When I saw Steve Saka a couple weeks ago at the Smoke-Onos he handed me a couple of his new Sobremesa Brûlée Tapa Negra, a shade cigar with a sungrown Nicaraguan Habano leaf covering the last couple inches of the cigar. This is very similar to the Joya de Nicaragua Cabinetta, which was based on the old JR Cigars brand, La Escepcion, I think, although I cannot confirm this memory! I remember seeing the Cabinettas rolled at the Joya 
factory in 2011, and smoking the first lanceros there on that trip. I was just talking about that cigar with Selim Hanono (currently with Carrillo, then with Drew Estate), who asked for the Lancero and they made it originally just for him). Steve handed me two Corona Gordas. I never lose cigars, don’t ya know I lost one of these somewhere. Craig G, was it in your car? If it was, smoke it, I tried to give it to you anyway! I swear I didn’t leave it on purpose. If I dropped it someplace, I hope whoever found it appreciates it! The Corona Gorda is 5 5/8″ x 48, which is a nice size. It’s also going to be available in a toro. I like the Brûlée and Brûlée Blue well enough, they are exceptional shade cigars. This takes it to another level. Besides the Nicaraguan Habano wrapper on the head of the cigar, it has an Ecuadorian Connecticut shade wrapper, Mexican Matacapan negro de temporal binder, and Nicaraguan fillers from Condega, Pueblo Nuevo criollo, La Joya Estelí C-98 and Estelí hybrid ligero. This is a really tasty cigar! It starts out with an unexpected load of pepper! It smoothes out after a bit and continues with a citrus tang, which I’ve been experiencing a lot lately. Not complaining. I smoked this past the band because I wanted to see if burning the “Negra” part made a difference, and it was really hard to tell as the flavor changes down that far anyway. I can’t wait to smoke more of these, I wish I hadn’t lost one, and I’ll buy a couple when they hit stores, even though they will be pricey. Yet another excellent cigar from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust!
Things got a little busy around here, which gave me an opportunity to smoke some robusto size cigars. General Cigars recently send a bunch of their new releases, most of which were robustos. First up is the Partagas Y Nada Mas Cibao. This is the second in the Nada Mas line, last year featured the Santiago made by William Ventura. This time they went to La Isla, the factory that also make some of my favorite La Sirena cigars. I think it’s interesting that General Cigars, who has an enormous factory in Santiago, is outsourcing so many different brands now days. I suppose it’s keeping things interesting. This Y Nada Mas Cibao has an Ecuadorian Corojo wrapper, a Sumatra binder, and Habano Vuelta Abajo (HVA), Criollo, and Pennsylvania Broadleaf fillers. I assume some of these tobaccos are from the Cibao valley in the DR. I have to say that I found this cigar eerily similar to the new La Gloria Cubana, in that it had, once again, a strong citrus tang. Burn and draw were great, and it was quite satisfying. It was very good, I liked it a lot, and at $8-$10 it’s a great buy.
I expected to sit down with another cigar yesterday afternoon, but I was asked to take a drive, so I changed plans and grabbed a Macanudo Sumatra robusto. It was only an hour drive, so I picked the robusto over a toro, and I only has one of the toros I planned to smoke, so choosing something I have more than one of makes sense to me when I’m outside of my normal smoking area. Too many things can go wrong car smoking! Macanudo has two new lines, an Ecuador Shade and a Sumatra, saying they are getting “back to their roots”. These two lines really couldn’t be further from the mild Macanudos that were made in Jamaica and the DR, which had US Connecticut wrappers and San Andrés binders. These new blends are made in Esteli, Nicaragua, they have Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers and a U.S. Broadleaf binder, the only difference between the two cigar is the wrapper. I selected the Sumatra version, I haven’t tried the Ecuador Shade version yet. This was a nice cigar, although the ash was a little flakey for a car cigar. Listen, when your wife asks you to go somewhere with her, and says you can smoke a cigar on the way, in her car, you know you have a keeper. This cigar tasted like it had a Sumatra wrapper. Some call the flavor “yuck”, I think of it as a hard candy sweetness, something your grandmother always had, but I can’t put a name to it. I like it. I actually might smoke the two side by side, but I’ll need to smoke the Shade alone to establish a base line. The Sumatra isn’t your mild Macanudo, it was really very good!
That’s all for today. I’m not sure what next week’s post will be about, I’m going to a wedding in New York State, and the cigar shop I planned to visit has closed. I’ll attempt to plan ahead. That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
