This week we made settlement on my parents house, the house I grew up in for the most part. It was the end of three and a half months of clean-out, and there’s still a ton of stuff we have to find homes for. But the stresses of having to run back and forth to the house are over. I 
needed a celebratory cigar, and General Cigars was very generous in sending samples of the ’24 Cohiba Spectre, which was just recently released. They have this cigar priced at $149.95, which is absurd, or course, but it makes this the second most expensive cigar I’ve ever smoked (Davidoff Dom Perignon from the ’70s was the most expensive). These are packaged in a ten count articulated cylinder that has the cigars in individual humidified tubes, with a travel humidor in the middle. My cigars came in cellophane. Clearly a lot of the pricetag is in the packaging, it’s probably a better value dropping the $1500 on the box! Not that the cigar isn’t great, I hate that I loved it. It’s a 6″ x 52 toro, with a 7-Year-Aged Havana Connecticut 2017 wrapper, Mexican San Andrés binder and Criollo 98 from Mao Dominican Republic, San Andrés, Vuelta Abajo fillers. It starts spicy, and progresses to a neat array of exotic spices throughout. It’s quite interesting and delicious. The only other Spectre I’ve smoked was the first one in 2018, and it doesn’t hold a candle to this one. I was very impressed.
Coming back to reality, last week I had mentioned picking up some new-to-me cigars, and one of them was the Rocky Patel Dark Star, of course in the 6″ x 52 toro. I thought Rocky liked making toros 6½”? This is and interesting blend, it has a Honduran Corojo wrapper and Nicaraguan, Honduran & Paraguayan fillers. I always appreciate a good burn and draw, this had it, and it had what I consider to be bright, woody flavors. Around the band I got a sensation of cinnamon, which I found interesting. I probably don’t smoke as many Rocky Patel cigars as I should, I usually find something I like about them.
Another cigar I picked up was the Artista Falu in, you guessed it, toro size. I believe this is the third in their newest series, with the Harvest and Midnight being the others. This one has a Broadleaf wrapper, Indonesian binder and a proprietary blend of Dominican tobaccos. It’s a box pressed 6″ x 50 toro. I really like this series, they are fairly priced in the $12 range, and smoke really well. This cigar had a lot of dark dried fruit and espresso characteristics, and was squarely in my wheelhouse. I’ve had a good relationship with Artista for a long time, nice folks who make a good product.
Last night I smoked a Wise Man Claro, so I decided to smoke an old El Güegüense this morning to see how they compared. No similarity, they are very different cigars. Both excellent, grab up any El Güegüense you see! That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
