A blog dedicated to good cigars for the working class, including cigar reviews of mostly sub-$8 cigars. If I can afford to smoke it, you'll read about it.
Walking through the local cigar shop has become painful. I see the cigar prices on the shelves, and I wince as I continue walking towards the bundle cigar section. I love a good cigar, but the prices are getting unbearable.
So, when I plunked down more than $20 for a pair of the Esteban Carreras 10 Años, I had this queasy feeling that accompanies any lightening of the wallet. But, once I got one of these fugly, but tasty sticks lit, the flavors chased away that ill feeling:
Verdict:
Nice flavors, fairly consistent.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Esteban Carreras' rep for the entire middle of the country, Kris Booker. We had a smoke at a local shop, and I got some nice background into the company and the cigars.
I've said that I'm lucky, but in all reality, I'm incredibly blessed. Loving wife, healthy children, sustaining employment, and an Oliva cigar sales rep that gives me a holler when he's coming to town. Cory's latest largesse was a pair of the new Cain torpedos, natural and maduro. I am most unworthy.
Cain's bold, earthy flavor profile is intimidating, but it's a smooth smoke that will take a couple hours to savor. The Mexican-wrapped, Nicaraguan cigar is just extraordinary:
Thanks again, Most Honorable Bringer of Premium Smoke. With friends like you, who needs Cigar Aficionado?
A hearty 'shank you' to Sony Music for nuking my first edition of the video. If you would rather Danzig languish in deepening obscurity, that's fine.
I'm a very lucky guy. Not only do I have a great hobby, in which the quality and variety have been unparalleled in decades, but I've made friends and acquaintances of the highest caliber as well. My friend Roger whalloped my mailbox with a handful of Joya Cubana's latest offerings, and the maduro torpedo rung my bell from the moment I unpacked the box.
Thanks, Roger and Joya Cubana, keep up the great work. The Joya Cubana Maduro is a great-tasting cigar.
Sapa Inca is another blend by boutique cigar maker, Dulce Vida. Peruvian tobaccos are featured in many of Dulce Vida's offerings, and the Sapa Inca is no different. Well, okay, it's a lot different. This line has a much simpler flavor profile, and it's not as heavy and earthy as some of the La Bonita line.
Sapa Inca is another tasty cigar from Dulce Vida, and helps diversify their lineup. Keep at 'em Paula Pia!
Sometimes, you come across a quiet treasure, something wonderful that few people know about. I'm starting to believe that Dulce Vida's cigars are just that quiet treasure. I smoked their 'La Bonita' orange-banded, maduro cigar last weekend, and it was a pleasant shock.
The purple band is no less tasty:
I still have a couple more blends to sample from Dulce Vida, and I'm looking forward to them with eager anticipation.
Good things come to those who wait, baby. Boy howdy, do they. Oliva Cigars had their first ever Nebraska event at Ted's Tobacco in Omaha, and it was a blast. A special thanks goes to Cory Horinek, our region's Oliva rep, whose enthusiasm has really been a shot in the arm for Oliva fans here in the Plains.
I had the pleasure of tagging along with Social Cigar pals Ditch Digger, Liriel, and internet cigar veteran Uncle Booga, and we made the roadtrip a party on wheels. We made some purchases, scored some killer swag, and smoked some wicked tasty cigars:
The Nub Maduro 460 is another shining example of killer Nicaraguan maduro, sweet and smooth. Though there's no info on the Maduro on the Nub site, several sites are claiming the wrapper is Brazilian. The wrapper tastes less peppery than the wrapper on the CAO Brazilia or MX2, and tastes more like the maduro Nicaraguan wrapper of the AB Maxx.
The wrapper's that delectable dark brown that bodes sweetness, and the cigar felt fairly firm, but also felt a little light in the hand. The draw was a little loose, so I had to pace myself when drawing on the cigar. Despite the loose draw, the cigar burned fairly evenly, only requiring a minor touch-up.
Once lit, the flavors are immediate; Leather, cocoa, a touch of cedar, and a mild spice in the finish. The flavors don't change much, except maybe in intensity, over the duration of the smoke. But, with such pleasant flavors, that's not an issue for me.
At $7, this is a tasty smoke and a great addition to the Nub line.
Heh. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and, at times, it shows bold and obvious. I reviewed the Isabela Miami robusto not too long ago, and the sweetness of the cap befuddled me. I usually associate sweetened caps with Swisher Sweets, but a commenter here set me straight about the construction of the Isabela, and how it follows Cuban cigar tradition. So, here's my mea culpa and obligatory self-effacement:
Of the gazillion cigars that have recently announced a Pepin Garcia patrimony, this Ashton cigar falls in the middle of the power/price pack. At $5-7 each, depending on your local taxes, they fall in between the top-shelf San Cristobal and the economical Benchmade, both fellow Ashton brands.
The Edicion Especial is a blend of Nicaraguan tobaccos, jacketed in an Ecuadorian, sun-grown wrapper. The robusto seemed to smoke pretty fast, despite feeling reasonably packed.
With a strength hovering just below medium, this cigar didn't seem to stand out against similar cigars. The Tatuaje P-Series or CI Legends Yellow label may be more affordable alternatives, with similar flavor profiles.
This is a cigar WAY beyond my usual means, and only came into my possession as a gift from my Oliva sales rep, Cory. This is an incredible gift, and I'm grateful. Cory has taken the territory by storm, and is plotting event mayhem in every corner. Oliva is in great hands here.
Back to the cigar, the silver-brown wrapper was mildly veined, and emitted a light leather/hay aroma. A pinch along the cigar's body was slightly yielding, but never soft, and the draw was perfectly balanced.
Toasted and lit, the cigar became an orgy of leather, coffee and mild, earthy spice with occasional caramel and vanilla notes. The flavors weren't too powerful, but they were quite smooth, the body of the cigar being a solid medium, waxing full near the nub. In this way, it reminded me of a Padron Anniversary cigar; great flavors, never overpowering, and incredibly smooth. A Master Blend indeed.
I have had the good fortune to buy a couple Master Blends III robustos, being $9 each, and will be reviewing them soon. If they age as well as this Master Blends I, I'm going to need to put a half-dozen down for a six-year nap, and see what happens.
First off, I'd like to give a shout out to Cigar Inspector and Jon Huber of CAO for the LX2 sampler. I won their contest for most comments in a month's period, and a fiver of LX2 was the prize.
On to the toro, things didn't go so well. It tasted great, but despite being kept at 65% and dryboxed for a day, the cigar started tight and eventually plugged up and split a little from swelling. The cigar kept self-extinguishing as well, so the experience ended up being more work than pleasure:
So, I'm looking forward to smoking some of the other sizes in the sampler, to see how rolling is on those. If the toro shows up in my local shops, I'll try a couple more, from a different batch, to see how well they smoke.
Wow. Arganese's ML3 has a smooth, but powerful Dominican corojo blend inside a Brazilian maduro wrapper. The ligero is a great team player in the blend, lending a quiet strength to the cigar, with a moderate amount of nicotine.
For $5 you won't find many stronger cigars. I'd give the ML3 a solid B+.
I've smoked a couple of these, and while the $9 shelf price goes beyond my usual ceiling, it is quite a cigar.
The blend was unusual, in that the herbal notes and floral notes were predominant. At times, I tasted sage, tarragon, and the earthy, floral notes didn't strike me as over the top, "grandma's gardenia perfume." The gentle spice that held it all together was nice as well, like cardamom. It was not the more common black or white pepper flavor, or the red pepper heat of corojo. It was an unusual blend.
At $9, plus local taxes, it's not an inexpensive cigar, but you do get your money's worth from a captivating and exotic blend.
Through the first half, the Connecticut Reserve is a mild cigar, but at the half, Oliva flexes some medium strength leather and earth. Another great cigar from Oliva.
It takes a little while for cigars to get to Nebraska cigar shops, as evidenced by the Rocky Patel Winter Collection showing up the first week of March. So, I snagged a pair and smoked them both only days apart.
The first half-inch is magnificent, like my favorite maduros (Camacho Triple Maduro, Oliva Serie O maduro), bold, spicy and earthy. The rest of the cigar is more akin to RP Edge maduro or even RP Vintage 1992, which isn't bad, but it's not near as good as the beginning of the cigar.
