The Stogie Guys

October. Playoff baseball. NFL in full swing. Hockey is starting. Leaves changing colors… It’s now clear summer is in the rearview mirror and winter is coming.

Fall is an exciting time for cigars and bourbon, and it’s also a good time to do some housekeeping in preparation for the colder months to come. So here are four things to put on your to-do list:

Prep Your Humidor for the Winter

People seem to know that the heat of summer can make maintaining proper humidity a challenge, but the truth is winter can do the same. The combination of dry air and artificial heat can lower your humidity in a hurry if you aren’t careful. So if you use Boveda packs or humidification beads, now is a good time to swap in some new ones. If you rely on distilled water/humidor solution to keep proper humidity, now is a good time to do the salt calibration test to make sure you are getting the proper readings from your hygrometer.

Check Out the New Cigars

Summer is a flood of announcements of new cigars, but by now people have actually had a chance to smoke them. Frankly, there are too many for one person to have smoked already. There are lots of reviews of new cigars online, including quite a few here at StogieGuys.com. So find a reviewer you trust and read up to see what sounds good.

Visit Your Local Cigar Shop

Many people buy their boxes online to save a few bucks. However, with so many new releases now on the shelf of your local cigar shop, now is a great time to visit. For all those reviews you just read (see above) find the handful or so that sound most intriguing and pick up one or two each. A week or two later, once you’ve smoked through them, you may have found a new favorite.

Try to Hunt Down Some Rare Bourbon

Right now is prime time for finding rare, limited release bourbons. Pappy Van Winkle, Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (George T Stagg, William Larue Weller, Sazerac 18, Eagle Rare 17, and Tomas H. Handy), Four Roses Small Batch Limited Edition, Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, and Parker’s Heritage have all either just begun arriving at stores or will be in the next month. Finding them at close to retail price (all sell for under $100, except for the 20 and 23 year Pappy which are $150 and $250, respectively) is always tough. But now is the best chance you’ll have. (Here are two tips: Either get to know a local shop owner or look for out-of-the-way shops.) And if you strike out on these hard-to-find whiskies, you can always check out our list of best bourbons under $30.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Flickr

With a medical procedure looming, my doctor insisted I give up cigars for several weeks to clear nicotine from my system. I don’t really know how serious the risk is. All the material she gave me seemed to focus on the impacts of cigarette smoking.

Still, I trust her skills, she’s an excellent surgeon, and I knew I’d have no difficulty complying. And I do want to recover as quickly as possible. If that means a few weeks without cigars, so be it. What I didn’t fully count on, though, was how much I’d miss my cigar time.

Sitting on the back deck in the afternoon reading the papers or having one in the evening and listening to a baseball game. Dropping by the local B&M on Sundays and lighting up while watching an NFL game.

Sure, I can still read, listen, and watch. But, for me, these activities lose something without an accompanying cigar. Rarely do I ever smoke more than one cigar a day, so it’s purely pleasure, not a habit.

And I know about tobacco habit and addiction. I started smoking cigarettes as a teenager. Back then, I think the minimum smoking age was 16, though no one hesitated to sell a pack to someone much younger (who was just assumed to be buying them for their mother or father). My high school had a student smoking area and, when I went to work, every desk came with an ashtray. Cigarette advertisements were everywhere.

I smoked steadily for decades and quit about 30 years ago. It was about the time the anti-smoking movement was beginning to take hold. Employers were doing things like banning smoking in the open and creating smoking rooms. I could see all that wasn’t going to end well for cigarette smokers.

But that didn’t make it any easier to quit. I struggled for months, maybe years, before I didn’t want another cigarette. Part of that was because I truly enjoyed smoking cigarettes. Well, some of them, anyway.

I used to joke that I’d take up cigarettes again when I retired. I didn’t but instead became attracted to cigars. Why, I’m still not exactly sure, though I don’t think it really had anything to do with cigarettes.

Lighting up a cigarette was a reaction, a release, a trigger. A way to focus, a signal to perform, a reward. Cigars are much more about relaxation and pleasure, a complement to enjoyable activities.

So, I’m looking forward to getting done with the operation, recovering, and, once again, hitting the humidor.

–George E

photo credit: N/A

First Smoke is a new series of Quick Smoke reviews, each evaluating a single pre-release cigar. Like the Quick Smokes we publish each Saturday and Sunday, each First Smoke is not quite a full review, just our brief take on a single cigar.

According to Jason Wood of Miami Cigar & Co. (La Aurora’s partner and distributor), after the last year’s release of Untamed—La Aurora’s strongest cigar to date—a few people started asking for an even more full-bodied smoke from the esteemed Dominican producer that’s better known for more subtle smokes. So master blender Manuel Inoa went to work on a “more extreme” blend. The result is Untamed Extreme, which comes in three sizes: Robusto, Toro, and an oversized Behemoth (7 x 60).

The cigar features dark charred oak flavors, earth, and woody spice. There’s a slight sourness, but overall it’s a truly full-bodied smoke with a big nicotine kick to boot. Construction is excellent. I’ll admit I prefer the more classic profile from La Aurora (the serially overlooked Fernando León Family Reserve, for example), but ultimately the Untamed Extreme delivers what it promises: full flavor, full body, and full strength. If that’s what you’re looking for you’re unlikely to be disappointed.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Our Spirits articles always conclude by listing a few cigars we think would pair well with the spirit in question. StogieGuys.com is, after all, a cigar-focused website.

But I can’t recall ever seeing recommended cigar pairings on the website of the spirit itself. That is until I came across Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve 5 from France-based Cognac Ferrand. Here’s what you’ll find on the Plantation website: “For cigars amateurs (sic), Plantation Grande Reserve 5 years goes very well with the Ashton Cabinet Selection No. 7, a cigar made with a light Connecticut shade wrapper that has a light, woody flavor and plenty of cream. It seeks out the vanilla in the rum.”

While having a recommended cigar pairing on its website is unique and somewhat helpful, that isn’t what drew me to Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve 5 in the first place. Rather, I was intrigued by the rum’s reputation as a low-cost sipping spirit that packs a ton of value and flavor into an inexpensive bottle. I paid just over $20 for a 750 ml. bottle (compared with Plantation’s flagship rum, XO 20th Anniversary, which is $45).

By way of quick background, Cognac Ferrand is primarily a producer of cognac. For years, it sold its prized cognac casks to rum producers in the Caribbean who would use the containers to age their spirits. “During these exchanges, [company founder Alexandre] Gabriel had the opportunity to discover some very old batches of rum with extraordinary richness and a diversity of aroma and flavor,” reads the Cognac Ferrand website. “Available in tiny quantities, the rums were intended either for the personal consumption of the distillery’s cellar master or used to give style to industrial rum blends. Quite naturally, Cognac Ferrand decided to bottle these special rums as a series of vintages.”

Each vintage is named for its locale of origin: Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. The 80-proof Grande Reserve 5 is a blend of rums from Barbados that’s aged for five years in bourbon casks in the Caribbean then refined in old French oak casks at Château de Bonbonnet in France. It is presented in a stout bottle covered in a decorative netting made from palm fibers.

In the bottle and glass the rum has a light, honey-colored tint with good clarity. The nose is easy on alcohol and heavy on fruit with hints of banana, coconut, papaya, and tangerine. Butterscotch, vanilla, and caramel are also present. Once sipped, the balanced, well-rounded flavor coats the palate with banana, toffee, orange, vanilla, and nuts. The finish has a prolonged, somewhat earthy spice.

Is this one of the finest rums in the world? No. But it might be one of the best values. The taste, presentation, and complexity are far superior than what the price and young age suggest. That means you can use Plantation Barbados Grande Reserve 5 in cocktails guilt-free, and you can also sip it neat. I prefer the latter.

As for cigar pairings, take Plantation’s advice and stick with mild- to medium-bodied smokes wrapped in Connecticut shade or Ecuadorian wrappers. Anything bolder will only overpower the spirit. I’ve found the Herrera Estelí Toro Especial works well.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief verdict on a single cigar of “buy,” “hold,” or “sell.”

A recent trip to Las Vegas meant another opportunity to visit Casa Fuente to smoke their Casa Fuente house smoke, which is believed to be the Opus X blend but with a Cameroon wrapper (think a cross between Opus X and a Don Carlos).  The cigar features medium-bodied flavors with clove, coffee, cream, and cedar spice that really shows off the Cameroon wrapper. It is well-balanced and the construction is impressive. If you’re in Vegas I’d strongly suggest dropping by Casa Fuente for a cigar and one of their signature caipirinhas or margaritas.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief take on a single cigar.

A few months ago, Boutique Blends announced the introduction of the Aging Room F59 Quattro, the follow-up to the F55 Quattro (very highly rated by my colleague in a 2012 review of the Concerto size). The F59 Quattro is a Dominican puro that’s marketed as medium- to full-bodied. It’s comprised of Cuban-seed tobaccos that are aged for ten years. The box-pressed, robusto-sized Espressivo (5 x 50) retails for about $10 and features absolutely perfect combustion qualities with rich, oily flavors of heavy cream, coffee, pepper spice, and peanut. Smooth-tasting with a bready texture, this is another winner from Rafael Nodal and highly recommended.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys