The Stogie Guys

New Year’s resolutions are a annual tradition. And even though they are a few days late (nine, to be exact), here are my cigar-related resolutions for 2014:

Smoke More Socially – I smoke plenty of cigars, but not enough in the company of fellow smokers. Part of the reason is I smoke a lot of cigars for reviews, and plenty others while writing other content for this site. But even when I just smoke a cigar to relax, too often it’s just me and a couple fingers of bourbon. (Don’t feel bad for me, I have plenty of friends; just not many who enjoy cigars.) So this year I’m hoping to sit around the table more with my cigar-smoking buddies.

Don’t Neglect the Big Cigar Makers – While I reviewed plenty of cigars this year, a very small proportion of them were from the larger cigar makers like Altadis, General Cigar, Fuente, and Davidoff. Those companies make a disproportionately large percentage of handmade cigars. Yet I reviewed very few of their cigars last year. They make some excellent cigars, so while I won’t be ignoring the smaller, boutique makers, I plan on making a point to review more of the largest cigar companies new releases.

Update Old Reviews – StogieGuys.com has been around for nearly eight years now. And while cigar makers may refuse to admit it, the truth is a cigar can change over such a long period of time, and I don’t mean because of aging. A cigar we reviewed five years ago may be a very different cigar today, even if it shares the same name, size, etc. So while there’s no shortage of new cigars to review, this year I’d like to revisit some of the cigars I reviewed in the first few years of the site.

Share My Favorite Affordable Spirits  – I wrote about twenty-some bourbons over the past year and a handful of other fine spirits. That includes a lot of my favorites, but perhaps it skews towards the limited edition, hard-to-find variety. One of things I find so amazing about bourbon is the high quality of easily found, non-expensive bourbons. So this year I want to focus on the $20-40 bourbon range, and share my favorites with you.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

It has been said that Dion Giolito of Illusione Cigars blended his refined Epernay line to pair with champagne. If that’s true, I should have gotten around to this review before New Year’s Eve—not a week after what’s certainly the biggest night for champagne consumption.

Epernay, named for the region of France known around the world for the champagne it produces, debuted in 2008 as the ECCJ 15th limited release (in honor of the 15th anniversary of the European Cigar Cult Journal). It was eventually rolled out in 2009 as a regular production series with four sizes. My colleagues have already reviewed Le Elegance and Le Matin in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The Epernay recipe calls for Nicaraguan tobaccos of Corojo and Criollo (notably, there is no Ligero in the blend). The wrapper is Café Rosado, and the intended flavor profile is marketed as complex, subdued, and European. With a small, understated band of white and gold, a triple-cap, and that familiar Illusione font, Epernay has a classic appeal.

For this review I sampled 5 cigars in the L’Excellence format, which measures 6.75 inches long with a ring gauge of 48. L’Excellence is the tenth Epernay vitola, a Churchill that was added in 2012. I’ve heard that it’s Giolito’s favorite size in the series. It’s a solid, uniformly packed cigar with moderate oils, few veins, and a stiff pre-light draw. The foot has a gentle aroma of hay and molasses.

After setting an even light, L’Excellence yields a rounded, balanced profile with notes as varied as coffee, white pepper, honey, cream, and apple. A delicate floral taste lingers in the background. The fragrance of the resting smoke is bright and crisp, and the smoke is thick yet light on the palate. I find virtually no nicotine kick in the mild- to medium-bodied cigar, and there are few changes in flavor from light to nub.

Construction is excellent and consistent. The burn line is straight, the ash holds firm, and the smoke production is high. Even the firm pre-light draw opens considerably once L’Excellence gets underway.

Illusione makes some very fine cigars, but the Epernay line is the pinnacle—Giolito’s highest achievement. It’s hard to ask any more from a cigar that retails for about $9. With reliable physical properties and a nuanced profile that’s complex and memorable, L’Excellence is worthy of a great rating. In my book, it earns four and a half stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

I had multiple people send me this article from the National Review. In it, conservative write Jonah Goldberg describes his fondness for cigars and the democratic nature of cigars and cigar smokers:

I can often be found on the twelfth-floor balcony of the American Enterprise Institute, also with stogie in hand. A friend and former colleague and I gave this balcony a nickname, “The Remnant,” in homage to Albert Jay Nock’s notion of an irreducible sliver of right-thinking humanity separate and apart from the “Neolithic” masses.

Nock’s was a thoroughly elitist conception, which is ironic, since smoking cigars may be the most democratic thing I do. At the cigar shop, the clientele is mixed in nearly every way, though you wouldn’t say it “looks like America.” A large proportion of the African-American regulars are D.C. cops. In terms of professions, the crowd leans a bit too heavily toward lawyers (as does the nation’s capital). But there’s no shortage of contractors, manual laborers, college students, and retirees.

Politically, there are all types. As far as I can tell, the most ideologically conservative regular (me included) is a federal employee. The gender mix is thoroughly lopsided, of course. Women do occasionally come into the shop, but when they do, all eyes go up as if a unicorn had sauntered into a library. Dennis Prager, another gentleman of the leaf, has written that cigar shops may be the last place in America where men can congregate and talk as men.

It’s worth a full read, even though I’m sure there are aspects – especially the political parts – that some readers will disagree with. (Personally, I’m not sure I’d agree his opinion on who is “the capital’s best tobacconist” but that’s really besides the point.)

The quoted passage above characterizes one of the best parts of cigar smoking. It’s not simply the enjoyment of the cigar, there’s much more to being a cigar smoker than that.

Quite simply, cigar smokers are a community. Even if you smoke alone, you’re flying a flag that says other cigar smokers are welcome to stop by for a chat.

Cigar smokers regularly approach other cigar smokers they’ve never met before to strike up a conversation. That doesn’t happen anywhere else these days. I may be a NY Giants fan, but I wouldn’t walk up to someone wearing a Giants jersey and strike up a conversation, unless he was also smoking E.P. Carrillo.

And that brotherhood of cigar smokers is one of the reasons we enjoy cigars so much.

–Patrick S

photo credit: National Review

Like most of you, I imagine, I’ve found myself in a reflective mood at this time of year. The cigar topic that has drawn much of my attention is reviews. Specially, what might make them more worthwhile for you, our readers.

Here at StogieGuys.com, we smoke cigars because we love them. And we write about them because we enjoy sharing our experiences—good, bad, or indifferent. While each of us has different tastes and preferences, as well as styles, there are a few basics we adhere to when composing full reviews.

For example, you’ll generally find information about the price, size, tobacco, and aspects of performance and strength. Sometimes it isn’t possible to do it all, though, when, say, we have a pre-release stick for which the price isn’t yet set, or when the maker doesn’t identify the tobacco used in the blend.

What I am wondering is whether there are other things you believe are important in helping you decide whether to try a certain cigar for the first time or pass it by. Or elements you’d like to see addressed at greater length. I also wonder if our attempts to describe a cigar’s flavor or aroma are helpful, or if they’re only marginally useful given the subjectivity of taste and the difficulty of describing flavor.

I began to think about some of these things as I was working on a review of a Surrogates cigar. It produces a lot of smoke, and I realized that characteristic is, for me, very important. I simply don’t find a cigar with thin, light smoke nearly as enjoyable, regardless of the flavors. On the other hand, as a frequent outdoor smoker, I care little about a cigar’s room aroma.

So, if you’re in a reflective mood as well, consider giving some thought to cigar reviews and let us know what you like to see in them. I can’t guarantee we’ll always be able to deliver (I, for example, rarely drink alcohol, so I’m not really good at recommending pairings, so I’d suggest you rely on our resident spirits expert, Patrick S, for them).

But I can promise you we’ll certainly give serious thought to your replies.

–George E

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.”

After noticing that our recently published list of the best cigars we reviewed in 2013 had two smokes made by RoMa Craft Tobac (Abaddon and Ouroboros), I resolved to better acquaint myself with the company, which is headed by Skip Martin. I could hardly think of a better place to start than the Intemperance BA XXI blend. The vitola called “The Breach of the Peace” (5 x 56) boasts a complex combination of dry wood, espresso, leather, and cocoa, all grounded in a thick, rich texture. Its recipe includes a Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper around an Indonesian binder, as well as filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. At $7, this bold, cool-smoking Robusto Extra is easy to recommend. I look forward to sampling more from RoMa Craft in 2014.

Verdict = Buy.

–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.”

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) It is no longer legal to smoke in Boston’s outdoor parks. The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission voted unanimously in favor of the regulation, which impacts all 251 public parks in Boston. “The ban makes it illegal to smoke cigarettes, marijuana, or any other material on properties controlled by the Parks and Recreation Department,” reports Boston Magazine. “Breaking the new law, which goes into effect immediately, is punishable by a $250 fine, and will be enforced by park rangers and officers from the Police Department.” The law was first proposed by Mayor Tom Menino who, despite a complete lack of evidence that outdoor secondhand smoke is harmful, says it is “necessary to maintain the health and safety of our public parks.”

2) Aside from Boston, a host of other smoking bans took effect yesterday, including a near-complete ban for the affluent community of Coronado, California. “In addition to banning smoking on most public property—including all public streets, highways, alleys, sidewalks, and parking lots—the ordinance bans smoking on public or private property within 25 feet of an enclosed building,” reports the NBC affiliate in San Diego. “It also bans smoking on private property that is open to the general public for an event, for recreational purposes, or if the private property is serving as a service area such as an ATM, ticket line, or parking stand.” A first offense will be met with a $100 fine.

3) Around the Blogs: Cigar Fan examines the San Cristobal Elegancia Pyramid. Stogie Review tries the Asylum 13 Sixty. Stogie Fresh reviews the EH Cultura. Nice Tight Ash lists the best cigars of 2013. Cigar Inspector checks out La Aroma de Cuba Robusto.

4) Deal of the Week: Our friends at Emerson’s Cigars have a great deal on tap for you Drew Estate/Joya de Nicaragua fans out there. For just under $160, you get a box of 21 CyB Lonsdale Clubs, an Undercrown Toro 6-pack, and an Undercrown hat. If, like us, you love these blends, this is a hard deal to pass up. Check out the details here.

–The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Flickr