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December 19, 2021 · 8:47 am

Oscar Valladares McFly, Espinosa Laranja Azulejo and Crema de Laranja Cigars

First order of business: if you haven’t already, go back to the post before this one and enter to contest! Last Tuesday I took a day off and found myself running and errand that ended up in the Mushroom Capital of the World, Kennett Square, PA, which is in the southern part of the same county where I live. A few doors down from where I was going there happened to be a cigar shop, Living My Best Cigar Life, of course I stopped in. It’s a nice little shop on the main drag in Kennett, with a nice walk in humidor, a knowledgeable shopkeeper, and a small lounge. The selection was adequate, but on the sparse side, I was to find out that they had just opened a new store a few miles away. I picked up a couple of the Oscar Valladares McFly Toros, which I have been meaning to try, and headed home. Since the new location was more or less on my way home, I decided to stop in and check it out. The Glen Mills location is actually on a property that has a sentimental meaning to me. The lounge where I played my last professional gigs as a drummer back in the 80’s was located there. Weird, right? Anyway, the shop was previously a bank, and they’ve retrofitted two former offices as the humidors. The lounge is in the back, and they will ha

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ve membership with 24 hour access through the back. It’s all very clean and sharp in design. The selection is decent, it’s a new shop, but it wouldn’t be hard for someone to find something to smoke there. I came out with a Romeo by AJ I hadn’t tried. It’s on Rt 202 between Rt 1 and the Delaware state line, for those familiar with the area. It’s a long name for a cigar shop, I wish them well! I smoked the McFly when I got home and thought it was very good. It’s a 6″ x 52 with a San Andrés wrapper, Honduran binder and fillers from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. It was rich and earthy and pretty much what I expect from that blend, with a little spice. I liked it, very nice.

Wednesday I found myself at Son’s Cigars again, this time in the company of Jack Toraño of Espinosa Cigars. Jack is coming up on his three year anniversary with Espinosa in a couple weeks. He was recalling that he was with Toranño cigars for three years, and General for three years…I think we are all hoping that this gig is going to break that pattern for Jack. I’ve known Jack for a long time, and it’s always a treat to catch up with him. Mark Weissenberger, the broker that handles Espinosa, ironically from Kennett, dragged Jack out earlier than expected, and I offered to give him a ride back to his hotel, but I’m afraid he thought he wouldn’t fit in my car. I had been looking forward to smoking the Laranja Azulejo, which translates to orange blue tile in Portuguese, the best I can figure. I picked up a couple of the box pressed 6″ x 60 Gordo size. These are made at AJ Fernandez’ San Lotano factory for Espinosa. This cigar has an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Brazilian Arapiraca binder and Nicaraguan fillers, and boy is it tasty. I like Sumatra, and Brazilian, and of course, Nicaraguan, and this is delicious blend of flavors. It’s got some sweetness, and some coffee and cocoa and some spice. I enjoyed it so much I smoked another one last night. Now I need to get more. I also had a great time hanging out with Craig the Breadman at Son’s!

Jack (and Vince) gave me an event cigar, the Crema de Laranja, which is a barber pole which is a mashup of the Laranja and the Crema cigar

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s. It shares blend components of the two cigars, and has both the shade wrapper from the Crema (which I’ve never smoked), and the Brazilian “Laranja” wrapper. Jack likes milder cigars, I can see him liking this one. Last week I smoked the Back in Black from the same factory, and it’s apparent that La Zona knows how to make a good barber pole cigar. This is kinda the opposite of that Back in Black, though, it’s on the milder side, creamy and tangy. Certainly a nice change from the heavier, darker flavored cigars. Quite nice. I recommend going to an event where Erik, Jack, or one of the other guys is attending, and buy enough cigars to merit receiving one of these, it’s a good one.

That’s about all I have for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Filed under Review

Tagged as Azulejo, cigar, cigars, Crema de Laranja, Espinosa, Laranga, Living my Best Cigar Life, McFly, Oscar Valladares

May 5, 2019 · 10:51 am

Some Espinosa Cigars and the New Diesel Whiskey Row Sherry Cask

Wednesday evening I stopped in to Old Havana Cigars south of West Chester, PA and caught up with Jack ToraÃ±o of Espinosa Cigars and Mark Weisenburger, the area broker for the brand. I had the day off and hoped to catch them earlier in the day, but I got caught up cutting the grass and finishing up putting the roof on the new chicken enclosure I’d been building, so I didn’t get out as early as I would have liked. It worked out, I got to hang out with Jack and smoke the new Laranga Reserva Escuro toro. The original Laranga Reserva was so-named because of the orange hue to the wrapper and Laranga is Portuguese for Orange. The Escuro has a Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper that is very dark, an

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d one must assume that Escuro is Portuguese for Oscuro (or really dark). I bought a couple of these and lit one up and it was much to my liking. It had deep, rich flavors of espresso, exactly what I like in a cigar. After the busy day I had, which was personally rewarding, having finally solved a problem in construction of my chicken run which had bothered me for some time, as inconsequential as that sounds, it was an extremely satisfying cigar. Quite lovely, and certainly enhanced by the company! I learned many things from Jack, lots of secrets and things I didn’t know! ;-)Â I also picked up an Espinosa Habano No.8, which is a Gordo, that I smoked the following evening on a walk, which I enjoyed, it’s an excellent cigar, especially for the price. I have been enjoying a lot of La Zona cigars, but not enough Espinosa cigars. I have to start picking more up as I see them. Now I know a few places that carry them!

Here’s a little rant unrelated to cigars, but related to blogging in general. I receive a few e-mails a week from folks who are “regular readers” and would like to submit a guest post. Usually they are in an area my readers may be interested in, like finance, fashion, sometimes it’s vape or hookah (at least that’s close). This paragraph is really just for those “regular readers”. Don’t lie about being a regular reader. If you were a regular reader you’d know that I don’t have a lot of guest posts or sponsored posts, my content is original except in a few very isolated instances. Regular readers also will know that there are very few posts about vape, hookah, finance or fashion (especially fashion). If you are an aspiring writer and are shopping around articles for whatever reason, be honest, don’t think I’m a fool and buy in to your BS about being a big fan of my site and wanting to be a part of it. It’s irritating, it makes you look like an idiot and I delete your email. When I get your second email saying “I k

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now you’re busy, just wanted to make sure you saw my first e-mail”, I sent the reply telling you I don’t have any use for you. Since all you guest post writers are “regular readers”, this should save you all a lot of time, to my real regular readers, sorry to have wasted yours!

Last week I posted a few times about Diesel cigars and mentioned that I was looking forward to the new Whiskey Row Sherry Cask. Low and behold, what should appear in my mailbox but some samples of said cigar. To recap, Diesel Whiskey Row: not a fan. Diesel Hair of the Dog: big fan. Anything aged in booze barrels with any expectation of flavors from the cask: no frame of reference. Just reading the description of the Whiskey Row Sherry Cask had me intrigued. I could care less about the liquor angle, this is well established, the fact that it’s made by A.J. Fernandez just tells me that the quality is going to me spot on. It’s wrapped in Connecticut Broadleaf, it has a Brazilian Arapiraca binder and Nicaraguan fillers. The press release say that the tobaccos are cultivated on three continents, which I’m trying to figure out. I only count North and South America. I need a ruling on this one. Here’s a perfect example of tasting with one’s eyes. Looking at the cigar’s presentation: the dark brown wrapper with the band with a purple accent, reminds me of semi-sweet chocolate with raspberry. We had cooked a turkey and made all the trimmings as if it were Thanksgiving and had that for lunch, so this was desert, and dammit if it didn’t remind me of semisweet chocolate with raspberry cake, and boy was it delicious! This was the polar opposite of the Whiskey Row for me, and I know people who think that cigar is a great cigar, and, even though they work for another cigar company, still smoke them (without bands, even at their own events! not naming any names…). If aging the Arapiraca binder in the sherry cask is the trick, or it’s the combination of the Broadleaf and Arapiraca, or (probably) the overall blend of the cigar, for my palate, this was a real treat and I hope that it wasn’t just the first one that wow’d me. I’ll be picking up Toro and Gigante sizes to sample when these hit the stores next month. This is the best tasting cigar from General since the Macanudo Inspirado Red to my palate.