Tag Archives: giveaway

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

12 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

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

August 24, 2025 · 9:28 am

Saint Luis Rey and Drew Estate Free Style Live Cigars and a Giveaway!

I didn’t have a lot of new stuff to write about this week, so I figures a classic CigarCraig giveaway was long overdue. Stuff has been piling up and it needs to find a new home! More on that after I talk about a couple cigars! First up is the Saint Luis Rey Natural Broadleaf Rothschild. I’ve always liked the Saint Luis Rey brand, and really need to check out some of their newer offerings. I remember when they were made for Altadis by the Eiroas, boy were they good back then! This is a 5″ x 54 with a severe box press, not really a Rothschild at all. Obviously, I would have gotten a toro had it been available, but this is what the shop had. I thought this was quite a nice cigar. It had a rich, spicy sweetness, burned well and was very nice. These should be around $7 each, so are a really good cigar at a great price.

Drew Estate will be having a Freestyle Live event this Tuesday, 8/26/25, at 7 Eastern on YouTube and Facebook to reveal what the cigar in their most recent Freestyle Live pack will become. The pack consisted of three cigars (all Toros), and a 40 ounce Tumbler. I’ll be honest, previous FSL packs had a little more substance. The tumbler is nice, I should probably use it myself, but it will be included in the giveaway below, along with some stuff from a previous FSL event. The cigar is obviously a mystery for now. I can tell you a few things about it, though. It has a lighter wrapper, and may be a shade wrapper, based on what I perceived as a breaddy sweetness. My money is on Nica Rustica Shade, but I’m never right about these things. It’s a really good smoke, I’ll be delighted if it’s in the Nica Rustica price range. The pack comes with three cigars, and is probably still available in retail, so it’s a good deal if you need a tumbler. Tune in to Drew Estate’s broadcast Tuesday to find out what it is.

OK, giveaway time! I hope you read the paragraphs above and didn’t just scroll down to the free stuff section! OK, you know how this works. Leave a comment on this blog post to enter. Not on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Threads or anywhere else, just here. I’ll select a winner at random and announce it in next Sunday’s post. Here’s what I’m including, other stuff might fall in the box when I pack it up, and I’m not listing cigars, but the humidor will be full of selections from my humidor. First, from Drew Estate, there’s the Freestyle Live Tumbler (and a cigar), the ten count travel humidor from the last FSL event (which I will fill with cigars!), which includes a lighter. Then there’s some various swag from last year’s Barnsmoker, a hat, spray can lighter (hard to believe I got that through TSA!) and cutter. From J.C. Newman there’s a pair of Brick House Bricktoberfest pint glasses (stock photo since they are already nicely wrapped for shipping). I’m also including a melamine Romeo y Julieta ashtray, and, like I said, whatever I might find laying around in the meantime.

Any cigars I include will have been featured on my site at some point, and or are personal favorites. They won’t suck. So hit the comments, let me know what you think! I just remembered, next week will be the 16th anniversary of CigarCraig.com, so there’s a good reason to celebrate with a giveaway!

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

CigarCraig

12 Comments

Filed under Contest, Review

Tagged as altadis, cigar, cigars, Contest, drew estate, Free Shit, Free Style Live, giveaway, Natural Broadleaf, Saint Luis Rey

January 5, 2025 · 10:26 am

A Pair of Single Barrel Cigar Co. Cigars and the Big Giveaway Winner!

Before I get into the giveaway winner business, I’d like to talk about a a couple cigars that were given to me when I visited Single Barrel Cigar Co.‘s Clearwater, Florida aging facility with Kevin last November. My first disclaimer, most of you know already, is that I don’t drink, haven’t since about 1990. I’m not a “friend of Bill’s”, but I know who he is. Therefore, I have no frame of reference for booze related flavors. Second disclaimer is that I don’t regularly partake in flavored cigars. There are a couple of infused/flavored cigars I enjoy, but on a semi-annual basis. I might pick up a Tabak, Deadwood, or an Acid Kuba Arte once or twice a year. There are more traditional cigars that I enjoy that the altered cigars take a back seat. I have to kinda talk myself into smoking something like this, and the booze thing is a double whammy. I’m going to give my thoughts, and those of you in the know can comment. Anyway, We talked to Nick there, and he gave me two cigars to try. These aren’t necessarily flavored, the cigars are placed in bourbon barrels, the barrels are “mixed” every so often so the cigars get equal access to the wood. I don’t know how cigars aren’t damaged in this process. The first one was a Blanton’s Gold Maduro Robusto. The aroma once the tube was opened was pungent, had me worried for a bit. I admit, I really enjoyed this cigar. It had a honey sweetness, very satisfying. I was concerned that the cigar was wet, it wasn’t, the burn and draw were perfect. I definitely could taste what I assume was the bourbon, and it was pleasant. Thumbs up on this one.

One of the trademarks of Single Barrel Cigar Co. is that they put a pinch of the barrel char in the bottom of each glass tube. I asked if they scraped the barrels themselves, which seemed like a lot of work, but they get it from the distillery. This might have been the reason that this second one I smoked put off some interesting colors when I toasted the foot. The second one was the Weller 107 Maduro Robusto. I’m to understand that Weller and Blanton’s come from the same parent company. This one was noticeably different from the Blanton’s version. It seemed more savory than sweet. It burned great, draw was good, but this one didn’t appeal to me. If I had smoke this one first, I may not have been keen to try the Blanton’s, which, again, I really enjoyed. Like everything, taste is subjective, but this Weller didn’t do it for me. It’s not that it tasted bad, but I think it failed in comparison to the first one. That’s on me, not the cigars. Kevin is working on something with Single Barrel for his Trash Panda store, although I’m not at liberty to say any more. Not that I signed an NDA or anything, just going to let Kevin talk about that. I thought I’d taken more pictures, but the only ones I took are of Kevin’s barrel and that would be a giveaway, although if you know Kevin, you’ll probab;y be able to figure it out. I’ll say that if you find yourself in the Tampa area, and come across these cigars, give them a try.

Some of you may have scrolled down to this point already, please go back and read the rest! I’ll wait… OK, it’s time to announce the winner of the huge batch of goodies. To recap, there’s the better part of the DE25 Barnsmoker backpack full of goodies. Some neat stuff from Miami Cigar and Co. Villiger, and Dunbarton, as well as a selection of cigar from my humidor, which will be a surprise. Basically I’m going to fill the travel humidor and cigar case, but who knows what falls into the box when I pack it. Shipping is going to cost me a fortune on this one! Anyway, there were 32 entries, and I used Google’s random number generator to pick a number, and numbered the submissions from first to last. The winner is a long-time reader and supporter, Tim McCabe! Please email me your details so I can get this package shipped! Thank you all for your comments! I’ve been doing this blog thing for 15 years, and it’s nice to know people appreciate it!