The Stogie Guys

I wanted to be one of first to review this new Honduran-rolled boutique cigar, so please bear in mind that I only smoked one Isla de Cuba Classic Belicoso for this review. Based on the experience, though, I’m looking forward to trying more.

The Isla de Cuba Group is a Tampa-based manufacturer that was launched in February to bring old Havana favorites back to the U.S. market. With Classic and Aged Maduro lines (five vitolas each), President Darryl Lieser says the “brand is based on the legendary 1956 Montecristo No. 3.” You’ll probably be able to read more about that claim once the full Isla de Cuba website is up and running.

The 6.12 inch by 52 ring gauge Classic Belicoso boasts a beautiful Connecticut Ecuadorian wrapper with a light yellow hue and few veins. The portrait-style band is nostalgic and beckoning, and the cigar is fairly firm to the touch. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but I noticed a slight trumpet-like shape (a feature that’s much more pronounced in stogies like the Puros Piramide).

To its credit, the similarities between the Classic Belicoso and the Puros Piramide end there. Toasting the foot sets the tone with an agreeable floral aroma. The first few puffs are surprisingly spicy as the Nicaraguan and Dominican binder and filler tobaccos start to work their magic. Sweet hay and jasmine move to the forefront until the halfway mark, which is milder and characterized by notes of butter and almond. The culmination of this 100-minute smoke sees a return to the initial spice.

My draw was a bit tight so, after ten minutes of smoking, I re-clipped the head further than I do most torpedo-shaped sticks. It opened right up. The burn is set-it-and-forget-it straight with a wonderful mascara sheen, and the ash holds for about an inch.

You can find these at JR for $151.95 per box of 25. I think that’s a pretty fair price for well-built mild- to medium-bodied cigar with a delicious flavor profile and an all-around quality feel. I give the Isla de Cuba Classic Belicoso four out of five stogies.

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

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Cigars are almost always marketed toward an affluent crowd, or at least with affluence in mind. The major manufacturers in the industry assume that you are both willing to pay premium prices for premium sticks, and that you can. But those of us not in the investment banking trade can hardly afford to stock up on boxes of pricey Fuentes whenever the fancy strikes us. And, given’s today’s rocky consumer market and quite probable economic recession, it’s tougher than usual to maintain our expensive cigar hobbies.

But there’s a silver lining here. I see today’s adversity as the best education a stogie enthusiast can get. Let’s face it; most of us could stand to get better at managing a cigar budget. This recession might be precisely the kick in the pants we need to start spending and collecting responsibly. In that spirit, below I present five tricks that I’ve developed to help me get the best bang for my bear-market buck:

1. Take a course in personal finance and/or financial accounting at your local college. I can’t stress enough how important it is to know the basics of personal finance. Sadly, American schools – including most of the country’s best universities – are doing a piss-poor job teaching us how to keep our books and budgets in order. The next time you’re thinking about dropping $250 on a new appliance at Best Buy, think again. That quarter-thou is much better spent on an online or night course in financial accounting. You’d be amazed how much practical, lifelong value you can get out of such an investment. And when you buy your textbooks, buy them used.

2. Get smart about CBid. CigarBid.com, affectionately known as “CBid,” is a bargain hunter’s paradise. But it can be tricky. Always, always, always know the retail price of what you’re bidding on. That box of vintage Patels might look like a steal at $75, but once you factor in shipping costs, you’re roughly at the MSRP. It helps to keep two windows open on your browser: one for CBid, and one to run spot-checks on prices via Google, Cigar.com, CigarsInternational, Tinderbox, etc. Remember: You can only beat the market price if you know the market price.

3. Reverse-engineer a yearly “luxuries” budget. Developing a budget from scratch can be a daunting and often counterproductive task. Instead, take stock of all of last year’s expenses, then work backward. How much do you really spend each year? How much do you earn? What expenses can be cut? What allowances can be made? By building a template from last year’s budget, then whittling down unnecessary expenditures, you can develop a smarter and leaner budget for the year ahead.

4. Don’t get carried away. Nabbing great deals on CBid or in B&M bargain bins can be exhilarating. But know when to quit while you’re ahead. That $20 bargain might look attractive today, but five “$20 bargains” over the course of a week will be every bit as expensive as a one-time $100 splurge.

5. Find your inexpensive, everyday cigar. Discover your favorite cheap cigar. Now stock up on a box or two. Try to make these your go-to sticks for everyday (or every other day) occasions. Oftentimes, online retailers will sell wheels of 50 $1 sticks that are comparable to much pricier premiums. There’s no shame in smoking these house blends, especially when no one’s around to impress.

–Jon N

photo credit: Flickr

We seem to be living in a new golden age of cigar craftsmanship. In magazines, at retailers, and in catalogs, we’re bombarded with tales of “master rollers” and their disciples. We’ve seen a broad resurgence in formerly rare figurado shapes, such as the once-endangered perfecto. Every brand seems to have its own barber pole offering. And, increasingly, it’s becoming very hard to find a poorly rolled stick.

Unfortunately, while the industry focuses so intently on the craft of cigar rolling, some of the art is lost. All too frequently in recent years I’ve smoked exquisitely rolled but boringly blended cigars. I’m sure you know the kind: that undeniably pretty stogie that you can’t wait to smoke, because it just looks so damned good – but whose generic flavor and bland aftertaste leave you wondering what went wrong.

My friends, it is with a heavy heart and a light wallet that I inform you about the Gurkha Special Edition Black Puro Churchill – or, as I like to think of it, the ditzy blonde of the premium cigar world. This seven and 1/2 inch by 52 ring gauge Dominican puro, with its sleek maduro wrapper and its aromatic filler of aged Cuban-seed tobaccos from the Ciboa Valley, is a looker. Quite a looker. And its pre-light nose of coffee, chocolate, and wheat recall a moist and delicate cake at a high-end bistro. With its slick, metallic, black band and its impressive size, the Black Puro seems to whisper, “I know you want me.”

And you do. Until you toast the foot, light the stick, and begin to smoke it. For the first inch or so, the Black Puro is all that it portends to be – offering rich flavors of cocoa, toast, some coffee, and cream. This delicious profile soon fades away almost entirely, leaving in its place very weak notes of chocolate, paper, and dairy. After awhile, smoking the Black Puro feels like drinking a glass of Ovaltine mixed with skim milk. Over and over again. For two hours, if not longer.

I never attribute to poor quality what I can attribute to poor storage. And ordinarily, a cigar whose flavor seems to peter out so suddenly would seem like a victim of dryness. But given the fact that I smoked six Black Puros over the course of the week, and given that each of these Black Puros came from the same shipment (and sat in the same humidor) as some wonderful smokes I’ve had this month, I believe the fault lies in the tobacco here. It is, quite simply, a boring and uninspired blend. While not completely terrible, the Black Puro – which retails for roughly $9-12 apiece – is by no means worth the price of admission.

For impressive construction, questionable blending, and prohibitive pricing, I award the Gurkha Special Edition Black Puro Churchill two and 1/2 out of five stogies.

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

–Jon N

photo credit: Stogie Guys

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief take on a single cigar.

This six inch by 44 ring gauge stick is made by Altadis, which lists the binder as Nicaraguan, the filler as Nicaraguan and Honduran, and the wrapper as Mexican morron maduro. It’s cheap; I found a box of 50 for about $65 on the web. Even so, my initial impressions were favorable. It felt fine, had a nice tobacco aroma at the foot, and began with a pleasant, fairly typical maduro taste. After an inch or so, though, it was bitter and harsh. Just past the halfway point, a rough finish kicked in as well, and I soon put it down with no thoughts of picking up any others.

Verdict = Sell.

–George E

Each Saturday and Sunday we’ll post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief take on a single cigar.

A friend gave me this Honduran puro, which is better known in Europe than in the U. S. Wrapped in a light caramel brown wrapper, the Churchill was pleasantly aromatic. The flavor was mild with honey, sweet cedar, and some underlying pepper spice. With flawless construction, it is not surprising that this is Europe’s best selling Honduran cigar.

Verdict = Buy.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys

In our ongoing effort to make StogieGuys.com as entertaining and reader-friendly as possible, each Friday we’ll post a selection of quick cigar news and stogie-related snippets. We call ‘em Friday Samplers. Enjoy.

1) A bill to give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco recently cleared its first legislative hurdle. As we wrote last August, FDA oversight would be another step toward complete tobacco prohibition and may mean substantially limited advertising of cigars in magazines (and also potentially on websites such as this one).

2) If you like to smoke and gamble, Atlantic City will soon be out but casinos in Iowa will still be in. On Tuesday, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver is expected to sign a statewide smoking ban that will go into effect on July 1 and include an exemption for casinos. Wednesday, however, Atlantic City officials voted to ban smoking on all gaming floors.

3) Inside the Industry: The Newman Cigar Company opened its second Diamond Crown Cigar Lounge in Corona Cigars in Orlando. Gene Richter, formerly of the Coors Brewing company, is joining General Cigars as vice president of sales. EO Brands, maker of the 601 line, has introduced 601Rewards, where customers can redeem 601 bands for items ranging from a 601 T-shirt to a 42 inch hi-def flat screen TV.

4) Around the Blogs: Cigar Jack checks out an El Titan de Bronze Redemption. Cigar Beat inspects a Tatuaje Havana IV. Velvet Cigar smokes a Padilla Obsidon. Stogie Review reviews the Defiance by Xikar.

5) Deal of the Week: A great way to try the new Hoyo de Monterrey La Tradición is this deal. For only $19.99 (including free shipping), you get four Tradicións and a Don Tomás sampler pack with three different blends. At less than $3 a stick it’s a real bargain. Get yours here.

–The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Flickr

When a cigar buddy gifted one of these to me a few weeks back, I didn’t know what to think. You see, I had never smoked a candela before I lit up that stick and two more Don Tomás Candela Robustos for this review.

That shouldn’t surprise most of you. As Cigar Aficionado reported in February 2003, and as Patrick S wrote in March 2007 when he reviewed a Camacho, candelas can be hard to find these days. Funny, especially since such “latter-day oddities” were once the preferred U.S. cigar – so much so, in fact, that the wrappers were dubbed American Market Selection.

Today, Don Tomás is one of the few outfits that furnishes a candela line to the U.S. market. As rare as they might be at your local B&M, you can purchase these online for next to nothing. Boxes of 25 Robustos sell in the $49 to $69 range. Still, the company employs a typical, hyped-up marketing strategy to push its product:

“Some months ago, among a supply of Cameroon wrappers, the people in the cavernous Don Tomás warehouse chanced upon a forgotten lot of three or four bales of candela wrapper. A search through the company files revealed that the bales had been literally lost for 18 years!”

Yeah, right. Not knowing what to expect, I surveyed this five and ½ inch by 50 ring gauge peculiarity to find a pale green wrapper that appears virtually flawless. Given the stogie’s Kermit-like hue, however, I’m not sure I could see any veins if they existed. Still, it seems well built and very firm to the touch.

After carefully clipping the head so as not to damage the fragile wrapper and lighting the foot, I found an extremely mild flavor with notes of grass and sweet hay. Then I was immediately struck by the sheer sensation of smoking a cigar that actually feels like rolled up plant leaves (for those who don’t know, the texture of candela wrappers are truly unique). A bit of the banana peel bitterness that’s characteristic of candelas, or so I’m told, creeps in after the first two inches, but it’s neither chemical-tasting nor obtrusive. The mild Honduran puro wraps up with some spice and olive.

I found the burn to be fairly straight, the white ash to hold firm up to a full two inches, and a moderately easy draw. It’s about an 80-minute journey from light to nub.

I get the feeling candelas are love-it-or-hate-it cigars, but I came away from this experience a bit conflicted. While I enjoyed the flavor and while the physical properties are excellent (especially for the value price), I can’t see myself seeking out another for quite some time. Nonetheless, I would encourage everyone to at least try the Don Tomás Candela Robusto, and I give it a respectable three out of five stogies.

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

–Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys