Over the past year, Gary Griifith’s brand of Emilio Cigars has been capturing the attention of cigar enthusiasts. Now up on the Emilio website are some details of a new line and the first blend of that line – the Draig-K. Griffith has done a masterful job at “building a mystery” in his line. With […]
#30 for 2011: E.P. Carrillo New Wave Connecticut With 2011 being as good a year for cigars as any, selecting which cigars made the Top 30 was probably as tough as any. With that said, picking #30 was probably the hardest selection I had to make. There were a lot of good cigars that did […]
Avo LE10 – 2010 Cigar of the Year It’s that time of the year. Time to countdown the Top 30 cigars for 2011. It seems like every year I say “this is the best year for cigars ever”. However, in each case it has been true – and 2011 truly takes the cake in my […]
Lou Rodriguez Habano-Rosado Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to sample and assess three blends in the Lou Rodriguez core line. When an Indie cigar company is able to place three different blends in a retailer’s humidor, it becomes what I term a “brand builder”. I’ve now had the opportunity to […]
There is another new release from Altadis hitting the retailers. This cigar is a new limited edition being branded under Atladis’ VegaFina line – this one is called the VegaFina Jose Seijas 2011. The cigar bears the name and signature of Jose Seijas. Seijas presides over the famous Tabacalera de Garcia factory in the Dominican […]
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, […]
