The 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.”

I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of this new Dominican puro until a friend pointed it out to me when I was visiting one of my local cigar shops. The $10 smoke features a a medium brown corojo wrapper with just a bit of shine. I don’t know the exact size but I’d guess it’s about 6 inches long with a ring gauge of 52. It starts off very mild with slightly damp woody notes. I nearly wrote it off as bland and boring when, about a third of the way in, it developed a more interesting edge with cedar and cinnamon spice, and became more medium-bodied. With excellent construction, it was good enough that I’d want to try a few more before rendering a full judgement.

Verdict = Hold

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

For Americans, Cuban cigars hold a unique mystique. Illegal but not overly difficult to obtain, nearly every cigar smoker has smoked one or knows a guy who can get them. Lately, I’ve been asked a few times about Cuban cigars, so I’ve done some thinking about the puros from that “Island South of Miami.” Specifically, I get asked two common questions:

Are Cubans really the best?

In my opinion, not really. Cuban cigars can be fantastic, but they are far too inconsistent. Construction and flavor seem to regularly vary from box to box, and sometimes stick to stick.

Cuba is probably the best possible place to grow tobacco. Cuba is to cigar production as France is to wine production. It was a comparative advantage in terms of micro-climate. The problem is the production of Cuban cigars is state-owned by a totalitarian regime. No doubt, if the French wine industry was run by a Communist dictator for half a century, the great French wines would have turned unreliable and often poor.

Under one government conglomerate, many Cuban cigars have lost their character. While I’m too young to have experienced it myself, I’m told there was a time when every brand had a unique flavor profile. Today, in addition to the construction issues and lack of properly aged tobacco, too often all Cuban cigars seem to be a variation, of the same basic blend.

What happens when the embargo ends?

Or, more likely, I’m asked something like, “You must be looking forward to the embargo ending?” My answer: Yes, but not for the reason you think.

When the embargo finally ends, and you have to imagine it will eventually, there will certainly be a big run on Cuban cigars. Everyone who has ever smoked a cigar will want to try a Cuban and the result will be more rushed, poorly constructed Cuban cigars than ever.

In other words, once the embargo ends I’ll probably smoke fewer, not more Cuban cigars. Still, I’m excited about one aspect of the embargo ending: the ability for non-Cuban cigar makers to use Cuban tobacco. Once the great cigar makers of our time get access to Cuban tobacco, which they can properly prepare and age and blend with other tobaccos we’ve come to enjoy, then I’ll really be excited about the embargo ending.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Wikipedia

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.”

On the recommendation of Intemperance (and CroMagnon) co-owner Skip Martin, I lit this Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapped short perfecto (5 x 50) up in the morning with a cup of coffee. (I defied his suggesting that I do it with a New York Times and went with the Wall Street Journal instead.) It’s a medium-bodied cigar with plenty of cedar, roasted notes, and hints of spice and cream. Well-constructed with decent balance, for seasoned full-bodied cigar smokers, it’s a good first smoke of the day. But that doesn’t mean it would be out of place after dinner with a stronger drink.

Verdict = Buy

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Though you might not know it, Tatuaje creator Pete Johnson is a cigar distributor as well as a brand owner. And he doesn’t just distribute his own cigars, which are made in Miami and Nicaragua, but also those from a small cigar factory in the Dominican Republic.

Para Ti is the project of Pete Johnson’s friend, Fred Schrader, maker of some of the most highly-regarded Napa Valley wines. A cigar enthusiast in addition to a vinter, Schrader has created two cigars at his small factory, both distributed exclusively by Pete Johnson’s Havana Cellars.

Says Pete of Para Ti: “I’m only doing the distribution, but it’s a trip for me because it’s a completely different country for me to be working with. This is their blend, I OK’ed it; I told them I’d be happy to sell it because the product is good. I don’t know a lot about the factory except that it’s called Para Ti and it’s very small. This is a way for me to help out a friend in the industry, but also, people have asked me to do this before and I never really wanted to do it and this one just seemed to fit right.”

With Johnson handling distribution, Schrader has created two cigars. Extremely hard to find, limited, and expensive ($25 each) is the Schrader Hispaniola Sparky Doco-Est MMIX, named after Schrader’s most exclusive wine. His other cigar, the subject of this review, is the Para Ti, a Dominican puro available in four sizes: Hermosos (4.5 x 52), Perlas (5 x 40), Prominentes (6 x 60) and Canonazos (6 x 48).

To evaluate the Para Ti, I smoked four of the toro-sized Canonazos, which retail for around $8 each. The cigar has as rough, rustic appearance with a medium brown wrapper that has both an oily sheen and many veins. It is firmly constructed, and produces an even burn and sturdy ash.

Para Ti (“for you” in Spanish) starts with forward and simple woody notes, but soon develops into a more complex medium-bodied cigar. It has a strong flavor of roast cashew that combines with dried fruit for a flavorful, balanced blend. Towards the final third it becomes more woody. It has a clean flavor profile with a soft finish.

Considering that I knew little about this Dominican before I smoked it, I found it to be an impressive creation. It’s one of those rare cigars where after smoking one, you’d consider lighting up another almost immediately. With bold, balanced favors and good construction, it earns a most impressive rating of four and a half stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick S

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.”

This new version of the Tatuaje Cojonu blend hasn’t been released yet, but I was fortunate enough to get one at a Tatuaje event last month. The new Tatuaje Conoju 2012 will come in three versions: one with a Habano wrapper, one with a Sumatra wrapper (Capa Especial), and one with a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper (Reserva). It’s a potent, bold smoke that features earth, dark chocolate, black coffee, and black pepper spice. With flawless construction, this new Tatuaje smoke is certainly a ballsy, full-flavored Nicaraguan cigar.

Verdict = Buy

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Yesterday, a federal judge slapped down the Food & Drug Administration’s new tobacco warning labels as a violation of the Constitution’s free-speech protections. The legal challenge was brought by five tobacco companies, including some of the largest cigarette makers.

The new FDA labels, which take up half of the surface area on a pack of cigarettes, were scheduled to debut in September. Proposed last year, they were full color photos (including images of a cadaver with a sewn-up chest, diseased lungs and gums, and cigarette smoke drifting around an infant) accompanied by a “Quit Now” toll-free phone number.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling sharply criticized the FDA for misrepresenting the labels. In a key footnote, he wrote, “Although the FDA conveniently refers to these graphic images as ‘graphic warnings,’ characterizing these graphic images as ‘warnings’ is inaccurate and unfair as they are more about shocking and repelling than warning.”

Later in the 19-page decision, Leon wrote, “The graphic images here were neither designed to protect the consumer from confusion or deception, nor to increase consumer awareness of smoking risks; rather, they were crafted to evoke a strong emotional response calculated to provoke the viewer to quit or never start smoking.”

In concluding that the labels were a violation of the First Amendment, Leon wrote, “The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech.”

Analysis

While not specifically related to cigars, this ruling has significant implications for all FDA regulation of tobacco, showing that there are limits to the government’s seemingly endless war on tobacco.

Judge Leon’s frequent criticism of FDA misrepresentations is particularity important, finally putting the brakes on the anti-tobacco movement’s attempt to play fast and loose with the facts. Critically, it sets a precedent that anti-tobacco regulations must be fact-based, and can’t merely be designed to oppose smoking.

Left unsaid was the hypocrisy of how anti-tobacco advocates frequently point back to supposed scientific misrepresentations of tobacco companies many decades ago, but now are the ones who frequently rely on suspect scientific conclusions and dubious logic. For example, the FDA’s own study released in October 2010 found that although the labels may stir the emotions of smokers, they might not cause smokers to quit.

For cigars, whose often ornate and decorative packaging is steeped in tradition, the limits on labels is even more important than it is for cigarettes. And with the FDA currently moving to regulate cigars like cigarettes, this ruling could be critical to limiting the damage done to to cigars until H.R. 1639 becomes law.

–Patrick S

photo credit: FDA

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.”

To say it would be easy to dismiss the American Eagles as a gimmick would be an understatement, but when I heard that Davidoff’s Henke Kelner blended the cigar, and that a portion of profits go to the Semper Fi Fund, I figured it was at worth a try. The cigar’s unique “camouflage” wrapper consists of Ecuadorian shade-grown Connecticut, Connecticut broadleaf maduro, and Central American candela, which surrounds a Dominican blend. The medium-bodied smoke has good balance, savory flavors, and its kept lively by the subtle changes in flavor that result from the different combinations of wrapper leaf you experience. At $10 each, its proof that a cigar can be a gimmick and a good smoke.

Verdict = Buy

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys