the initial thoughts weren’t off-putting but weren’t mindblowing either. There are several of their more recent releases that I like a lot more, but, as I said, this is an initial impression. It certainly worked well. I can’t believe it’s been a decade since I toured the factory!

Last night I smoked a Reinado Grand Apex. I had previously smoked a sample that Antonio had given me, this one was a banded version that I purchased (along with a T-shirt that I happened to have been wearing). I need to buy some more. The Grand Apex is made at Aganorsa, and has a Mexican San Andrés wrapper and Nicaraguan binder and fillers. This is a bold cigar with bold flavors. It’s heavy on the espresso and earth, with significant spice. If I had a cigar of the week feature, this one would be it. Maybe I should do that, but it seems like a lot of work. Maybe I’ll just bring it up when a worthy candidate presents itself, much like this one. Reinado Grand Apex: CigarCraig.com’s Cigar of the week for October 17, 2021! Maybe that will make the Reinado webpage. Should I make up a badge? I kid, I never troll for recognition, it’s a great cigar, and I might need to talk to some of my local PA (ahem, Son’s) retailers to carry it!