Cigars and Wine in Grapevine

I smoked this cigar a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t written a blog post about it yet because I didn’t want to just rip it with my first instinctive response. Now that I have had time to gather my thoughts, I am gonna write it.

This cigar was awful. I know that it was made by Pepin Garcia, who is just about my favorite producer right now, but this one was horrible. The draw was tight, the smoke very, very light and the cigar didn’t stay lit. It had a very bold body to it, almost too much so, because I went to bed that night with a headache and not feeling well. There was no nausea like I have read some cigars will do to you on an empty stomach (never experienced this myself) but I didn’t feel well at all.

I am hoping this was just a bad stick. I have one more that I will try and force myself to smoke some day, but for now I don’t think I ever want to try this one again. I hope all Padillas are not this way.

I bought this one just the other day at the Grapevine Cigar shop just because I was in the area. I lit it up and smoked half of it right away. It was quite good, tasteful with a flavor that I really didn’t recognize, plenty of smoke and a good draw.

I picked up the cigar 2 days later, last night, re-lit and smoked the rest of it. The flavor was still 100% present, plenty of smoke, good draw and not dry at all.

This was a really good smoke, good quality, good wrapper and good taste. I want to get another one and see if I can distinguish a flavor this time.

Many times for Labor Day we will take a trip down to Galveston TX to spend the weekend with family.  This was the activites for this weekend, so when we got into town, I asked my wife to lookup any local cigar shops and she was able to find Hava Cigar Shop on her  Blackberry.

We stopped by here on the way out of town yesterday and I asked my normal question that I do when in a new shop, “What do you guys have that no one else does?”  The tobaconist there was most helpful and took me into the back where they stored some cigars in a humidor that wasn’t for the public.  He showed me some Camacho cigars that he said the owners of the shop picked up from traveling to the Camacho factory and these cigars were the ones that were new, non-production blends, ones that didn’t make it into standard production, but were tested for production and then later changed in some way.  I picked up 3 different vitolas and smoked the first one as soon as I got home.

The cigar started rather bitter, but I have noticed that many cigars do, especially ones that I am not famliar with, maybe it is some kind of mental thing.  I pufed through the first bit of the cigar, and the flavor developed into a smoky, peppery flavor, with a hint of cream.  The pepper as quite strong and always present, but I didn’t believe it to be over abundant.  The smoke was cool and there was plenty of it, I continued retro-hailing the smoke all the way down to the nub and it never got hot at all.  The flavor remained constant pepper throughout the entire smoke.  Pepper isn’t really one of my favorite cigar flavors, but this was a really good cigar.  I might have to call the shop and have them ship me some more, but I need to smoke the other 2 first

This one has been sitting in the humidor for a couple of months now.  I bought it because it was a Pepin Garcia cigar, and like all of his others ones, I thought it was really good.

The previous night before I smoked this black-banded classic, I smoked a Tatuaje Torpedo, probably my favorite or 2nd favorite of his cigars, so in my opinion the Cuban Classic didn’t quite measure up.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a great smoke, but I didn’t care for it as much as I liked the Tatuaje.  I will probably pickup another one of these to try again at some point, especially if I find a deal online for a 5-pack or something.  My tastes weren’t all that on-target this night, I couldn’t really taste anything specific, perhaps some nutmeg but I am not too sure.  Definately leaves room for me to smoke another one at some point.

I’ve been wanting to try these smokes for a while now, and I am glad that I finally ordered some. I got them from www.joecigar.com

The cigar started strong with a lot of smoke. It stayed strong all the way to the end, giving good tastes of wood and perhaps some nutty flavor that I couldn’t place. The draw was near perfect. The only thing that disappointed me was that it kept going out. I had to re-light it literally about 10 times during the course of the smoke. I was waiting only 1-3 minutes in between puffs, so it should have stayed lit much better, in my opinion. It could be the fact that I smoked the cigar right when I received it in the mail and if it had been kept in a very moist place, it could have been too humid. So the other 2 sticks I got, I am going to leave in the humidor for a couple of weeks before trying to smoke them again.

For vacation we traveled to Gulf Shores, AL to spend some time on the beach at Gulf Shores Plantation.  So naturally I went into the humidor, and picked out 3 great smokes.

The first one was the Padron 1964 Imperial.  This cigar started heavy and robust, with a full-bodied flavor, which was probably just a bit too strong.  However, this quickly mellowed into a nice, flavorful treat of a smoke.  I tasted hints of chocolate and nice woody flavors.  I’d definitely like to pick one of these up again for another holiday smoke, and if I can find it at the cheap price I got this one for again (at the Bedford cigar shop) I will surely do so.

That’s right, I smoked the #1 cigar of 2007 last week.  My friends in my Cigar Herf Club bought me this tasty treat for my birthday last month, so I aged it in the humidor for a couple of weeks and then brought it out to smoke it.

The cigar started and ended very smooth.  Strong tastes of cherry and cocoa began at first which tasted very nice.  About 1/3 of the way into it those tastes went away, leaving a nice earthy, woody flavor.  This last throughout the rest of the cigar, but the cocoa crept back up 2 or 3 more times during the last half of the smoke.  The ash was a nice light gray and clung to the end of the cigar very strongly.  I didn’t ever have to re-light it and I smoked it down as far as I could.  It did start to get hot at the very end, but it wasn’t too bad.

This was a fantastic smoke, but sadly I think that I still like the A. Fuente Ańejos better.  Still, I am quite glad I got to try this cigar.

I was honestly expecting more from this cigar, since I liked the previous one so much, the 1959 Exodus Silver Edition, Grand Churchill.  This Casa Torano wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t pull any unique flavors from it.  It is probably just my inexperience in tasting, to date.  I liked the smoke, it burned evenly and stayed lit for me, but I didn’t taste anything except regular, good smoke.

1) Padron Serie 1926 No. 9
2) Fuente Fuente OpusX PerfecXion No. 2
3) Montecristo No. 2
4) Oliva Serie V Torpedo
5) Ashton Virgin Sun Grown Torpedo
6) Cohiba Madura 5 Secretos
7) Illusione CG:4
8 ) Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur Maduro Epicure
9) CAO Vision Prana
10) Dunhill Signed Range Toro
11) Montecristo Petit Edmundo
12) San Cristobal Monumento
13) Camacho Select Torpedo
14) La Flor Domincana Double Ligero Chisel Maduro
15) Tatuaje Havana VI Angeles
16) Punch Double Coronoa
17) Don Pepin Garcia Cuban Classic 1979
18) Felipe Power Robusto
19) Romeo y Julieta Aniversario Corona
20) Gran Habano 3 Siglos Gran Corona
21) Sosa Wavell
22) La Gloria Cubana Selectos de Lujos
23) Padilla Signature 1932 Lancero
24) The Edge Sumatra Toro
25) Zino Platinum Grown Special Wrapper Chubby

Wow, this was a FANTASTIC smoke. I didn’t want to put it down. I lit it up, it smoked nice and smooth and the flavor was outstanding. I tasted woody flavors and some some hints of citrus (which I didn’t recognize, along with perhaps a slight nutty flavor. The ash clung to the end of the cigar and burned to a clean-looking white. It held for a long time on the cigar before I have to roll it off in the ashtray. There was plenty of smoke and the draw was near perfect.

From Carlos Torano’s website:
This cigar commemorates the exodus of expert cigar families and their impact on the cigar industry after the nationalization of all tobacco farms and factories by the Cuban government in 1959. The Toranos were one of those families. In the tradition of Cuban cigars, this blend is medium to full bodied. The beautiful Criollo wrapper blends magnificently with the combination of Honduran, Mexican and Costa Rican filler.