The Stogie Guys

Last Wednesday I posted the below picture on our Facebook page, saying I was camping on the beach. My wife and I drove from Chicago to visit friends in DC, attend a wedding, and camp by ourselves on Assateague Island, a barrier island off the coast of Maryland.

Now I’m not typically what you’d call “outdoorsy.” The camping part of the trip was my wife’s idea. I decided to comply with her request because (1) she always gets her way in the end anyhow and (2) it was high time we got some use out of all the camping gear we received as wedding gifts two years ago. So for three nights we camped in the sand a few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean. By and large, it was a lot of fun. It was also a lot of work.

Naturally, I brought along a few cigars to enhance my experience. And while I’m no expert when it comes to camping by any means, I did learn a few things about how best to enjoy premium tobacco when you’re out in the elements. Below are a few tips I’ve compiled.

Bring extra butane. It can be windy out there, especially if you’re camping on a beach. So I brought along a torch, a backup torch, and extra butane. These tools also came in handy for building great fires. (I know some of you die-hard campers will say using a butane torch takes all the fun out of building a campfire, but I guess that depends on your definition of “fun.” I just want to get that fire going.)

Don’t bother with an ashtray. Camping requires you to pack, haul, and set up a ton of gear. So why bother with an ashtray if it’s completely unnecessary? Your fire pit—whether a fire is burning or not—is a fine place to ash or discard a finished cigar. And if you need a place to rest a cigar while you’re smoking it, just improvise based on your surroundings. I typically rested my cigar across the top of the beer can I was drinking. I drank a fair amount of beer.

Keep your stash cool. My wife and I experienced triple-digit temperatures during the day, and that’s no good for cigars. So I kept my stash of smokes in a carefully sealed Ziploc bag, with a humidification pillow, and stored it atop the ice inside our cooler. The bag never had direct contact with ice and never got too cold since I’d rotate the bag between inside the cooler and somewhere else in the shade. This worked pretty well.

Pack short cigars and long cigars. Sometimes I’d want a short cigar, like when I was foraging for kindling before dinner. Other times I’d want a long cigar, like when I was gazing up at the stars at night. I was pleased I brought along an assortment of variously sized smokes to accommodate my different cigar needs. I suggest you do the same.

I’m sure many of you out there are much more experienced when it comes to camping. If you have some tips of your own related to cigars and camping, please feel free to share them in the comments for the benefit of us all.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

While this year’s industry trade show is still a little more than a week away, General Cigar’s (arguably) most important new release of 2012 has already been on the market since April.

Chances are you’ve already heard of Partagas 1845, read reviews of the four-vitola line, or even smoked a Partagas 1845 yourself. Today I bring you my take on the Robusto, courtesy of several samples that were mailed to me by the folks at General Cigar.

To construct Partagas 1845, Jhonys Diaz, Francisco Rodriguez, Yuri Guillen, and Benji Menendez reportedly went through 50 different blends before arriving at the final recipe. They settled on an Ecuadorian Habano viso wrapper, a Connecticut Habano binder that took nine years to develop, and filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic—some of which were aged in rum barrels.

The result is a dark, firm-feeling line of four sizes that retail for $6-8 apiece: Corona Extra (4.5 x 46), Gigante (6 x 60), Double Corona (7.25 x 54), and Robusto (5.5 x 49). The Robusto is a bumpy smoke with a fair amount of veins and a nice triple cap. The foot has a moist, earthy aroma. Once clipped, the pre-light draw displays moderate resistance.

After establishing an even light and taking some time to let the profile sink in, I find notes of sweet tobacco, cherry, leather, and earth at the outset. Each puff yields ample smoke. There’s hardly any spice at all, but the finish weighs heavy on the back of the throat.

Later, a charred steak flavor creeps in and a spice starts to hit the lips that reminds me of Montreal steak seasoning. Not too bad, albeit a little dry. The aforementioned sweetness does a nice job of rounding off the salt and the spice. Leather becomes more prominent at the midway point. Char is more pronounced in the final act.

With outstanding physical properties—including an even burn line and a solid gray ash—the Partagas 1845 Robusto is a nice smoke and a fair value for $6.50 (not including taxes). Those of you who enjoy char-centric cigars, earth, and leather will be pleased with this new blend. Personally, I would prefer some creaminess and a little more sweetness to render the taste more balanced and less dry. In my book this cigar is worthy of three stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–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.”

If there ever was a dark, menacing-looking cigar, the AF1 from Gary Griffith’s Emilio Cigars is it. This line is made by—and named for—cigar maker A.J. Fernandez. It is produced in Estelí of Nicaraguan tobaccos wrapped in a jet-black San Andreas maduro wrapper. The result is a full-bodied, spicy smoke with notes of raisin, espresso, caramel, and cream. The Toro (6 x 50) sells for around $7 to $8, and I think that’s a fair price for the balance and complexity you get from this slow-burning cigar.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Last month it was announced that Dona Flor, a top brand in Brazil for years, would be reintroduced to the American market with a handful of new blends, including Seleção and Puro Mata Fina. StogieGuys.com recently spoke with the man who is making this reintroduction possible: Chris Edge, owner of Dona Flor USA.

Stogie Guys: We were fans of Dona Flor back in 2005 when the brand was first available the U.S. What were the legal issues that ended U.S. distribution?

Chris Edge: Dona Flor became available in the U.S. back in 2000. There were a few smaller distributors who were attempting to get them established. In 2005 they really began to get some attention as most Americans don’t even know that Brazil has tobacco, let alone of its quality. In 2007 there were some problems, probably caused by poor communication and an unclear contract which resulted in a trademark infringement case being brought to the courts. The litigation stopped the importing of the cigars until about 2009, when a distributor (who is married to a Brazilian) began to bring them back into the US. The case was settled out of court in December 2011. The actual details of the settlement are unknown and both parties agreed not to discuss it. The public records are available in the Miami Dade County public records if you really want to dig into it. Other than that, there is little I can tell you, or really even want to get in to. It was very unfortunate that things happened the way they did as these are some of the most consistent, quality-grown, and quality-controlled cigars in the industry and had a very good following when they stopped importing them due to the litigation. My focus has been, for the past two years, to feel out the market on the past, how it affected the consumers, what was the overall perception of the brand and the cigar, and how to reintroduce it.

SG: The press release that announced the reintroduction of Dona Flor to the U.S. market labeled you a “cigar enthusiast and successful business man from Denver.” Can you tell us a little more about your business background, or any previous experience in the cigar industry?

CE: In a nutshell, between my wife and me, we have raised eight children. Yes, I said eight. If that right there doesn’t qualify you for a medal in patience, market trends, and changes from year to year, I don’t know what does. I spent 35 years in advertising and marketing in corporate America. I retired from the last company after 20 years for health reasons, pretty much sick and tired of being sick and tired about the entire corporate experience. During that time I spent 18 years involved in union-company relations. Overall, the entire business is a people business, I loved working the streets, being face to face with the store owners, still do to this day. During that time I was also my own real estate remodeler and would buy, fix up, and sell my own houses, each time getting a little bigger. We always seemed to live in a construction zone but I think that was just a stress reliever for me over the years. After I retired in 2005, I continued into the real estate arena with my wife and did very well until that industry collapsed. From there I spent some time in the mortgage industry only to discover more corporate disillusion and started a distribution company in 2008 which eventually led me into the cigars. I have been an enthusiast for over 20 years and truly enjoyed the product for what it really is: an opportunity to capture a moment in time and to enjoy that moment for all of its virtues. That particular moment of forgetting about the worries of life and to enjoy just being, the place you are at, who you are with, the weather at that moment, the conversation everything. Whether I would be sitting on my back deck having a fine scotch, or wine with friends, or looking for a little white ball I just hit into the bushes, it’s all about the moment. I stumbled into an IPCPR Trade Show in Vegas while attending another show and it just all came together. The energy, the people, the entire industry. There really is a reason they call us enthusiasts. From there things just happened and so here I am.

SG: Why take on the distribution of Dona Flor, and why now?

CE: That’s a very good question because if it were anything but this line I probably would not be doing what I am now. Regardless of the passion I have for enjoying my time and my life with a good cigar, there is still a business side to it. I wanted something different, something that no one else had, something that gave consumers a different angle to try. Dona Flor was the perfect fit. Menendez Amerio has been growing and rolling cigars for 35 years now. Arturo and Felix are both Cuban descendants who spent time in the family business of growing tobacco until Casto took over. That is another story that you should hear sometime. Anyway, bottom line is that there were no 100% Brazilian cigars on the market despite the fact that Brazilian tobacco has been used in some of the finest cigars for decades. So this gave me the niche that I was looking for, a top quality product, currently unavailable. A huge target market that is constantly changing taste and looking for something new and different. A perfect fit.

SG: Approximately how many U.S. retailers do you expect to be carrying Dona Flor products after this summer’s trade show? Are you marketing to online retailers or B&M tobacconists only? Are you also aiming for distribution in Canada?

CE: I would like to see our product in over 300 stores by the end of the year. I have spent almost two years preparing for this release. I have been talking to consumers, distributors, and retailers, listening to their needs and how best to service them. The litigation problem really caused more issues than you might think, mostly because the retailers and consumers were not informed of the situation and the product just simply vanished. Out of sight and out of mind. The distributors were frustrated because they had access to a great product and put themselves on the line only to be let down. There is a huge trust level between distributors and their retailers and that has to be respected. Our focus is to support the B&M retailers—these are the back bones of this business. The internet business is a great business just not for this particular brand or product. We are doing everything we can to keep them out of the online sites and make them available only to quality distributors and quality tobacco tobacconists. Right now my focus is strictly on the U.S. market and getting it reestablished. From there, who knows? Our current efforts are getting calls from around the world. Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Israel. We must be doing something right but for right now it’s one step at a time. U.S., here we come.

SG: It looks like all of the new Dona Flor blends are Brazilian puros made from MataFina, Mata Norte, and Brazilian-grown Cuban-seed tobaccos. Are there any plans to incorporate non-Brazilian tobaccos in future blends? If not, do you feel this somewhat constrains the ability to grow the brand?

CE: With the exception of the Connecticut wrapper, yes, they are 100% Brazilian. There are no plans to begin mixing non-Brazilian tobacco at this time, mostly due to the import/export duties and laws. Menendez Amerio also has a line called Alonso Menendez which we will begin showing in 2013. I don’t believe that it limits us at all. If anything, I think it helps to define us. I don’t want to be constantly trying to introduce a new label. I don’t think the market needs more labels (and I know that the retailers don’t want to have to try and carry it). My goal is grow the brand as an original, as a top quality cigar that you can always count on. We are smoking cigars, not labels. Right now, I have my plate plenty full to keep me busy for a while. This is America, things can change with the wind so you never know. But right now, it’s all Brazilian, baby.

SG: We remember really enjoying a Dona Flor blend called Alonso Menendez back around 2006 or 2007. Are there any plans to reintroduce this blend?

CE: Yes there is. The Alonso is a fantastic line and a little more full-flavored. It is extremely popular in Brazil and Europe and we plan on introducing it aggressively next year. But for the re-launch in the US, Dona Flor has a much stronger name recognition to build on, so we decided to solidify one brand before bring in another one.

SG: Where would you like to see Dona Flor in five or ten years?

CE: I would like to see Dona Flor be established for what it is. Truly the first and finest quality Brazilian cigar available. Period. The story of Dona Flor, the cigar, where it came from, how it got its name, how it is tied to the book and Brazilian culture is really an amazing story. The movie Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1977) became the highest grossing Brazilian movie in their history and has held that title for 35 years. That says a lot about the book, the movie, the cigar, and the Brazilian people.

SG: Other than Dona Flor creations, what are some of your favorite cigars?

CE: There are so many great cigars that it is hard to just name a few. What I am finding in my selection process is that I tend to look for consistency in a cigar. I expect it to be as good as the last time I smoked it and that really narrows down the field. There are certain brands that you can always count on being exactly the same no matter where you purchase it. Montecristo and H. Upmann, to name just a couple. I also enjoy sampling different sizes and shapes and seeing how it affects the experience and flavors. Bottom line is that I like a cigar that draws well, has character, smokes clean, burns clean, burns even, does not get too hot, gives me that long beautiful ash…every single time. Not to be prejudiced, but Dona Flor gives me that.

Thanks to Chris Edge for taking the time to talk with StogieGuys.com. You can learn more about Dona Flor USA here.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Dona Flor USA

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.”

As a big fan of the original My Father series, I was surprisingly disappointed by the Le Bijou 1922 blend when I first tried it. I recently decided to give the line another try with hopes that I’d have a better experience. As I remember, the construction is outstanding and the Petit Robusto (4.5 x 50) is also no slouch when it comes to appearance, with a lovely Ecuadorian Habano oscuro wrapper. But the flavor falls a little flat as notes of earth and pepper fail to develop into something more complex. While the Le Bijou 1922 Petit Robusto isn’t necessarily a bad cigar, I can think of better ways to spend $7-8.

Verdict = Sell.

–Patrick A

photo credits: Stogie Guys

When I reviewed the new Seleção Robusto last month, I mentioned that Dona Flor, a top brand in Brazil for years, was once a darling of StogieGuys.com.

The company’s blends earned high praise from my colleagues and I back in 2006 and 2007. The Alonso Menendez Robusto was no exception. That smoke might have been my favorite Dona Flor at the time. I remember it as a rough-looking specimen made of mata fina tobacco with a quick burn, good construction, and an aromatic profile of coffee and milk chocolate—a flavor that I’d sometimes describe as “moist chocolate cake.” But my access to the Alonso Menendez Robusto was cut off for years as legal issues halted Dona Flor’s brief distribution to the U.S.

Then, on June 5 of this year, I received a press release proclaiming Dona Flor’s re-introduction to the American market. I quickly scoured the text in hopes of seeing the Alonso Menendez name. No such luck. But there was a new blend that looked and sounded a lot like my old friend. Called the Dona Flor Puro Mata Fina Robusto, it too is made from 100% mata fina tobacco. Save for the updated band, it also looks like the Alonso Menendez Robusto, with a coarse, textured wrapper, a loose packing of tobacco, and a similar cap. And the Puro Mata Fina Robusto is even sold in the same size (5 x 52). The retail price will run around $8.

Before setting fire to the foot, the pre-light aroma of the Puro Mata Fina Robusto does remind me of Alonso Menendez. It’s a potent fragrance of sweet chocolate. The cap clips easily to reveal a predictably airy draw with some sweetness on the lips.

Now the Puro Mata Fina Robusto is a fast-burning cigar, so that means a few things. First, the cigar takes less time to smoke than your average robusto. Second, the burn is perfectly even and requires no touch-ups along the way. Third, each puff gives off tons of smoke. And fourth, I’d typically expect a cigar with such rapid combustion to taste hot and harsh.

Thankfully, though, the flavor is anything but. At the outset the profile is cool, dry, and cedary with notes of allspice, leather, and pine nut. There’s also a fair amount of dark chocolate bitterness present—a contrast to the sweet chocolate that’s so pervasive in the Alonso Menendez. As it progresses, the bitterness and the woodiness ramp up significantly, and charred notes dominate the final third.

Since I started working on this review, I’ve learned that the Puro Mata Fina Robusto is not simply the reincarnation of the Alonso Menendez. Dona Flor aims to eventually reintroduce Alonso Menendez to the U.S. market, but that probably won’t happen for at least another year. In the meantime, the Puro Mata Fina Robusto is a decidedly different cigar, one that’s worthy of three and a half stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

I often get asked to recommend a cheap blend that’s tasty enough to be enjoyable yet mild enough for a beginner. One of the first cigars that always comes to mind is the Oliva Serie G.

Now just because this Cameroon-wrapped smoke has a price and flavor profile that makes it approachable for infrequent smokers, that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed by seasoned cigar veterans, too. I (obviously) smoke pretty damn regularly, and for years I’ve kept a stash of Serie Gs in my collection. Why? Because sometimes I want a milder smoke to accompany my morning coffee, and sometimes I crave that Cameroon sweetness. It also doesn’t hurt to save a little money from time to time.

When I reach for a Serie G, I’m usually choosing a smaller size like the Robusto (4.5 x 50), Special G (3.75 x 48), or even the Cigarillo (4 x 38). These are fine morning or mid-afternoon vitolas that won’t take up a ton of time. Every so often, though, I’ll fire up a Churchill, which is the largest Serie G at seven inches long with a ring gauge of 50. It retails for $4 to $6, depending on where and how many you’re buying.

This box-pressed smoke boasts the standard Serie G recipe, including a Cuban-seed Habano binder and Nicaraguan Habano long-filler tobaccos. The Cameroon wrapper is yellowish and pale with a fair amount of veins and various watermark splotches. You won’t find a ton of oils on the wrinkled exterior leaf, but the foot yields a wonderful pre-light aroma of hay and caramel.

After setting fire to the foot, a cool, mild profile emerges that’s dry and a little flat. There isn’t much spice to speak of. Instead, the taste can best be described as toasty and airy. Once the first inch is complete, some of the flavors that I associate with the smaller Serie G vitolas start to enter the equation. These include cream, butter, almond, sweetness, and warm tobacco. The spice intensifies slightly in the final third but I don’t think the Churchill ever ventures out of the mild spectrum.

In terms of physical properties, this cigar performs at the standard I’ve come to expect from Oliva. The burn is straight and requires no touch-ups. The white, finely layered ash holds firm off the foot. And the draw is smooth and easy from light to nub.

Oliva is an excellent manufacturer whose low-key marketing approach often causes the brand to go relatively unnoticed. But if you’re looking for a mild Cameroon smoke, I don’t think you can do much better than the Serie G at this price point. That said, I maintain that the Serie G is much more enjoyable and interesting in its smaller sizes. The Churchill takes a while to get going and, once it does, it doesn’t really hold my attention for the duration of the smoke. That’s why it doesn’t earn a rating higher than three stogies out of five.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys