Illusione 88 Maduro Shortly after the 2011 IPCPR, I had the opportunity to sample the Illusione cg4 Maduro. This was a maduro wrapper version of Illusione’s popular cg4 vitola. In the past year, Illusione founder Dion Giolito has expanded his core line of his popular Illusione Cigar line to include both candela and maduro wrapper […]
Cigar Review: Padron Family Reserve 85th
Padron Family Reserve 85th In 2008, Padron Cigars launched their Family Reserve line with an initial release called the Padron Family Reserve No. 44. The significance of the 44 was to represent the 44th anniversary of Padron cigars. The plan was for each year, a new blend to be released commemorating the company’s anniversary (up […]
Cigar Review: Tatuaje TAA 2011 Exclusive
Tatuaje TAA 2011 Exclusive Each year, the Tobacconist Association of America (TAA) makes selections to manufacturers blend a special cigar that is made available to retailers that are members (this is not a large volume of retailers). For 2011, one of these cigars is being produced by Tatuaje. Typically these are extremely limited in production […]
Cigar Review: Humo Jaguar by Miami Cigars
Humo Jaguar – by Miami Cigars At the 2011 IPCPR trade show, all I kept hearing about was the large amount of Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper cigars – and yes this is true. What I did not hear much about was what I consider a renaissance in Honduran tobacco. Honduras has been growing and exporting tobacco […]
Cigar Review: Rocky Patel Xen by Nish Patel
Rocky Patel Xen by Nish Patel If you have listened to any of Rocky Patel’s radio commercials (such as on Cigar Dave), you know that Rocky Patel is passionate about cigars. Quite frankly, Rocky is also a very good salesman when it comes to his brand. Thus as Rocky Patel’s Xen by Nish Patel was […]
Cigar Review: Rocky Patel Thunder by Nimish
Rocky Patel Thunder by Nimish With four new cigars that were unveiled at the 2011 IPCPR retail trade show, it was going to be a busy year for Rocky Patel Premium Cigars. Add to the fact that EO Brands has two new releases and there is a new Java cigar, it’s no surprise that Rocky […]
Cigar Review: PDR 1878 Cubano Especial Capa Natural
PDR 1878 Cubano Especial Capa Natural For the past 18 months, Abe Flores’ Pinar Del Rio Cigars has been growing. In particular Flores has put a lot of time and energy into his PDR 1878 series. During this time he has introduced four cigars that are a part of this line. Each cigar is different […]
Cigar Review: Padrón 1926 Serie Maduro
Padron 1926 Serie Maduro When I decided to form a Cigar Hall of Fame, I made a decision to select one “wildcard” cigar per year. When I started looking at candidates, I went through a lot of my favorites and essentially it came down to a battle of two Padrons: the Padron 1964 Anniversary and […]
Cigar Review: Liga Privada T52 (2009 Cigar of the Year)
Drew Estate Liga Privada T52 (My 2009 Cigar of the Year) The Liga Privada T52 is truly a special cigar that has received a lot of accolades on this web-site. In 2009, this was selected as my Cigar of the Year. This past weekend, the cigar was officially inducted into the Cigar Coop Hall of […]
Cigar Review: Monte Pascoal Minutos
Monte Pascoal Minutos Back in June, I had an opportunity to sample a cigar that isn’t your typical profile for a premium cigar. The Monte Pascoal has a distinguishing factor as being one of the few cigars that is a Brazilian puro – meaning that the wrapper, binder, and filler all come from Brazil. Brazilian […]