Twisted Hitch | CigarCraig's Blog

I didn’t do anything as interesting this week as I have the last few weeks! I have been working on the daunting task of putting my Secret Santa package together, I hope everyone who participated is having an easier time. If I recall, I got stiffed last year, so the person who had me wasn’t invited back. If anyone was going to get the short end, I prefer it’s me anyway. It’s nice getting goodies, but I prefer the giving part. If only buying my wife gifts was as easy as sending cigars! Anyway, I managed to get some new-to-me cigars in this week, more or less. Starting out with a new release from Forged and Alec Bradley Cigars, the Do Not Disturb. The press release explains the name: “Alec Bradley’s latest offering encourages cigar lovers to press pause, unwind and let the world wait.” Honestly, that’s pretty much every cigar for me. Anyway, this cigar comes out of Tabacalera La Isla, which makes other cigars I like, so I was looking forward to trying this. It’s a Ecuador Connecticut shade cigar, which doesn’t really excite me, with a Dominican Criollo binder (not a big criollo fan), and Dominican and Mexican fillers. My first thought was along the lines of “gee, another shade cigar”, but I smoked it and it was very nice. My notes say sweet cream with a hint of bitterness, which. doesn’t really sound as good as it was. This held up well as an end of the day smoke, but would be really nice in the morning with coffee (in the summer). I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

Next up was the Twisted Hitch from Panacea/Flatbed Cigar Co.. Of course, Panacea is an advertising partner here, and I probably use all of the ad revenue to buy Panacea cigars. There’s always a discount code (CCFS25 for 25% off and Free Shipping on your First Order) and there’s a widget on the left sidebar with daily specials. There’s some great cigars at good prices there every day. I encourage people to try this Dominican brand that’s been around for a long time. Anyway, I saw that the Twisted Hitch was recently released, so I picked up a 4 pack. This is a 6½” x 55 Toro Grande with a Brazilian Maduro wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan filers. This is a fairly full bodied cigar with an interesting light spice, nuts and maybe a little dark dried fruits. I think it’s got some similarities to the White Label. Looking forward to smoking more of these.

I smoked the Stolen Throne Castle 919 in the belicoso vitola a while back and was enamoured with it. I had picked up a robusto at the same time and lit it up yesterday. I needed a sweet treat after a hefty lunch, and this was it. This has an Ecuadorian Habano Claro wrapper, with a Nicaraguan binder with Nicaraguan & Dominican/Peruvian fillers. The robusto is 5″ x 50. I didn’t get much of a difference in flavor between this and the belicoso, maybe it was a little shorter smoke. I get white sugar on this, it’s a flavor I enjoy in a cigar, and I really enjoyed this one. I’d pick up more, but my local shop has been low on Stolen Throne, and I haven’t been out to the Wooden Indian recently, it looks like they have them in stock. Personally, I’d pay the 50¢ more for the slightly larger belicoso, but that’s me. You aren’t going to go wrong either way, just like it’s hard to go wrong with Stolen Throne cigars (I don’t like the Yorktown, apparently some people do). Oddly, this isn’t on their website yet.

I have had some mixed results with the CAO Arcana line. I really liked the Mortal Coil and Thundersmoke, but thought the Firewalker was an abomination. The Stokk is an interesting addition to this line. It uses some Adullo, Cyprian Latakia, some Honduran fillers , A nicaraguan binder all wrapped in US Broadleaf. It’s only available in an 6½” x 52 Belicoso, where as the rest of the Arcanas are Toros. I think it’s called Stokk because of the collaboration with pipe maker Stokkebye, I doubt it’s a coincidence. The Latakia is mostly used in pipe tobacco. This pipe tobacco thing in cigars is becoming a little over done. There is the Deadwood line, Stillwell Star, Outcast, now this. Does anyone remember Sam Leccia’s Bumpy Root? That might have been the first. Anyway, the second one of these I smoked was way better than the first, moving it ahead of the Firewalker in my rankings. While note my favorite in the range, it has some interesting flavors in the beginning, transitioning to some nice, sweet tobaccos in the end.