For the past two years, the emergence of the “value” premium cigar has resulted in a lot of companies jumping on the bandwagon. I define these as high quality premium sticks in the $5.00-$7.00 range. Sticks such as Gurkha, Torano, Oliveros, Perdomo, and CAO have all capitalized on this bandwagon and have had both commercial […]
La Palina Alison (Sorry for bad lighting) The race for Cigar of the Year just got that much tighter. No doubt, 2010 has been a highly competitive year for cigars. And just when I thought things were settling down, along comes La Palina to throw a monkey-wrench into things. I happened to stumble on this […]
Erik Nording is one of the legendary pipe crafters in the world today. Simply put his pipes are works of art. Therefore, when Rocky Patel decided to blend a cigar to honor Nording, it caught my attention. The result is the appropriately named – the Rocky Patel Nording. While I have great respect for the […]
During the 2010 IPCPR, it was my opinion that General Cigars had the best year in terms of new product releases. One of the most exciting things General was doing was investing in building their existing brands. One of the brands that General was clearly focused on building as La Gloria Cubana. La Gloria Cubana […]
In 2009, I did my first Cigar of the Year list. The way I worked this list is I selected 20 cigars that I felt warranted Cigar of the Year consideration. One by one, I opted to countdown the list by figuring out which cigar I would be most likely to part with. When it […]
Last year, when I rated the Top 20 Cigars for 2009, I surprised a lot of people by including the Indie Cigar, the Roxor Maduro as my number 7 Cigar of the Year. While this surprised many people that I rated this cigar ahead of the Liga Privada #9 and the Don Pepin My Father, […]
A lot of people who know me know I am a big fan of Esteban Carrera’s Cigars. I would definitely categorize Estaban Carrera’s as one of the Indie Cigar companies. Typically with an Indie Cigar, I look for something unique and special with the line. With this line of cigars, I do believe that […]
Gurkha Viper (L), Gurkha Ninja (R) Early in the history of Cigar Coop, I posted a review of the Gurkha Viper stick. This would not only mark Gurkha’s introduction into the value-priced, high-quality cigar market ($5.00 – $7.00 range), but would also mark Gurkha moving to a simpler packaging scheme. The Gurkha Viper is a […]
Who is A.J. Fernandez? He might just be the best cigar blender that nobody has ever heard of. From what I’ve heard, he has just cracked the age of 30, yet he has been making a big impact on blending for the past few years. He has been involved with blending for Diesel, Man o […]
La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Magnifico La Aroma de Cuba was introduced as Ashton Cigars’ foray into the value-priced cigar-range (Sticks I categorize in the $5 to $7 price range that I would consider high quality) Over the past year, Ashton worked with the legendary Don Pepin Garcia to re-blend the base La Aroma […]
