Tag Archives: Crowned Heads

January 18, 2026 · 9:59 am

Romeo y Julieta, Knuckle Sandwich and The Lost Angel Cigars

I see myself diving into some, perhaps, older cigars that I haven’t posted on here over the coming weeks. It’s a slow time of the year, so I’m picking up stuff I’ve overlooked in the past here and there. I’ve also found myself smoking a lot of the Bariay 1492 Red and Black recently, which has moved other stuff to the back of the queue. I may just smoke cigars that are called Red and Black this week, that leaves me with a few options. Anyway, I’ve had this Romeo y Julieta 1875 Connecticut Nicaragua Toro in the humidor for a long time and I realized I hadn’t had one yet. This cigar is made in Nicaragua, with a Nicaraguan shade grown Connecticut wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The tobaccos are grown by the Plasencias, one would assume it’s rolled in their factory also. This wasn’t a mild shade cigar. It started with an odd combination of cream and spice, which eventually turned into a bright citrus. I regret passing this over for who knows how long it was in the humidor. It came out in 2018. It was a good smoke, I enjoyed it.

I stopped in one of the local CigarCigars shops on the way home one day and picked up a few of the TAA releases that I hadn’t seen there before. Since the ownership of the chain changed last year, I’m not sure how the TA membership works, so I’m just going to keep picking them up there when I see them. I know some people who write about cigars ignore the TAA releases, but I do what I do, it’s new to me I’m going to write about it! as the kids said 20 years ago, whatev. One of the ones I grabbed was the Knuckle Sandwich Off Menu, the 2025 offering. This is made by Espinosa in AJ Fernandez’ San Lotano factory, part of Guy Fieri’s Knuckle Sandwich cigar line. It’s a butt kicker. It has a Pennsylvania Broadleaf wrapper, with Nicaraguan binder and fillers, and is a 6″ x 54 toro. $16 is at the high end of my range, but it looked good and I wanted to smoke it. This has a spicy, dark coffee and cocoa flavor profile, and it was powerful. It was exhausting to smoke, but quite satisfying! Definitely have a meal before smoking this one. Recommended.

Another TAA cigar I grabbed was the 2023 from The Crowned Heads. Obviously I have overlooked this cigar since it came out in 2023, but there are a lot of Crowned Heads cigars I’ve overlooked so that’s not really unusual I guess. This cigar is made by Ernesto Carrillo in the DR. It has a Ecuador Sumatra hybrid wrapper, Ecuador Sumatra binder and fillers from the DR, Mexico and Nicaragua. It’s 6″ x 54, which seems to be the size I smoked most often, doesn’t it? I wish there were more Churchills out there. Anyway, this is a dark, oily wrapper, which started with some bitter cocoa and sourness, which wasn’t off putting and smoothed out over time. There are probably other Crowned Heads Cigars I like better, and there are probably other TAA cigars I like better, but this was was an interesting cigar. If you like them and can’t find them, I know a place.

That’s all for today. It’s snowing here, so I’ll probably shovel some, and have a cigar with a movie this afternoon. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as aj fernandez, cigar, cigars, Crowned Heads, Espinosa, Guy Fieri, Knuckle Sandwich, Off Menu, romeo y julieta, Romeo y Julieta 1875 Nicaragua Connecticut, san lotano, TAA, The Crowned Heads, The Lost Angel, Tobacconists Association of America

January 11, 2026 · 9:47 am

Crowned Heads, Sinistro and Tatuaje Cigars

The new year is off to a start, and I’m still managing to find new-to-me cigars to smoke. Over the last couple weeks I’ve stopped in to a few local shops and bought cigars. Now I’m forgetting where I got what! One of the cigars I picked up was a Crowned Heads Coroneta Maduro Baron, their 6″ x 56 toro. This cigar is made at Casa Carrillo by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, uses a Mexican San Andrés maduro wrapper over a Ecuadorian Connecticut binder, and Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Pennsylvania fillers. It’s a diverse blend for sure, and it’s not uncommon to see Ecuador Connecticut over a San Andrés binder, but vice versa is a little unique. This cigar came out in May of 2024, so I guess I’m not that far behind. I have an affinity for Carrillo cigars, have since the old La Gloria days, and this was no different. I was a little disappointed in the aesthetics, the cap was pretty sloppily applied, but it made no difference in the burn and draw, which were perfect. It had some dry cocoa and a nice depth of flavor, very satisfying. The band annoyed me, the pointy part hit my lip so I took it off. I hope this is one that they are rebranding. It seems I keep finding Crowned Heads cigars that I’ve overlooked, maybe because I was turned off to them early in the game and I just haven’t paid much attention to them. A few discussions I’ve had with Miguel Schoedel have made me take a second look.

I was surprised to find some Sinistro cigars in one of the shops I visited last week, which has more of a traditional selection. I picked up a Sinistro The Last Barbarian to give a try. Naturally, I got the Toro, which is 6″ x 54, why wouldn’t I? This has a Dominican Maduro wrapper, Cameroon binder and a Ligero heavy filler blend including Dominican, Nicaraguan and Pennsylvania Ligeros and a Nicaraguan Seco. These are made at the El Artista factory. I met the Sinistro guys at the Smoke-onos event last year, and I’ve known the folks at El Artista for a long time. I’m going to make an effort to smoke more of their stuff. This one was really good, right up my alley. It started chocolaty with some spice. It was very rich, and well behaved and not as strong as one might expect given the amount of high priming leaf in the blend. This is a winner, and I seem to remember it wasn’t stupidly priced.

Yesterday we painted our family room, one wall of which extended into the kitchen and dining room. Lots of moving stuff around, taping, painting and cleaning up. I really don’t like painting. It looks really good now though and needed to be done. While waiting for the walls to dry so we could put things back, I took a break with a cigar. I chose a 4½” x 60 Tatuaje Sextooth William Blake. This is a strange name for a cigar. It’s named after a track on musician Andreas “Sextooth” Contogouris EP Smoking Mirror. The Sextooth line consists of four sizes which are all priced in the $5.50 – $8.50 range, made at the My Father factory. They have an Ecuador Habano wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and filler. I don’t know what a “Sextooth” is, but I thoroughly enjoyed this little guy. It had kind of a caramel sweetness, and no issues with the burn and draw. This is a line I will be further exploring.

I still have to get Ron’s winnings shipped, I’ve been carefully curating a selection of cigars for him. I hope it makes it out in tomorrow’s UPS. I should have gotten it out last week, but I’ve been a slug. It’ll be worth the wait, I think. That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Baron, Coroneta, Crowned Heads, E.P. Carrillo, Sextooth, Sinistro, Smoking Mirror, tatuaje, The Last Barbarian, William Blake

December 28, 2025 · 10:19 am

Trinidad and Las Calaveras Cigars and a Giveaway!

It’s a busy time of the year and Christmas on a Thursday really threw off my week. I had to go out yesterday and buy some new-to-me cigars for today’s post. I also decided at the last minute to half-ass a giveaway! More on the giveaway after I talk about a couple cigars.I ran into Cigar Mojo – The Grove, and found a few cigars that I haven’t smoked yet. This is an interesting problem to have, but I’m having trouble finding the combination of cigars I haven’t smoked, and cigars I want to smoke. It’s come to me going through the humidor with my phone searching my own website to make sure I’m not repeating. And then there’s some cigars I just don’t have any interest in smoking. I’m also price sensitive, and they have quite a few pricey cigars in the humidor. It’s easy when I want to stop in for a smoke, but less so when I’m looking for something new to write about. Anyway, I grabbed a Trinidad Espiritu Miami since I hadn’t had that one yet. This is the fourth cigar in the Espiritu line, I rather enjoy the No. 2 the most, but they have all been good. I want to get a hold of the Tommy Bahama edition. This is a 6 1/8″ x 52 Belicoso, and is a Nicaraguan puro made at the A.J. Fernandez factory. While this is inspired by Miami, it contains no Miami tobacco! This is probably a good thing. The bright colors and art deco look of the bands was very appealing to me and seemed to go along with this festive time of year. I quite enjoyed the hour and a half I spent with this cigar. It burned and drew well, and had some sweet, bready sensations. I didn’t think the wrapper would fall into the beautiful category, it was on the ugly side, with some mottling and an odd color. Smoking with your eyes isn’t limited to packaging. I liked this cigar, it was medium bodied and quite enjoyable. Once again, most times if I enjoy an Altadis cigar, it’s made by A.J. Fernandez.

Another cigar I picked up was the Las Calaveras LE 2025 from Crowned Heads. I selected the LC54 size which is 6″ x 54. This cigar has a mid-priming San Andrés wrapper that’s not your usual maduro wrapper, but Colorado in color. I haven’t smoked too many of the Las Calaveras line in the past, but the ones I have I’ve enjoyed. This one was also enjoyable. I almost grabbed the 2024 (they have 2’23, ’24 and ’25 on the shelf) because the band has red and green in it and I’m still feeling Christmassy, but I went for the newest one instead. Mojo is a mile away, I can always grab more. These are made at the My Father factory. There is an earthy cocoa flavor with a little bit of spice. Interestingly, the first half of this cigar burned really fast, I was maybe 20 minutes in when I started wondering if it was going to make it to thirty minutes. At the halfway point it slowed down, and I got to somewhere around an hour and a quarter. It finished off well, nice cigar. I’m thinking I may have to go grab a ’23 and ’24 next time I’m there.

It’s a bit of a tradition around here to give stuff away around the holidays. I have some goodies lying around, so here’s what going to happen! I have a neat Don Doroteo leather case, with a cutter and lighter. This is a really nice item, it’s just not something I’ll use. There’s a. J.C.Newman Bricktoberfest stein. There’s a nice Villiger lighter. I’ve had this silver plate Gurkha ashtray in my closet for a few years, it can use a little shining up, but it’s a nice ashtray. Ironically, I’ve heard that mixing some cigar ash with water makes a good silver polish.

Top that off with some miscellaneous goodies, along with at least a dozen cigars from my humidor which I’ll and pick, and you’ve got a pretty nice bunch of stuff. So leave a comment here on this blog post. Facebook comments, IG, Threads, X comments don’t count. I look forward to reading your comments! I’ll select a winner randomly next Sunday. Good luck!

That’s all I have for today! Happy New Year to all. Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as altadis, Contest, Crowned Heads, giveaway, Las Calaveras, Miami Espiritu, trinidad

November 23, 2025 · 10:52 am

Blood Medicine, Davidoff Chef’s Edition and Black Star Line Cigars

Next week is going to be busy with some travel and Thanksgiving and all, so I’ll try to come up with something to write about next Sunday. It may have something to do with the travel, or perhaps the Cigar & Lifestyle Fest next weekend at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds in Oaks, PA which I plan to check out. I’m not at all sure what this is going to be all about, I know there’s one cigar related vendor listed that I’m familiar with, and two brands that I’ve heard of, but they are super small companies. I’ll likely go Saturday, let me know if anyone’s going to be there. It would be more fun hanging out with someone rather than going alone. I probably should have mentioned this Wednesday when I met up with Craig (the Breadman) for an impromptu Craig summit. Anyway, let’s talk about some cigars I smoked this week. A few weeks back I was at the Wooden Indian and bought a selection of cigars. I smoked the Crowned Heads Broadway that night, and was really impressed. When I was deciding what to smoke, the gentleman working there, we’ll call him “Mark”, asked if this would be my first cigar of the day and recommended the Blood Medicine B+ as it was the mildest of the bunch. I told him that he just doesn’t know me very well, as that’s not really a thing in my world. Unless it’s a breakfast cigar, I don’t really ever concern myself with cigar strength. Thirty years I’ve been smoking cigars. Anyway, I smoked the Blood Medicine B Positive toro this week. It’s a 6″ x 52 toro with Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper, Ecuadorian Connecticut binder, and Nicaraguan fillers. It’s made at Pichardo’s D’Hatuey factory in Estelí. “Mark” set me up to think it was mild, and maybe compared to the other cigars I had selected that day it was the mildest. It starts with a citrus tingle, has some interesting baking spice flavors, and is, overall, a really nice cigar. I kept thinking there was a mineral/metallic flavor, but that might just have been the blood reference in the naming. I’m O Negative, by the way, so I will be obliged to purchase a Blood Medicine O- if it ever come to that.

Friday evening I was feeling fancy, so I picked out this year’s Davidoff Chef’s Edition, generously provided by Davidoff. I had just finished what is probably considered the polar opposite of a gourmet meal, Dominoes Sausage and Pepperoni pizza, with some Parmesan bread bites. It’s a very pedestrian fare, but I fed two of us for two day for $15, I deserved a reward! Don’t judge me, I’d rather have a great cigar than a great meal. For the Chefs Edition 2025 cigar, Davidoff collaborated with five renowned chefs, holding eleven Michelin stars between them. Paolo Casagrande (Lasarte, Spain), Christian Bau (Victor’s Fine Dining, Germany), Kirk Westaway (Singapore), Nick Bril (The Jane, Belgium) and Michael Beltran (Ariete, USA), all passionate Davidoff aficionados whom I’ve never heard of, see above. Back in 2017 we were invited to a Davidoff Chef’s edition event in New York City (here) which was a special evening. Anyway, the 2025 is a 6¼” x 52 toro, with a wrapper from Ecuador, binder from Mexico and Dominican fillers. My main takeaway from this flavor-wise was umami. It was a savory cigar, maybe a touch of floral, but largely earthy and some sice as it progressed. It’s quite good, but me smoking a cigar like this is like if I mowed the lawn with a Cohiba Siglo 6. It was a very good cigar, and it was really enjoyable to smoke as it performed perfectly. It’s a little out of my league, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

When I stopped in to Harrisburg Beer & Cigar last week, another cigar I grabbed was the Black Star Line Lalibela in a toro size. I was surprised to see this in their discount bin. I hope I don’t get in trouble for disclosing that. For $6 for a cigar I’d been wanting to try it was a no brainer. I’ve never met Aric, the owner of the brand, but I’ve heard him on a lot of podcasts and he sounds like someone I’d like to meet. If I’m not mistaken, the guys at Cigar Dojo do the graphic design for these cigars, and they are made at Aganorsa Leaf. I should have bought more than I did. This has a San Andrés wrapper, with Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The name Lalibela comes from the area in Ethiopia where a bunch of chapels were cut into the bedrock. It’s quite a fascinating place as there are all these big holes with solid stone churches carved out of them. It’s an engineering marvel. It kinda has to be the work of aliens, right? I joke. Anyway, the cigar was quite good, presented with a closed foot and pigtail cap, it had some nice coffee and spice flavors. I forgot to take notes, which is usually an indication that I really like the cigar. I have to hunt down more cigars from Black Star Line now.

That’s about it. There’s still time to get in on the CigarCraig.com Secret Santa. Go HERE to sign up. Have a great week! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Tagged as Black Star Line, Blood Medicine, Chef's Edition, cigar, cigars, Crowned Heads, Davidoff of Geneva, Lalibela

October 26, 2025 · 10:16 am

Crowned Heads Broadway, Tatuaje Corojo T110 and AJ Fernandez Decenio Cigars

I had occasion on Wednesday to hang out at the Wooden Indian in Havertown, so, of course, I bought some more cigars to smoke. I don’t smoke a lot of Crowned Heads cigars, I like Miguel there a lot, and do actually like a lot of their cigars. Jon has always been cordial to me, but one time he blew me off at a trade show left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t think I ever made that public. Anyway, the Broadway line intrigued me, so I picked one up and smoked it there in the Wooden Indian’s Liga Privada Lounge. Of course, I smoked the toro, which is 6½” x 54. This cigar has a beautiful, oily broadleaf wrapper, over a Jalapa binder and fillers from Estelí, Jalapa and Ometepe, Nicaragua. It’s made at NACSA, which is where Saka makes Mi Querida, Umbagog, and the Red Meat Lovers Club cigars. This factory has a steady supply of Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. My expectations were exceeded, as this cigar was absolutely delicious. I may like this more that the Mi Querida Blue, which I like a great deal. Construction was perfect, the flavors were smooth, rich cocoa and coffee, right up my alley. my only regret is that I only bought one, and I considered picking up a few more before the shop closed. I want to thank Dave at the Wooden Indian for letting me hang out in the members lounge after the shop closed, I very much appreciate it! By the way, the Crowned Heads website is in dire need of updating.

The Tatuaje T110 Corojo is a 4 3/8″ x 52 short robusto with a Corojo wrapper. I smoked the Cohete (4″ x 50) back in August and really liked it, so I was very much looking forward to this one. I have smoked the T110 in the Broadleaf and Tuxtla wrappers and enjoyed them. This one I didn’t care for, and there aren’t many Tatuaje cigars I don’t like. It started out with a sourness, and skirted the line between sweet and sour through out the whole smoke. It was disappointing, but I always look at situations like this as a learning experience, what do I like in a cigar and what don’t I like, and how can I avoid it in the future? It’s money well spent, as long as I remember what I don’t like and don’t spend money on it again? This one had been in the humidor for a a couple months.

Another cigar I selected from the vast humidor of the Wooden Indian was the A.J. Fernandez New World Decenio in the toro size. This cigar commemorates a decade of the New World line, and made in the San Lotano factory in Ocotal, Nicaragua. I was hoping to pick one of these up a week or so ago when I saw Laurel at another nearby shop, but I either didn’t see them, or they didn’t have them. They had a really expensive 20th anniversary cigar, which may have distracted me (I didn’t bite). I adore the New World Dorado, and the rest of the New World line are really very good. This cigar is 6½” x 54 with a box press that makes it seem thinner. It has a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos from Honduras and Nicaragua. I expected a good smoke, and I got a good smoke. This started out spicy, no surprise there, really. It moved to sweet, dark coffee, which is a combination I really like. I also really like that bonus half inch on a toro, more of a good thing. This was a really good smoke, and, dare I say, worth the $14 I paid. This is another anniversary cigar for a budget brand that is higher in price, like the Rocky Patel Edge and the Foundation Charter Oak.

My name was mentioned on yesterday’s Cigar Authority show which was about the cigar inventors. I’ve been on the show a couple times and I’ve known these guys for a long time. It’s humbling to be mentioned, and it gives me some credibility, I guess, to be recognized by them, but I want to set a couple things straight. I, in no way, created anything or was the first of anything. When I started this there were a lot of cigar blogs, I just happened to have outlasted a lot of them. Certainly Stogie Review (which is making a comeback with the Smoke & Steel podcast) was one of the first, and Casas Fumando has stood the test of time. I take some pride in being mentioned by my peers (I got a nice mention by Kevin on a recent El Oso Fumar show too, TY). I’m still just a guy who writes stuff about cigars.

That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig