Tag Archives: Hoya de Monterrey

A Bunch of Cigars, Another La Flor Dominicana Event, and a Joya Contest Extension

I’ve been a slug this week. I literally had to look at Instagram to recall what cigars I smoked.  One reason is because I still have a little bit of a cold, so I’m hesitant to smoke anything new or noteworthy, and another is my preoccupation with my search for a day job.  The latter seems to have taken a positive turn just in the nick of time, and I hope to be smoking something special in celebration in the near future, once this annoying sinus funk releases its grasp on me. So looking back through my IG feed, I did rather enjoy a Hoyo La Amistad Gold Robusto, which is 5″ x 54. This was one of the first big brand AJ Fernandez colabs, and continues to be a fantastic smoke. Of the three in the series, Gold, Silver and Black, oddly I think it’s my favorite (you’d expect the Black to be, and I love the Black, I find it very close to the Punch Diablo though, with the main difference being the binder – Broadleaf on the Diablo and San Andrés on the Black). Even with palate impairment, the rich, sweet flavors are quite enjoyable, a main reason I reached for this cigar.

 

In an effort to further promote the Joya contest that’s currently in progress, which I’m going to extend , by the way, I smoked a Joya Silver Toro again. I am going to give it another week because I want to get some more entries, and more exposure for Joya de Nicaragua and the Wooden Indian, especially their new online store!  I even posted on a Facebook group which always brags about their 30,000 members, and I got 3 entries (thanks!, I do appreciate them!). 10% would have been overwhelming, right?, but 3? Anyway, the Joya Silver Toro happened to be right on top of the humidor too, so it was a lazy selection, and I really love that cigar. I can the Cinco Decadas El General being on deck as one of the afore-mentioned celebration cigars coming up, and it shares some traits with the Silver. The Silver is a great medium bodied smoke with a great price.

 

An old friend stopped by this week and I shared a favorite cigar with him, Cornelius and Anthony Señor Esugars. Due to time constraints, and my inventory limitations, he had the robusto and I gad the Corona Gorda. This is a friend I’ve known since early in High School, we played drums together in band, and, to my delight, he loves cigars. I’ve observed the cigars he tends to likes and decided that the Señor Esugars would be a good fit for him, and I wanted to smoke one anyway, so it was a win-win. In the C&A line, I always seem to gravitate to the Toro, but I can’t complain about any vitola in this particular marque. As always, the San Andrés wrapper has that sweet, rich, earthy flavor I love. It’s great catching up with an old friend over a great cigar.

 

Finally, I happened to catch wind of a Flor Dominicana event at Old Havana Cigars on Friday evening, and, figuring I’d soon be having limits on my available free time again, why not go down and see Kyle and the folks down there and have a cigar. I had a La Flor Dominicana Colorado Oscuro No. 5, the 5¾” x 60 Gordo. In an unusual move, I only bought the one to smoke, although I wish I had at least gotten another one or two to smoke when I had a better palate. I’ll go back for more later. It was a good smoke, although I had to relight a few times, maybe because I was chatting with friends (you’ll remember Nik from Episode 7 of the CigarCraig Podcast…) and other distractions. I have a hard time remembering a La Flor Dominicana cigar that I didn’t like, maybe I’ll grab a Chisel of some sort out of the humidor today!

 

That about does it for today. To recap, The contest for the Joya de Nicaragua goodies, travel humidor (filled!), hat and cutter, will be extended until mid-week, probably Wednesday, so go back to last Sunday’s post and enter if you haven’t already!  I’ll continue spamming….er….spreading the word , feel free to share it as well, at the risk of reducing your own odds of winning! Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

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Some Classic Fuentes, A La Madrina and a Murcielago Cigar

Once again, there’s been a lot of news in the cigar world this week, the best of which was the announcement that the warning label requirement has been delayed (here, and Forbes has a nice piece about it too.).  I don’t understand the logic behind requiring cigar boxes to have warning labels covering 30% of the box when cigarettes have no such requirement, nor do I want my website covered in warning labels. It’s ridiculous. We better start putting warning labels on cars, trucks and buses, then! It’s all quite annoying. What’s also annoying is the next time there’s a call to action in the cigar community and there are less than 30k responses, there’s a certain Facebook group that likes to brag about how many members it has, but that number doesn’t mean crap if they don’t do anything when it matters! Contacting your elected officials really does make a difference, unlike the FDA, these people are obligated to read your opinions. Let me get off my Sunday morning soapbox and get on to this week’s cigars!

 

HdM Epi 2It was Independence Day week, also my wedding anniversary, and I used to smoke a nice Havana cigar as a form of civil disobedience to celebrate, but that’s not that much of a thing any more, it’s just a tradition now. I selected my last Hoyo de Monterey Epicure no. 2 that was gifted to me around six years ago, so I figured it would be ready to go. For a change, I only had to have one Cuban cigar, because this one worked right!  It was sweet, floral and medium bodied, and the floral finish stayed with me quite a long time. We went to a friends for a picnic and I enjoyed the finish throughout the day (I had packed plenty of cigars, but it turned out to be a non-cigar crowd, so I waited until I got home). This one came from an Englishman, and it was really quite good. People

 

ArturoFuente_Anjejo50After the picnic, while sitting on the porch listening to Pennsylvanians enjoy their newly legal big-boy fireworks which scare my poor dog into hiding under an end table, I lit an Arturo Fuente Añejo No. 50. I had smoked a Hemingway Classic earlier in the week, there are certain cigars I like to keep in the humidor and smoke every now and then, these are two of them, although the Añejo is less of a “classic” than the Classic, I Fuente_HemingwayClassic_Maduroguess.  The aptly named Classic has basically tasted the same for the last 20 years that I remember smoking them, an amazing feat. The Añejo is a particularly appealing cigar to me. It has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper aged in Cognac barrels, and the binder and filler was originally the Opus X blend, because they lost an Opus wrapper crop one year and put broadleaf on instead. Whether this is still the case or not, I don’t know, but it’s a delicious cigar with great flavor. I can’t wait to brew up a Moka pot of Fuente Espresso with one of these.

 

La Madrina ToroI continued working through the Dapper Cigars samples from last year’s IPCPR show, and the La Madrina captured my attention. Like the El Borracho last week, they go into detail on their website about the make-up of the blend which borders on the ridiculous. Here’s what they have to say about the blend of the La Madrina: Wrapper: Ecuador / La Luchita / Cuban Seed Habano / Oliva Tobacco Co; Binder: Mexico / San Andrés / San Andrés de los Perros S.A. de C.V.; Fillers: Nicaragua / Esteli / Guadalupe / Oliva Tobacco Co.; Nicaragua / Jalapa / Cofradía Relleno / Oliva Tobacco Co; Dominican Republic / Habano ‘92 / (Undisclosed) / Oliva Tobacco Co, U.S. / Pennsylvania Broadleaf / Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co.. We are seeing more and more vague blend descriptions due to looming FDA regulations, and I made the comparison last week to Steve Saka, and he’s said himself that he’s backed off from specificity in this regard for this reason. They can pretty much say “US tobacco” and “Imported” tobacco, and get away with just about anything. Anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother discussion. The La Madrina was a tasty smoke, which I enjoyed to a finger burning little nub. This was the 5 ¼” x 54 Toro (confusing, the Robusto is 5.62 x 50 and the Toro is 5 ¼ x 54, and Dapper Cigars website doesn’t come up in a google search…so much confusion!)  Anyway, there is a lot of nice flavor going on with this, nuttyness, dark chocolate, rich tobacco, I liked it a lot. It’s interesting to see PA Broadleaf in the filler, I have some cigars with PA tobacco lined up this week. Good stuff.

 

Murcielago_ToroGrandeLast night I smoked the new Espinosa Murcielago made at AJ Fernandez new San Lotano Factory in Ocotal, Nicaragua. The size was a Toro Grande at 6½” x 54 with a box press, a San Andrès wrapper and Nicaraguan fillers. I’ve been a fan of the first two iterations of this brand, and was hopeful that this would continue to work for me, and wasn’t disappointed. Great smoke, nice balance of spice and sweetness, with the dark flavors I love. It was an easy two hours of enjoyment, the construction was what one expects from AJ Fernandez, and is consistent with Espinosa’s  brands.  This size might be a CI exclusive, I picked it up at the Hamburg store last winter when we were there for an Espinosa event, as I don’t see the size listed on the Espinosa website (also hard to find in a Google search, whats up with that, is is just me?) The Bat continues to impress, loved it when it was Eddie Ortega’s favorite cigar and it was made at My Father, love the third generation.

 

That’s enough for now. It’ll be interesting to see what this week brings as the IPCPR starts next weekend. will it be a busy news week again or will everyone be busy moving stuff to Vegas, bitching about various things, heat, unions, viruses, etc…I’ll miss seeing everyone, but some things I won’t miss!  Safe travels to everyone going!  Until the next time,

 

CigarCraig

 

 

 

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