As always, when I smoke a pre-release cigar, I feel it is premature to give it a firm assessment rating – therefore, I do a pre-review to provide some initial feedback. With some follow-on smokes completed, it’s time to assess some more cigars. With this installment of “Assessment Updates”, I look at Joya de Nicaragua’s […]
Photo via AltadisUSA.com On November 30th at Cigar Aficionado’s Big Smoke, Altadis plans to launch a cigar specific to the New York market – the Montecristo New York Connoisseur Edition. Last year, three companies launched cigars specific to the New York market. First came Alec Bradley’s New York. This was followed up by La Aurora’s Broadway […]
Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial Limited Edition 2011 Connecticut Shade Earlier this year, I reviewed the Jaime Garcia Reserva Especial Limited Edition 2011. This Nicaraguan Broadleaf Maduro cigar was one of the best maduros to be released in 2011. These cigars are sold in boxes of sixteen. Each box is individually numbered. 15 of those […]
Viaje White Label Project Stuffed Turkey So I am doing a little bit of a flip-flop with this assessment. A couple of days ago, I assessed the Viaje C-4. One thing I had mentioned what I did was that I sat on my Viaje C-4 for about four months. Overall, that aging process did the […]
Photo from La Flor Dominicana via Facebook Fans of La Flor Dominicana have always looked forward to the Factory Press limited series. La Flor Dominicana is now getting ready to ship its fourth installment of this series – the La Flor Dominican Factory Press IV. For this series, the cigar gets a new wrapper and […]
Viaje C-4 When it comes to Viaje Cigars, I think there are two fair complaints: 1) Some blends are often shipped to the retailer “green” and not aged enough; 2) Some blends emphasize strength over body. With the cigars being “green”, I have usually applied an eight to ten week rule of aging Viajes in […]
Viaje WLP Stuffed Turkey Viaje has begun shipping their November releases to their authorized retailers. This release cycle by Viaje is highlighted by a new entry into the White Label Project family – the Viaje White Label Project Stuffed Turkey. As par for the course with Viaje, there is always some mystery surrounding the blend, […]
Lou Rodriguez Edicion Reserva Maduro In the past two years at the IPCPR trade show, there has been one booth by an Indie cigar company to get a great deal of buzz by the retailers. In 2010, it was Kurt Kendall and his 7-20-4 cigar. In 2011, it was Elogio Cigars. If I had a […]
Elogio Serie LSV – New Ecuadorian-grown wrapper version On 11/18/11, Nabil Sabbah, head of Elogio Cigars paid a visit to Outland Cigars in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a part of his visit, Sabbah brought a modified version of his popular Elogio Serie LSV. I can honestly say, those who sampled it were all blown away. […]
Wicked Indie by East India Trading Company The Wicked Indie is a new cigar that has been released by Beach Cigar Group. Beach Cigar Group is actually the parent company for Gurkha Cigars. The difference is that the Wicked Indie is not being released as a Gurkha cigar, but under a new line called the […]
Rocky Patel Fifty 2011 has been a very busy year for Rocky Patel Premium Cigars with four new releases. These new releases were unveiled at the 2011 IPCPR and were slowly rolled out following the trade show. So far, I’ve had a chance to assess three of the four releases – the Rocky Patel Vintage […]
A couple of weeks ago, Cigar Brief reported that Rocky Patel Premium Cigars was bringing back the Rocky Patel Winter Collection in a new blend. This included information of the blend and vitolas. Since then, I’ve talked with a representative from Rocky Patel and have now seen the cigar listed (not yet for sale) […]
