The Stogie Guys

Here are ten things I took away from this year’s International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR) Trade Show in Las Vegas:

1. There seems to be no limit to how large a cigar ring gauge can be.

2. Altadis and General are committed to maintaining their positions as industry giants.

3. Selling cigars is hard work.

4. Sam Leccia is still a rock star in the industry.

5. Retailers want to meet with manufacturers to talk about cigars, not just prices.

6. I’ll never understand why humidor makers continue to use analog hygrometers.

7. Lots of folks want to be in the cigar business.

8. Print isn’t dead in the tobacco industry. More than a half-dozen magazines had booths.

9. The brands assembled in the House of Emilio make up quite an impressive collection.

10. Class and company size are sometimes related, sometimes not.

–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.”

If Jim Carrey’s Riddler from the horrifically campy Batman Forever designed a cigar band, it would look something like this. It’s about as far as you can get from the traditional Trinidad look. Introduced last summer, the 6-inch, 54-ring gauge, box-pressed cigar’s blend—Dominican binder, Nicaraguan filler, and Mexican Criollo ’98 wrapper—is also unusual. The profile has a unique syrupy sweetness, along with hints of coffee and cream. Construction is perfect. This is a unique, pleasant, medium-bodied smoke that may surprise you.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Five cigar facts of which you may not be aware:

1. The number of people who smoke premium, hand-rolled cigars is tiny. Forget the “crowd” at your local cigar shop or how quickly a hot limited edition sells out. We’re talking hard numbers. No exact figure exists for the number of cigar smokers, but extrapolating from published data shows just what an elite group we are.

A 2002 government survey found that 2.2% of U.S. adults identified themselves as cigar smokers. The overwhelming majority of cigars sold here are machine-made, roughly 12 billion vs. 350 million premiums. (And nearly half of the 12 billion are “little cigars,” which are much more akin to cigarettes than to premium cigars.) Do the math, and feel free to round up. It’s about 6.5 million cigar smokers consuming about 12.5 billion cigars, of which fewer than 5% are premium cigars. We’ll make the fairly outrageous assumption that half of the 6.5 million are consuming both, and you’re left with 3.25 million premium cigar smokers. My belief is that it’s considerably under 2 million, which would make it about the size of the Columbus, Ohio, metro area.

2. The cigar business can be an intricate web. Consider these connections. Two of the largest U.S. cigar retailers are owned by two of the world’s largest cigar makers: Altadis, owned by Imperial Tobacco, has controlling interest in JR Cigars, and Swedish Match, owner of General Cigar, owns Cigars International. And don’t forget that Altadis is half-owner of Habanos S.A., Cuba’s tobacco monopoly.

3. Sigmund Freud almost certainly never said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

4. More than a decade before Cigar Aficionado’s 1992 debut, the publisher of the magazine Screw started Cigar, a quarterly that didn’t last.

5. Germany, according to the consumer research firm Euromonitor International, is second to the U.S. as a cigar market.

–George E

photo credit: Flickr

Sindicato was clearly one of the most anticipated new cigar companies at this month’s industry trade show in Las Vegas. And that came as no surprise. It is the first cigar outfit to be launched by a formidable “syndicate” of veteran tobacco retailers.

These retailers include Abe Dababneh (Smoke Inn in Florida), Dan Jenuwine (Quality Fresh Cigars in Michigan), Gary Pesh (Old Virginia Tobacco in Virginia), Robert Roth (Nice Ash Cigars in New York and Pennsylvania), and Jeff Borysiewicz (Corona Cigar Company in Orlando). The group is headed by Jim Colucci, formerly executive vice president of sales for Altadis. So while Sindicato is new, it’s getting a great head start with a base of 45 top retailers—not to mention some of the biggest, most sought-after retailers in the industry.

Three distinct brands comprise the Sindicato lineup. Casa Bella is a “premium bundle” smoke from the Dominican Republic with prices around $2 per cigar. Affinity is an Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapped blend with a mild profile that “delivers a rich, flavorful, and complex taste.” And Hex, Dababneh’s personal favorite, will be sold as “a refined medium- to full-bodied cigar.”

Hex sports a dark Ecuadorian Habano wrapper around tobaccos from Condega, Nicaragua. It is available in five sizes, including the Perfecto (6.25 x 52) which retails for $183.75 for a box of 21. The Perfecto is a gorgeous, pigtail-capped smoke with an oily shine and negligible veins or seams. A big aroma of earth, cocoa, and red pepper is apparent off the tapered foot.

One might assume a cigar as dark and menacing as this would have a powerful, spicy intro. But that’s not the case. After setting an even light, a balanced, medium-bodied profile of black cherry, dry wood, and white pepper emerges. The smoke production is solid and the mouth-feel is velvety. Little changes from beginning to end, save for a slight increase in intensity.

The Perfecto burns nicely with a thick, black mascara that requires no torch touch-ups. The solid, gray ash hangs off the foot well, and the draw remains moderate throughout. Interestingly, resting smoke only emanates from the foot a few seconds after each puff; otherwise, when sitting un-smoked, virtually no smoke is produced.

This young cigar isn’t a nicotine ass-kicker or a spicy flavor-bomb. Rather, it dominates the palate in a different way: with an oily, palate-coating texture that, I think, begs to be paired with sipping bourbon. I wonder how it will age. Right now, I find it works best in the evening after a meal, and I’m awarding it a very solid rating of four stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

When I visited Drew Estate three months ago it was clear that the My Uzi Weighs a Ton Kentucky Fire Cured (MUWAT KFC) would be released at the (then-upcoming) 2013 IPCPR Trade Show. For the blend called Nica Rustica, the immediate future seemed far less clear.

At the time, I was given a pre-release sample which I described as “gritty, rustic, slightly vegetable, and even a bit grating.” That blend included a unique and nontraditional (for cigars) strain of tobacco that grows wild in Nicaragua. I’m told that tobacco has been eliminated from the final release.

Nica Rustica is being introduced in trunk-like boxes of 48 comprised of two 24-count bundles. Retailers, I was told at the Trade Show, could order full boxes or simply refill bundles of 24. Frankly, this strategy is pretty smart on Drew Estate’s part. Retailers essentially get to sell the cigar in bundle form (I say that in the purely packaging sense) without it actually being a bundle cigar (which, fair or not, carries certain prejudices).

The cigar comes in just one size (at least for now; Liga Privada was also first introduced in just one size): 6 inches with a 52 ring gauge with a pigtail cap  and a closed foot. The cigar’s suggested retail price is $6.95. (I smoked two for this review, both given to me at the Trade Show.)

The cigar uses Connecticut Broadleaf “mediums” for its wrapper, as compared to “No. 1 Darks” for the Liga Privada No. 9. The binder is Mexican San Andres Negro (the same type used as wrapper on the Undercrown) while the fillers are Nicaraguan, from Estelí and Jalapa.

Drew Estate says the strength is medium to full and I’m inclined to agree. It’s full of flavor with dry cocoa, wood, and black pepper, along with a hint of vegetal flavors that grates on the roof of your mouth. As you might expect from the blend, it shares many qualities with both the Liga No. 9 blend and Undercrown. But the flavor isn’t nearly as refined or dense as the Liga No. 9, nor are the flavors as  balanced or sweet as Undercrown.

Construction is absolutely impeccable, something it shares with both the other aforementioned Drew Estate cigars. The draw is flawless (something Jonathan Drew calls critical to Drew Estate’s success) and I’m always amazed at the volume of aromatic smoke Drew Estate’s cigars produce, even when just perched on the side of my ashtray between draws.

Nica Rustica is billed as “rustic, un-polished, un-refined,” and that’s pretty spot-on. It lacks balance and harmony, but attempts to make up for those deficiencies with plenty of strong, dominant flavors. Drew Estate is upfront about this trade-off. The similarity to Drew Estate’s other popular lines, combined with the price, nearly guarantees it will be a hit.

I place high value on balance and nuance, which is what amazes me about Liga Privada, which so flawlessly marries balance and complexity with intensity of flavor and strength. To that end, I’d trade some of Nica Rustica’s forcefulness for a little more balance, but I also know that, for many people, this will be right up their alley. Rustic and formidable, if lacking slightly in balance, Nica Rustica earns three and a half stogies out of five.

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

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

A comment from a reader asking what I meant about a cedar sleeve being handy for lighting gave me pause. I know many StogieGuys.com readers are highly knowledgeable about cigars. But some are newcomers. So, this is for you: a few tips I hope you’ll find useful.

1. Don’t stress out over what you should and shouldn’t do. As a beginner, I remember being so intimidated by warnings not to cut too much of the cap that I wouldn’t touch a guillotine to the head of a cigar. For the longest time I used a punch or a V-cut. I was always relieved when a cigar shop proprietor offered to clip my smoke. Mine was a classic case of overreacting. Clipping the cap doesn’t rank with splitting the atom.

2. Resist the urge to purchase more than a couple of sticks at a time, at least for several months. Not only do tastes change—and not just when you’re starting out quickly—but the style and size of cigar you enjoy can also shift dramatically. Lately, I’ve become disenchanted with huge ring gauges, even for cigars I enjoy, such as the E.P. Carrillo Inch. I nearly bought a box of them when I had smoked a couple. Now I’m glad I didn’t.

3. Don’t make your selections by using the calculation of price/tobacco. You know the concept: “This Churchill is only 50 cents more than this robusto and there’s a lot more cigar.” Quantity and quality are distinct qualities, and a fair amount of the cost involves things you can’t see, such as aging tobacco, consistency, and quality control.

4. Avoid most catalog/online store samplers. Lots of smokers will disagree vehemently with this one, but, hey, these are my tips, right? My primary reason for this suggestion is that, while a few of the house brands that are used to fill out these offerings are decent smokes, my experience tells me that most of those used to fill out samplers are pretty poor. A cheap, mediocre cigar is a bargain only if you’re considering nothing but price. I’d rather measure my enjoyment. Invest your money and your smoking time in good cigars from the beginning, and I think you’ll enjoy a far, far better payoff.

–George E

photo credit: Flickr