The Stogie Guys

The Alonso Menendez is not your average cigar. It is a Brazilian puro made from the highly aromatic Mata Fina tobacco (unlike the Honduran-made CAO Brazilia, which employs a Brazilian wrapper around Nicaraguan binder and filler).

While Stogie Guys readers may be familiar with Alonso Menendez, it is unlikely many American cigar smokers have heard of the cigar, which is from a lesser-known line by the Menendez Amerino Company that also makes the still relatively unknown Dona Flor line. The cigars are top sellers in Brazil, but are only now making their way into the American market.

This thick robusto (five inches by 52 ring gauge) has a dark brown wrapper that is considerably looser than most premium cigars. But the attention to detail in the construction – such as the Cuban-style triple cap – suggests this characteristic is not a oversight, but a conscious choice.

Pre-light this cigar gives off a rich aroma with sweet chocolate notes. It lights easily and the smooth, easy draw becomes immediately apparent. The smoke is not at all hot or harsh despite the quick burn. Coffee and milk chocolate notes abound, but as the cigar progresses a slight peppery spice develops. Hints of clove were noticed when smoked through the nose.

The stogie is very balanced on the palate and falls somewhere between a medium and full bodied cigar. It has a sturdy white ash, although the burn was bit uneven – a problem that developed in multiple cigars. Thankfully, this flaw was never a problem that interfered with the cigar’s complex, rich flavors.

Overall, this robusto had a strong showing. It won’t be everyone’s favorite, but it is well worth trying to see if a Brazilian puro is just what you’ve been looking for…That is, if you can find it! (You may have to ask your local store to help you locate the cigar.)

Rich balanced tastes and a unique flavor profile earn the Alonso Menendez Robusto an impressive four out of five stogies.

Note: The cigar pictured has a classic white band. We like the look, but we’ve been told that it will be changing. You may find this cigar as “Alonso Menendez by Dona Flor” with a gold Dona Flor band. Fortunately, the cigar itself will remain the same.

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

–Patrick S

[Editor’s note: We’re excited to announce that George Edmonson, winner of our Cigar Artisans 2006 reader contest, has permanently joined the StogieGuys.com team as our Tampa Bureau Chief.]

While traveling recently, I visited Churchill Cigars, a warm, friendly neighborhood shop in Virginia Beach. Lucky for me, there was a Punch event underway. In addition to the fine Punch Double Maduro I was given, I received a package of three little cigars and notes put together by General Cigar to help smokers enhance their palates and tobacco knowledge.

Each little “fuma” was made entirely from one of three grades of long filler tobacco: ligero, seco, or volado. I wanted to be able to pay attention while I smoked these little sticks, so I waited a while before smoking them. Here’s what I found:

Volado
The Punch rep said I should smoke this one first. The notes describe it as having excellent burning qualities and being lighter in texture, color, and strength than the others. I found it initially to have a light, toasty tobacco taste with almost no finish or aroma. After a few puffs it developed what I think of as the metallic taste I often find in lower end cigars.

Seco
This tobacco was described as medium in strength and, like ligero, aged at least three years. It had a nice aroma and a longer finish than the volado. The taste was somewhat earthy and it burned very slowly.

Ligero
The notes said ligero is always rolled in the middle of the cigar because it burns slowly. My stick barely burned at all. But when it was lit, it produced by far the most smoke of the three. The taste was thick and heavy, with the longest finish of the trio.

After puffing on all three, I couldn’t help but marvel at how incredibly difficult it must be to successfully blend tobaccos – and to do it consistently with thousands, even millions, of cigars. The top blenders and rollers truly are artisans.

I highly recommend you stop by when one of the Punch Ambassadors visits a shop in your area. And let me know what you think about the three little sticks.

–George E

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

1) Three weeks ago we reported that a “public safety committee” in Houston was pushing to expand the city’s smoking ban to stand-alone bars. Well, on Wednesday the Space City fascists got their way. According to the Houston Chronicle this morning, the law does include an array of exemptions for places such as tobacco shops, cigar bars, and hotel rooms – exemptions SmokeFree Educational Services, the zealous do-gooders who pushed for the ban, would like to clear up with, you guessed it, more government regulation.

2) Altadis introduced the world’s most expensive cigar yesterday in Spain. The “Behike” – a limited edition of the Cuban Cohiba – will retail for $420 each in commemoration of the brand’s 40th anniversary. Fun fact of the day: Behike means sorcerer or doctor to the pre-Columbian Tiano tribe (but you knew that already). Only 4,000 were made, each at the hands of veteran Norma Fernandez at the famed El Laguito factory in Havana. So how do they taste? Nobody outside of Cohiba’s pre-launch tasting panel has had the balls to light one up yet. Contact us if you want to do a guest review. Of course, you’ll have to buy the stick yourself.

3) There’s a couple of special deals over at Thompson Cigar that I’d like to call your attention to. In one (which is absolutely free), you can register to win a dinner at the restaurant of your choice (value of $2,500) and a cigar and humidor package that retails for $2,500. If I win, I’m going to get a six-month supply of Sliders at White Castle. Thompson also has a pretty sweet High Roller sampler (featuring, among others, Macanudo and Cohiba) and a 125-cout humidor with 100 cigars for only $125. You can find all of these deals under “Popular Items” on Thompson’s homepage.

–The Stogie Guys

While the Internet certainly helps disseminate tips, reviews, and news about stogies to interested parties – and there are a number of great websites (including this one) that do so – cigars are still a convoluted topic for your average Joe. This is unacceptable.

I say this because I know (and I’m guessing you do too) many people who enjoy cigars but have very little knowledge about their makeup, construction, and qualities. They prefer certain brands or types or sizes to others, but can’t put into words why.

In a lot of ways, this naiveté is OK. Smoking is about personal enjoyment and, as long as you’re enjoying yourself, more power to you. But I have a feeling more people would take pleasure in cigars more often if they had the capacity to appreciate them better.

I believe cigar manufacturers and enthusiasts both have a vested interest in an educated stogie populace. On the supply side, the more people know about cigars, the more they are likely to appreciate and purchase them – generating bigger revenue for cigar companies and more jobs in the Third World countries that produce cigars.

For consumers, while this increased demand does result in higher prices, it also breeds better quality, as manufacturers seek to satisfy the public’s thirst for better tobacco, and more choice, as manufacturers implement creative product and marketing strategies to increase their share of the market.

True, the cigar boom of the 1990s resulted in higher prices and decreased quality (because new manufacturers were rushing bad products to market to meet high demand), but almost all of those operations were short-lived. As my colleague mentioned in last Wednesday’s post:

It doesn’t take an economist to figure out that consumers are going to be turned off by a combination of declining product quality coupled with increased prices. So by 1999, cigar consumption dropped almost by half. Thankfully, this meant that many of the fly-by-night operations responsible for the worst cigars of the cigar boom closed their doors.

Most importantly, increased knowledge of cigars allows individuals to find the best cigar for them at the best price. In fact, that’s the main reason we started StogieGuys.com in the first place.

So, since you’re into cigars (if you’ve read this far you pretty much have to be), get your hands on the best information available and absorb as much as possible. And encourage your friends to do the same. We’ll all be better off.

–Patrick A

I’ll be honest: I love Punch. While I certainly try to maintain an impartial perspective on all cigar reviews, journalistic integrity requires me to mention that Punch is one of my favorite brands. And loyal readers will recall they’ve tested quite well here at StogieGuys.com. So with high (yet unbiased) expectations and a Cuba Libre in toe, I set out to try a Punch Grand Cru Robusto, the first I’ve smoked in the line.

This five and ¼ inches by 50 ring gauge cigar had a very smooth, almost veinless Connecticut Shade wrapper. An attractive red, gold, and black band adorned the expertly-rolled stick.

With care, I used my fingernails to pierce the cap and expose the filler, a mixture of Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan tobaccos. Pre-light, the cigar had a sweet caramel aroma, fitting for its appearance. The first puffs produced a toasted graham and spice flavor that reminded me of pumpkin pie – very interesting and enjoyable.

Like most smokes, this one got spicier and spicier with each puff, but it was not obtrusive because the flavor was more acidic than salty, more sweet than bitter – just how I like it.

Unfortunately, the burn required a bit of work in order to maintain evenness, but – despite a few periods of inactivity – the stogie never went out. No complaints on the draw.

Some Punch fanatics who’ve grown to love the brand’s powerful smokes may be disappointed by the Grand Cru line’s subtlety and smoothness, but this enthusiast relished every puff. Moreover, the cigar passed the ultimate test: I smoked until I burnt my fingers.

At only $5.50 apiece, it’s hard to find better bang for the buck. For unique, complex flavors and great value, I give the Punch Grand Cru Robusto four and ½ out of five stogies.

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

–Patrick A

Back in May, we reported that Florida-based Altadis U.S.A. – the country’s largest manufacturer of cigars – declared war on the counterfeit stogie trade and how a subsequent crackdown of law enforcement officials in Miami seized over $20 million in fake cigars, wrappers, and packaging. What we didn’t tell you (because we didn’t know) is that Altadis funded, at least in part, the investigation that led to the seizure.

The Miami Herald recently reported that Altadis “paid tens of thousands of dollars to fund part of an undercover Miami-Dade Police probe of five suspects charged with trafficking in counterfeit cigars.” According to court records, the company – which manufactures, among others, the Romeo y Julieta, Montecristo, and H. Upmann brands – footed a $17,750 bill for undercover “buys,” hired an informant, and also paid for hauling and storage costs leading up to trial.

Because police departments traditionally fund their own investigations, this revelation calls into question the legitimacy of Altadis’ allegations against the alleged fake counterfeiters. But, given the nature of the case, it also challenges the legitimacy of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

In court papers, Altadis claims it holds the exclusive license for the U.S. trademarks for the famous Cuban cigar brands Montecristo, H. Upmann, Por Larranaga, Romeo y Julieta, Saint Luis Rey, and Trinidad. Altadis holds those rights because its parent company, based in Spain, bought them from Cuba’s exiled cigar-baron families decades after Castro’s revolution in 1959.

StogieGuys.com will be watching this case closely, and we’ll keep you updated on all major developments and their implications for the cigar world. Until then, it wouldn’t hurt to revisit our post on spotting a fake.

–Patrick A

I have a friend who often goes to bars and orders their “most economical single-malt scotch.” For some reason that keeps coming to mind as I review the Curly Head Deluxe Maduro – perhaps because I envisioned asking a friendly cigar shop employee for their “most economical Fuente.”

In the budget spirit, I paired this cigar with a Chilean Merlot I purchased from Trader Joes for an affordable $5.99. [Impromptu Stogie Tip: Trader Joes is a great place for decent, reasonably-priced wine.] This particular wine was not as dry as many Merlots and featured strong black currant flavors.

Combined with the $1.85 I paid for the cigar, this is certainly an economical wine and cigar pairing. And with the Fuente name that we’ve rated so highly in the past, I had high hopes for the cigar. Unfortunately, sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

This was not an attractive cigar. The Maduro wrapper was dry and veiny. It featured the largest vein I’ve ever seen in a cigar wrapper that ran two thirds of the way down from the head of this 6 and 1/2 inches by 44 ring gauge stick. The vein caused the head to be quite asymmetrical and a bit awkward in the mouth. Also, rather than have a clean cut foot, the wrapper extended beyond the filler tobacco and was bent inward so it covered much of the foot – sort of like a poor man’s perfecto.

Pre-light this cigar gave off licorice flavors. Lighting it with a single wooden match was easy, facilitated by the unfinished foot. Once lit the burn was mostly even as long as I kept the slow burning edge facing down. Because this cigar uses medium filler – as opposed to long filler which runs the length of a cigar – I had the unfortunate experience of finding bits of the tobacco in my mouth after each draw.

At first this cigar had black pepper notes and overwhelming “dirt” flavors. Near the middle of the cigar, the pepper faded out and the earthy dirt weakened, leaving bitter notes. Additionally, the draw became tight and difficult. Had I not been reviewing this cigar, I would have put it down, as the experience was not at all enjoyable. (The things we do for our readers!)

Finally, near the end the cigar began to improve a little, as the bitterness dulled allowing some licorice to come through the strong earthy flavors. Also, the draw improved near the end. Throughout the smoke, the cigar produced cracked gray and black ash.

Overall, this was a disappointing cigar. Visual imperfections are to be expected from a budget cigar – even one with a Fuente band – but coupled with a taste that was harsh and unpleasant at worst and barely tolerable at best, this cigar proved unsmokable.

Maybe in a few years I’ll bravely pick up another Curley Head Deluxe, but until then stick with Fuente’s mid and premium smokes that offer the quality we’ve come to expect from Fuente stogies. The Arturo Fuente Curley Head Deluxe Maduro receives a poor rating of one and ½ out of five stogies.

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

–Patrick S