The Stogie Guys

As we have since July 2006, each Friday we’ll post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler.

1) Cigar makers, brand owners, blenders, and factories have been frantically scrambling to meet the August 8 deadline set forth by the FDA. Perhaps no single individual, however, has been as busy (at least not publicly) as Steve Saka of Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust. “It has been an incredibly grueling 90 days,” he wrote on Facebook yesterday. “I have finalized five marca designs and over 15 ligas between 46 vitolas. Thankfully, I had been buying leaf and working on all of these blends over the past year. While there are some packaging tweaks required, none of any of these cigars are half-baked. I must express my sincere thanks to my partners at both the NACSA (pictured above) and Joya de Nicaragua factories. The demands I put upon both, in particular Joya, have been beyond reasonable.” What do we know so far about Saka’s forthcoming cigars? We know there will be a new Broadleaf-wrapped line called Mi Querida, a Nicaraguan puro line that will be made at Joya and retail in the $6-9 range, a line called Muestra de Saka, and new Sobremesa Elegante en Cedros and Short Churchill ligas that are tweaked to be a bit stronger.

2) This week it was announced Miami Cigar & Co. will be the exclusive distributor of The Upsetters, the second line from Nicholas Melillo’s Foundation Cigar Company. The Upsetters will debut shortly. It follows El Güegüense (“The Wise Man”), which was Melillo’s first solo cigar brand after leaving Drew Estate (where he worked alongside Steve Saka). “The Upsetters is possibly my most exciting and thought-out product to date,” said Melillo in a press release. “By using both Jamaican and Nicaraguan filler leaf, the brand pays deference to the ancient historic relationship between Jamaica and Nicaragua when the two were geologically connected by a land bridge known as the Nicaraguan Rise.” The Upsetters brand will be offered in eight sizes and retail for $5-$12. Each size will either have a Claro, Maduro, or Candela wrapper.

3) In other major news, last Friday brought the public confirmation of the long-rumored purchase of the Oliva Cigar Co. The buyer is J. Cortés Cigars N.V., a private business out of Belgium known for its machine-made cigars. The resulting company will have annual revenues of over $100 million. According to reports, José Oliva will stay on as the chief executive officer of Oliva. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, though Oliva reportedly turned down a higher offer from General Cigar before agreeing to be purchased by J. Cortés.

4) From the Archives: Cigar reviews frequently refer to a cigar’s texture without explaining the meaning of the term. In 2012, we took an in-depth look at the different things people refer to when they speak of a cigar’s texture. “As consumers of cigars, you and I mostly talk about texture in the way a cigar hits our palate. Some of the best cigar producers, on the other hand, are referring to the physical attributes of individual leaves before they become cigars… The distinction is important to understand in our education of the world of cigars.”

6) Deal of the Week: Want to fill your humidor with some high-quality cigars on the cheap? This Secure Server Sampler features ten cigars that will normally run you over $60 for just $29.95. Move quickly as these deals tend to sell out.

–The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Facebook

The partnership between Warped Cigars and Casa Fernandez has produced some excellent cigars, including the Warped Futuro Selección Supremas, which impressed be enough to earn our first five out of five rating of 2016. Today, I look at another Warped/Casa Fernandez joint production: Flor del Valle.

The line was the first Warped cigar produced at the TABSA factory in Nicaragua (Futuro came later), where it is made alongside cigars for Illusione, Casa Fernandez, Foundation Cigar Co. (El Güegüense), and others. It was first introduced in 2014, with the petit robusto-sized Las Brumas (4.5 x 48), the subject of today’s review, added the following year.

Las Brumas retails for $9.45 ($236.25 for a box of 25), but shop around and you should be able to find a box for around $200. The the five cigars I smoked for this review came from is dated January 2016.

The Flor del Valle blend uses 100% Aganorsa tobacco with a Jalapa Corojo ’99 wrapper, is bound in a dual binder, and has fillers made up of of Corojo ’99 and Criollo ’98 tobaccos. Las Brumas (translated as “the mist”) is one of three sizes, with an additional “Sky Flower” size using a tweaked blend with the addition of higher priming tobaccos.

Las Brumas’ wrapper is medium brown with some dark splotches. Once lit, the cigar features rich wood (oak and cedar), cafe-au-lait, and dry cinnamon spice.

Pre-light, there were a few notably spongy spots, but none of the cigars I smoked showed any ill-effects related to their combustion qualities, which produced an easy but not airy draw, and an even, solid ash.

Though not as interesting or complex as Futuro, Flor del Valle is still an excellent medium- to full-bodied cigar with a flavor profile that is very identifiably Nicaraguan. The Warped Flor del Valle Las Brumas earns a rating of four stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick S

photo credits: 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.”

Made at La Aurora in the Dominican Republic, Viva Republica’s Rapture features an Ecuadorian wrapper, Dominican binder, and filler from Brazil,  the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Peru. This robusto-sized smoke (4.5 x 50) is well-constructed and mild with sawdust, cedar, and toast. It’s pleasant and balanced, but ultimately a little on the bland side.

Verdict = Hold.

–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 isn’t my favorite cigar from RoMa Craft Tobac—that honor still belongs to the Intemperance BA XXI A.W.S. IV—but it’s damn close. The CroMagnon Cranium (6 x 54) is a heaping pile of rich, full-bodied flavor, yet it also brings ample complexity to the table via well-balanced notes of pepper, coffee, peanut, and chocolate over a base of hickory and leather. Construction is excellent. Something tells me Skip Martin knew what he was doing when he blended this Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper with a Cameroon binder and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos. At $8.50, the toro-sized Cranium is a steal.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

As we have since July 2006, each Friday we’ll post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler.

1) Davidoff’s newest cigar will be Yamasá, named for a 21-hectacre “harsh and unforgiving swampland” in the Dominican Republic from which Henke Kelner and his team have been trying to grow tobacco for two decades. “For the Yamasá region to unveil its true potential, Kelner and his team had to first nurture nature,” reads a press release. “They conditioned the soil by adding calcium carbonate, agricultural lime, and slaked lime/dolomitic lime. This they did at intervals of every two months, by hand, and to each and every single tobacco plant, then once a month, before transplanting.” Other painstaking measures were taken in the seed selection and curing processes. The resulting cigar features a so-called Yamasá wrapper (first featured in the now discontinued Davidoff Puro d’Oro), a San Vicente binder from Yamasá, and filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Four sizes will hit the market in late July: Petit Churchill (4 x 48, $12.90), Robusto (5 x 50, $19.70), Toro (6 x 52, $22.70), and Piramides (6.1 x 52, $23.00).

2) The Velvet Rat is back. The cigar that was previously released in 2012 in extremely limited quantities will soon be made available via the recently announced Drew Diplomat Event Series, a tour that will culminate on August 6 at the second annual Connecticut Barn Smoker, which takes place at the same Connecticut River Valley farm that produces the wrapper for Liga Privada No. 9 and T52. “In total, 5,000 Velvet Rats were produced in January 2015 and have since been at La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate aging in the company’s cold rooms,” reads a press release. The Lonsdale-sized cigar (6.25 x 46) sports a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, Brazilian Mata Fina binder, and filler tobaccos from Honduras and Nicaragua. It is intended to be a lighter, creamier experience than the famed Liga Privada No. 9. In November 2012, StogieGuys.com awarded the Velvet Rat a rare five-stogie rating.

3) The growth of the Nicaraguan cigar industry has led to overall growth in the U.S. cigar market in recent years, but the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Nicaragua has recently become a point of concern, especially for the cigar industry. This week culminated in a State Department warning for travelers to Nicaragua. The alert cites increased scrutiny of U.S. visitors, upcoming Nicaraguan elections, and the proposed Nicaraguan canal as reasons for the heightened security risks.

4) Inside the Industry: Sin City has long been a hot-spot for cigars, including Casa Fuente. Now you can add the new Davidoff of Geneva Cigar Bar (across from the Wynn Casino) as another Las Vegas cigar landmark. The indoor-outdoor space features views of the Strip, a state-of-the-art ventilation system, and a fully-stocked walk-in humidor.

5) From the Archives: Fancy butane touches have their place (especially if you are outdoors and trying to light a cigar in the wind), but don’t overlook wooden matches. As noted in this 2007 article, instead of flash-frying your cigar there are times when a match or three will do the job far better, not to mention basically for free.

6) Deal of the Week: Alec Bradley fans will want to check out this deal from Smoke Inn. Any purchase of a box of Alec Bradley cigars will, for a limited time, include a five-pack of cigars and a travel ashtray. Plus, use the code “Stogie10” at checkout for an extra 10% off any box purchase.

–The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Davidoff

After growing tobacco in Virginia since the end of the Civil War, the Bailey family operation has moved into premium cigars.

The inaugural Cornelius cigar has a light brown Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, a binder that’s also from Ecuador, and a Nicaraguan Jalapa filler. The cigars are rolled at El Titan de Bronze in Miami’s Little Havana.

The Toro is a 6-inch, 50-ring gauge stick with a $15 MSRP. Two other vitolas fill out the line: Robusto (5 x 52, $13.50) and Corona Gorda (5.5 x 46, $12). All are sold in boxes of 20. The company’s website is still under construction.

The Cornelius name honors an ancestor of Steven Bailey, who turned the company into a small-brand cigarette juggernaut in the 1990s. That most interesting story was well told by the Los Angeles Times a few years ago.

There’s no doubt Cornelius & Anthony is making a serious move into cigars. The company hired Courtney Smith, a former executive at La Palina. And, as a separate division of the company, Cornelius & Anthony will have its own individual booth at this year’s IPCPR Trade Show. (Smith supplied the samples I smoked for this review.)

The Cornelius makes a fine first impression, with a smooth wrapper that has an almost minty pre-light aroma. When lit, the opening is a classic cigar flavor: tobacco sweetness. That soon includes a bit of spice with some wood and light nutty notes.

While the flavors amp up and down a little along the way, there isn’t a lot of change throughout. The burn is razor-sharp, though the ash is a bit loose. The draw is excellent.

I’d classify the strength as pretty much in the middle of medium. It’s a strength and flavor profile that should appeal to many smokers. The price is reasonable, especially for a cigar of this size that is rolled in the U.S.

If this sounds like a cigar you’d enjoy, give Cornelius a try. I rate it three and a half stogies out of five.

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

–George E

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Two years ago, StogieGuys.com broke the news that, for the first time since 1977, long-filler cigar tobacco was being grown in Florida. Jeff Borysiewicz, owner of the Orlando-area Corona Cigar stores and a partner in the Sindicato cigar company, began growing tobacco on land he had purchased—out of love of the leaf, and to avoid paying residential taxes on the land, which is outside Orlando.

At the time, while we learned Drew Estate had been selected as Borysiewicz’s partner in the endeavor, it was unclear exactly how the tobacco would be used. About a month ago, we learned it has been included in a new blend from Drew Estate aptly called Florida Sun Grown (FSG). The Floridian tobacco joins Nicaraguan leaves as a component of the filler; the binder is Mexican and the wrapper Brazilian.

FSG was blended by Drew Estate Master Blender Willy Herrera over the course of two years. Five vitolas—including a Limited Edition Trunk-Pressed Toro (6 x 54)—currently retail in the $11.50-$15 range. For now, they are only available at Corona Cigar stores, or at Corona Cigar’s retail website. However, rumor has it Borysiewicz would like to see FSG go national. If that happens, the exclusivity at Corona Cigar will likely be remembered as a soft launch.

The FSG Robusto (5 x 54) is a dark, firm, oily cigar with a cross-section of tightly packed tobaccos visible at the foot and hearty pre-light notes of raisin and musty earth. It is adorned by a handsome band of teal, orange, and gold that interestingly makes no mention of Drew Estate. The cold draw is smooth and easy.

The flavor is full-bodied and spicy right from the get-go with tons of espresso, black pepper, cayenne heat, and roasted nuts. There’s some raisin and black cherry to help add balance, though that background sweetness certainly doesn’t diminish the intensity. The texture is thick and leathery. After about an inch, the Robusto settles down a bit, but never recedes below the medium- to full-bodied range. Some creaminess enters the equation, as does a little citrus and oak. The final third displays a powerful combination of roasted notes, char, meatiness, and spice.

The combustion qualities are exactly what I’ve come to expect from La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate. The white, finely layered ash holds well off the foot, the draw is clear, the smoke production above average, and the burn line stays straight from light to nub.

It will be interesting to watch the progression of Borysiewicz’s foray into premium cigar tobacco cultivation in Florida. Will FSG get a national release? Will a Florida-grown wrapper leaf be introduced? Will the entire venture be killed off by FDA regulation? I will continue to observe with keen interest. For now, I can say the Florida Sun Grown Robusto is a bold, interesting experience, even at the considerable price of $11.50. In my eyes, this particular cigar is worthy of a very admirable rating of four stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys