Welcome to the “last weekend of summer”. My birthday and Labor Day always get me down as they indicate the coming of cooler, and eventually cold, weather, which I dislike. I like summer. I like stepping outside in the morning and feeling warm. I like not having to bundle up. I know some people like autumn, but it just depresses me. I’m already looking forward to spring! Anyway, I was going through the checkout line at 
Walmart this week and my eye usually looks at the selection of lighters, and I saw something I hadn’t seen before, a Djeep Turbo Lighter. I figured for $5 it was worth a try. I broke a couple torches lately, although I still have plenty, but one more won’t hurt. It comes full of butane, ready to go, and really works well. It brings to mind the classic Blazer PB207, as it has a cap secured with a chain. It, thankfully, doesn’t have a switch to lock the flame on, which I always thought was a liability. The flame is adjustable and it’s refillable. I’ll use the heck out of it and see how it holds up, but initially I’m impressed. Djeep is a good name in lighters, the soft flame disposable has always done well, I think I had one Macanudo branded many years ago. There are probably cheaper torches that work just fine, but this is a brand name and is easily accessible. The link is to Amazon where they sell a six pack and is an affiliate link. If twenty of you buy these it might pay for the one I bought!
I received some new releases from Forged Cigars and General cigars a couple weeks back, and was disappointed to receive the press release, but not the cigars, for a new La Gloria Cubana, a long time favorite brand. Fortunately, my friend Phil of Comedy-Cigars-Music shared a couple of his with me. The La Gloria Cubana Gran Legado is a large figurado, 7¾” x 62, with a Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper over Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. Each cigar has a secondary band with a signature of one of the team who created it, and they only use rollers with 15 or more years of experience. I had a busy week at the day job, and was ready to sit down and relax with a cigar Friday, and I chose this large cigar to do it with. This was a really good smoke. I’ve had some issues with some of the La Gloria releases lately, but this ain’t one of them. It’s huge, so it smoked for about two and a half hours, and had some nice cocoa flavors with some spice through the nose. Mid way through there was some interesting savory flavors, a cigar this large needs some transitions to keep it interesting. I really enjoyed this cigar, I think it’s very fairly priced at $15, and I really appreciate Phil sharing his with me.
Next up from Forged was the latest Matt Booth/Justin Andrews colab in the Los Statos Deluxe line, the Connecticut. I’ll be honest, I thought the other “LSD” offerings were OK, but I really like this one, and it’s really hard to get me excited about shade wrapped cigars. This one has an Ecuador Connecticut wrapper, Esteli, Jalapa, Nicaraguan Habano, and PA Broadleaf fillers, and, get this, it’s made at the Joya de Nicaragua factory! No wonder I liked it. Before I read where it was made, I was thinking that this was a really good budget alternative to a Sobremesa Brulee, and now I know why! This is on a par with the Antaño CT and the Brulee as far as I’m concerned. I’ve smoked a couple of these and really enjoyed them, it’s a smooth, creamy cigar, with some cane sugar sweetness and an appropriate amount of spice. I need to find some of the other sizes, the Churchill especially. Look for the purple packaging, because you can’t see the wrapper to know what you’re getting!
Moving from the Forged division of STG to the General Cigar Co. side, I smoked the new Punch Golden Era in Lancero. Nearly a year ago I wrote about the robusto in this collaboration with Julio and Justo Eiroa of JRE Cigars. I remember getting the Golden Era along with the Macanudo Vintage Maduro 2013 and being confused by the fact that the Macanudo was the stronger cigar. Like I mentioned last year, unlike the Punch Rare Corojo, this Golden Era actually has Corojo in the blend, Honduran Corojo wrapper with Honduran Corojo and Habano fillers. This is a nice cigar with some bread and caramel notes. The press release incorrectly states that this is the only Punch lancero, unless the 7″ x 37 Chop Suey doesn’t count because it was limited. I think the lancero was better than the robusto, I planned to smoke one while writing this, but a persisting migraine made me scrap that idea. I’ll have one later.
That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
