Thanksgiving weekend and I had my first Cuban cigars

I received a couple of authentic Cuban cigars from a vendor that does some business in Mexico and when I met with him last month he gave me a couple of sticks.  The Cohiba was probably toro size (6×50) and the Bolivar was much shorter, probably 5×50.

The Cohiba was was exquisite and one of my favorite smokes of all time.  The draw was perfect and the the flavor was full.  The smoke was abundant and very fragrant.  I don’t know how this compares side by side to a legal Cohiba made elsewhere since I didn’t have one on hand to compare with.  I absolutely relished the experience since it was a warm Thanksgiving day and gigantic amounts of food were being prepared and the kids and I were playing in the yard.  I was able to enjoy the entire cigar without relighting.  The taste didn’t change until very late in the stick, in fact almost to the nub.  At that point it became more peppery, but was still pleasant.  I don’t know if I enjoyed it because it was a Cuban or whether the Cohiba’s are just that good.

The Bolivar was strong and full bodied.  It was fantastic and I wish I had a larger model to test with.  The smaller form factor made for a quick smoke of and absolutely delicious stick.  The smoke was abundant and fragrant.  The draw was easy and rewarding.  Again, I didn’t have a legal Bolivar to test a side by side with and I have never had one before.  Interestingly the filler looked darker and more like the wrapper than other cigars.  I don’t know if this is true to the brand or of this particular stick or something that is true of all Cuban Bolivars.

I wish there was a way to get these more readily, but then maybe they wouldn’t be so special.

Cigars at the beach

This is the first time I have either taken or purchased fine cigars while on a trip with the family to the beach.  I have to say that this beats smoking cigarettes at the beach totally.  Before dinner, after dinner, in the middle of the afternoon breaks are all perfect times to enjoy a quality cigar.  Because we were on vacation, I only brought some quality smokes.  I am not going into detail on every one, frankly because after a week at the beach I can’t remember all the details of each one.  Some stood out more than others and I did purchase 3 from a cute little cigar and wine store in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

First of all we vacationed in our favorite spot – the Alabama Gulf coast.  This year we stayed in Gulf Shores, Alabama and the weather and surroundings couldn’t have been nicer.  Like most condos on the coast, this was a non-smoking unit so all of the cigars were enjoyed out of doors on the deck overlooking the beautiful Gulf of Mexico.   This year we did something a little different and we rented a pontoon boat for half a day to cruise the beautiful Perdido bay area and I did enjoy one of my favorite cigars on this part of the trip.

The Perdomo Reserve Sun Grown 6 x 54 Epicure came in a sampler from Cigars International called the Red White and Blue sampler.  This was only available right before the 4th of July.  It included the Perdomo, plus Gurkha Master Select and Don Pepin Garcia Blue.  The Perdomo was the one that I smoked while cruising the bays on the pontoon.  I don’t know if it was the surroundings and the fun we had or the fact that it was just an awesome cigar, but this big bad boy stuck out in my mind as one of the best of the entire stack.  It was robust and very fragrant.  If the people with you don’t like the smell of cigars then this one will send them over the edge.  When cruising through Wolf Bay we ran into a family of dolphins that were playing near the surface of the water.  I moved the boat over into the middle of the fray and killed the engine.  I sat there with my family ooh-ing and ahhhh-ing at the dolphin’s show while I continued my cigar.  This was one of those killer moments in life that make all the hard work worthwhile.

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Another that sticks out in my mind was the Rocky Patel Sun-grown that came from Thompson’s 10 sampler that I have talked about before.  I smoked this one while sitting on the deck at the condo and it was fantastic.  The rich dark oily wrapper was fantastic, spicy and robust.  The initial burn was great considering the breeze coming off the ocean, but due to time constraints I had to let it go out and relight it after dinner.  This caused a very funny burn that I was struggling with the rest of the smoke.  However, it didn’t deter me from enjoying this one down to the nub.  This one was a big, long Toro in 6.5 x 52.  I will add this to my favorites list for another try when the wind isn’t blowing all the smoke away as soon as it comes off the cigar.

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One other that sticks out in my mind was the Victor Sinclair Series 55 Grand Reserve.  The cigar was wrapped in a cedar sleeve with a band at both ends.  The band is the one scanned here and is different than the current band shown on the Series 55′s.  This came in the power of 10 sampler from Thompson, so I don’t know if it is older or just a special wrapping.  Either way, the presentation was fantastic and the smoke was even better.  An awesome experience and almost a shame to smoke at the beach where the breeze carries the fragrant smoke away so quickly.  The story on this cigar is that it is a 5 country blend aged for 5 years.  The wrapper on the “red label” is the dark Corojo leaf that is one of my favorites.  I now seek out the darker corojo wrappers due to their spectacular burn and spicy flavor.  I can’t find this exact cigar anywhere online, which leads me to believe that it is an older style that Thompson was clearing out and that is why it was in the sampler pack.  You can see a picture of it here, it is the third from the right.

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The rest of the stack was:

• CAO Brazilia : Awesome, dark and strong
• La Gloria Cubana : Smooth draw and even burn
• H. Upmann : hmmm, not really spectacular for a $5.50 cigar.  I’m not sure I will try this one again
• Rocky Patel Vintage 1999 Connecticut wrapper : Spectacular, wrapper kept crumbling though.
• A. Fuente Green Gran Reserva : Better than Fuente’s I have had before.
• Gurkha Master’s Select : spectacular draw and even burn, one of the best.
• Gurkha torpedo : great cigar
• Don Pepin Garcia Blue : I have 4 more of these baby’s so a review is coming

4 more cigars reviewed

I recently enjoyed four more excellent smokes from my humidor. The weather has been perfect for sitting on the back deck while the kids play in the yard. Our schedule has lightened to the point where this is almost a nightly pause for me. Man, is this a great time of year.

• Ashton Magnum was a fantastic premium mild cigar very similar to a Dunhill.  This one came in my AAA Dominican Sampler II pack from Thompson Cigar.  The Cigar-O punch made the perfect draw size on this short, fat stogie.  The draw was fantastically smooth and easy and the smoke was abundant for such a mild cigar.  The wrapper was mild and sweet with no spicy taste on the lips.  The smoke was sweet with a slight spicy hint as you get deeper in the cigar.  This one would be perfect before or after a meal since it doesn’t clog the pallet with cigar taste.  It isn’t overpowering and so it could be enjoyed with just about anything.  The smoke isn’t strongly offensive to others who might not like cigar smoke.  I will definitely get more of these.

• The C.A.O. Italia is almost the direct opposite of the Ashton. I am not sure where this one came from.  It isn’t listed on the Thompson Power of 10 Sampler.  This one is a very dark full robust cigar.  This was the Ciao format in 5 x 56.  It is spicy to the lips and the smoke is spicy to the throat.  The cigar smokes perfectly with the end punched and the billowing plumes of aromatic smoke were fantastic.  This would be perfect with an oaky stout Italian wine or even an Australian Shiraz.  If you smoke this before dinner, you will taste it all through dinner.  It fills the pallet with wonderful tobacco flavor.  It is an almost coffee hint in the aftertaste.  What a great cigar.  You know you are smoking a quality stogie with this one.
• The Comacho SLR Maduro came in the Power of 10 sampler.  I don’t know exactly which Comacho it is other than it looks like the SLR band in a 5 x 50 estimated format.  What I do know about It was that it is a dark woodsy smoke with a perfect draw using the punch.  The ash on the Comacho was particularly noteworthy as it was almost picture perfect gray and black with lots of lovely folds that almost wouldn’t crumble from the cigar. It had a definite woodsy tone and lots of fragrant smoke.  Wonderful cigar and the deeper into the cigar the better the flavor.  I smoked this one all the way down to a nub.  Leaves a fantastic taste in your mouth and goes great with an imported beer.
•   The A. Fuente Gran Reserva Hemingway Perfecto Classic 7 x 48 has a strange shape that comes to a point on the end that you light.  If you read the history on their site you read that this is a difficult shape to produce and that it is an older style that isn’t made much anymore.  I have always like Arturo Fuente cigars, but honestly compared to the others on this list, this is my least favorite.  I got this one as a gift so I don’t know how old it was, but it punched well and stayed together while smoked.  It has a very definite cedar flavor and the whole time I smoked it I was reminded of a campfire.  There was something in the smoke that had a definite woodsy smell.  It was smooth and medium in flavor with no strong wrapper or smoke tastes.  Maybe I just like more distinct flavors in my cigars, but this one didn’t stand out in any manner.  It smoked well, the burn was even, the ash was great, the aftertaste was mild and I enjoyed it.  It just wasn’t one of the other 3 on this page.

Quitting smoking and beginning cigar blogging

I quit smoking in December – no applause. I just got tired of it.  I was staring 40 square in the face.  I was overweight, pre-hypertensive and a smoker.  Since December I have lost 40 pounds and I walked away from cigarettes on December 18.  Now that the weather is warmer and we are spending more time outside, I miss the fragrant billowing tobacco smoke.  I used to smoke cigars back when everyone did during the cigar boom of the 90′s.  In fact I still have some curing in my humidor from 10 or so years ago.

I stopped smoking them due mainly to the time involved in smoking one.  I could smoke a cigarette in 6 minutes, but it takes at least 30 to enjoy a cigar.  Now that the kids are older, I can carve off that kind of time some evenings.  I decided to pull some out the other day and ended up cleaning out some of them and saving the rest.

One that has held up surprisingly well over the 10 years they have been in there is the Thompson Cigar “Old Timer”.  This 6 1/2 x 42 format natural wrapper stick is a fantastic everyday smoke.  The web site says these are Philippine natural wrapper cigars.  I am not a cigar snob, I just enjoy a quality smoke.  This is a cigar that I would definitely buy again.  It is has very full body and lots of fragrant billowing smoke.  A very easy draw and a fairly quick smoke.  I find myself grabbing this over some others in the humidor because I know what I am getting.

Since I haven’t put any new cigars in my humidor in almost 10 years I bought some new sampler packs from Thompson Cigar to refill it.  I got the AAA Dominican Sampler II and the Power of 10 w/2 for the Troops Sampler.  I have enjoyed 3 of them so far and here is what I thought:

• AVO No. 9 is shipped in the Dominican sampler in khaki colored aluminum cedar lined tubes.  This is a very attractive tube and cigar.  The No.9 is a 4 3/4 x 48 format smoke that has a natural wrapper.  It was a VERY tight draw and an almost difficult smoke.  The end punched nicely with my Cigar-O hole punch, but this one may smoke better with the end cut off.  The wrapper was sweet, not as sweet as a Davidoff, but very nice.  The smoke was mild, but just not very much of it.  I got 3 in the sampler, so maybe I will cut the next one and see how that goes.
• Occidental Reserve was the next one I tried.  This one can’t be purchased separately from Thompson, but I did find it on Cigars International.  This was a big 7 x 48 format Churchill that was extremely mild.  The Connecticut shade wrapper was a very pleasant typical Connecticut wrapper.  The mix of fillers was smooth and mild.  The smoke was fragrant and billowing, especially compared to the AVO No.9.  I really enjoyed this and would definitely buy it again.  Unfortunately this was the only one in the pack so I can’t get a second opinion on it.  The burn was even and the draw was very nice with a hole punch.
• La Vieja Habana came in one of those 2 sampler packs.  I don’t know which one, but I am glad it did.  I should have inspected the packs better when they arrived, but this one is a surprise.  The band is not like the one shown on the web and so I am not sure which La Vieja Habana it is.  It was the only one like it in the humidor.  Man, what a fantastic smoke.  This one may be my all-time favorite right now.  It was a pleasant, not sweet, not spicy, wrapper and a mild to medium smoke.  The 5 1/2 x 52 format was a big stubby stogie, however, I smoked this one down past the band.  An incredibly smooth BILLOWING smoke.  I don’t know if future La Vieja’s will be this good, but I am definitely buying some.  The mystery is where it came from.  I wish I knew which sampler pack it came in.  It isn’t listed on either one and the band is the one pictured here, which I scanned.  This isn’t the band pictured on any cigar website that lists La Vieja Habana.  The cigar is from Nicaragua and has an interesting story on the cigar websites.  Apparently it was a product of the cigar boom and then was wiped out by hurricane Mitch.  It is back on the market and I will definitely be buying another round of these. 
  • update – I found the cigar on Cigars International and it is called the Leather Patch Series.