Due to some unfortunate technical glitch with WordPress at some point in the last year or so, a lot of my sites older posts have disappeared. I am upset about it, I had a lot of historical data there that I relied upon, but on the bright side it gives me the freedom to revisit some cigars I may have written about years ago. Everything is still available on the Wayback Machine and I may be re-creating some of my favorite posts from years back for posterity. I was very proud that I had 16 years of posts, searchable, now it only goes back to 2017. I’m trying to remain positive. I’ve gotten that off my chest now, on to the cigars.
J.C. Newman shared their newest cigar with me, the Sarzedas. This is an old trademark of theirs, going back to 1900, at which time it was known as “the aromatic cigar”. The 2025 version is well timed to compete in a very how market fueled largely by Drew Estate’s Deadwood line, which is competing with their Acid line in sales, I think. We’ve also seen Miami Cigar and Co. enter this space with the Outcast line, and to a way lesser extent, Dunbarton’s Stillwell Star line (I’ll probably get some greif about lumping the Stillwells in with these, but i said what I said!). The thing these all have in common is using pipe tobacco in the blend. These are a nice change of pace cigar for me. The Sarzedas is made in four sizes (6” x 50 toro, 4¾” x 52 robusto, 7” x 48 Churchill, and a 5½” x 43 corona) at J.C.Newman’s PENSA factory in Esteli, with an Ecuador shade wrapper that’s not terribly light, and Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. I smoked a couple of toros this week, and enjoyed them. They have a sweet cap, but not annoyingly sweet, the sweetness dissipates rather quickly. I got some milk chocolate notes along with some natural tobacco sweetness. I’m hoping to share a few of these with some friends who enjoy the previously mentioned “aromatic” cigars and see what they think. I wasn’t expecting to like these as much as I do!
I was shifting some cigars around in one of the humidors and came across a couple of the Drew Estate Liga Privada 10 Year Aniversario A Savage Feast boxes (of 2, don’t get excited!). These are available at events where Jonathan Drew is present, usually placed in your hand by him. This replaces the Liga Privada Serie Unico “A” as his event only cigar. Too bad, because I like the “A” and might still have a few of those around. I actually smoked both of the Savage Feast cigar in the box this week, which I don’t generally do, but I failed to take sufficient notes on the first go around. The cigar is in the Feral Flying Pig vitola, with is a 5 3/8″ x 60 perfecto. It uses a Connecticut-grown criollo wrapper, San Andrés Otapan Negro Último Corte binder, and fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania Green River One Sucker ligero. I’m glad I smoked the second one, because I really enjoyed these. There’s what I noted as a sweet bread with a tingle. It got sweeter as it went, which is, again, a natural tobacco sweetness, not anything that’s added. Burn was decent, draw was just right, and these were very enjoyable. Generally, the Drew Estate Event cigars are winners, I especially like the Undercrown 10 Tuani and Willie’s Herrera Esteli Caja China is fun.
Finally, I got some new sizes of my favorite La Sirena cigars recently. La Sirena has been a supporter of CigarCraig.com since 2014, and I have been a fan of theirs since ’11 or ’12. The La Sirena LT is their Ecuador Connecticut offering, made in Plasencia’s El Paraiso factory in Honduras. This evolved from the Jaxx LT, which was under the Old School Cigars brand, which was Danny Ditkowich’s brand before merging it with his daughter’s La Sirena brand. This has long been one of my favorite shade style cigars, I’ve smoked a bunch of the toros, and the 7½” x 52 Double Corona was new to me (I may have smoked one years ago…who can remember?). This was a good two hour smoke. What I like about the LT is that it has some flavor and body, it has what you’d expect from a shade cigar, creamy, not overpowering, slight spice, and the Double Corona is maybe a little dialed back from the toro, which isn’t unexpected. La Sirena remains one of my favorite lines overall, between the Original, the Mexican and the LT, I can always find a cigar I want to smoke, it’s the perfect trilogy!
I bought another Frontier Airlines Go Pass, so if anyone knows of any events within a two or three hour flight from Philly, or just wants to have a cigar at your favorite lounge, let me know, I’ll see if I can make it happen! That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
