Essay Writing on Labour Weekend

The question is, what cigar do I smoke to console myself for not being in Wellington this weekend?

Review from Stonetown

Sept-Oct Batch

• Arturo Fuente Exquisitos Maduro: Great way to taste maduro wrapper over a coffee break
• Illusione Bombones: Try before breakfast. Call Ambulance. Or enjoy it with an islay malt. Smoke now as they are full of flavours and like many american market cigars will get boring with age. 
• Montecristo Especiales no.2: is to the Bombones what fairies are to pirates. Smoke on a clean palate after light food e.g. Joel's salad review . Mar'09 box. 
• Rafael Gonzalez Coronas Extra: another '09 box - as old as the club so a third anniversary special. Waves of ever-changing flavours, complex and reaching maturity as in this review. Mushrooms, cream, cedar etc ... more of a port cigar. 
• Ramon Allones Specially Selected: the last of our veteran Mar'08 box. Restrained complexity absent the strength of its youth. Pair with light sweet whiskies e.g. i tried mine just recently with a Glendronach (selected after tasting almost a dozen other whiskies ;-). Give it a good send-off. 

Texas Hold'Em Up

The cast

The whore

Howdy, Wild Bull Hardcock reporting back on the poker evening last friday. The entire Tamaki Makaurau chapter was present, including overseas returnees Smidgen (Andrew) and Stands-with-a-Flush (Zach), whose prognosis of an impending 30th bday required repeated and large prescriptions of liquor inhalation.

Perhaps the highlight of our cast of characters was this beautiful young lady (Gl(wh)oria aka Hadley) and her enticing assets: a bottle of 25 yr old Glenlivet and a Montecristo A. I will not dwell on the matter of prostitutes and their extremely well lubricated gran coronas, but i sampled one (orally!) a couple of times over the night and the cigar was a cracker.

The occasion certainly broke the midwinter-weather-imposed cigar drought for me, as i had a record three cigars and would have moved onto a fourth had a storm not interrupted proceedings (i suspect it was sent by the all-knowing Ministry of Health). It's amazing how whisky cleans the palate, and my careful progression from a light Nub 464, through a strengthening Vegas Robaina Clasico, to a nuclear-powered Illusione Bombone left me with no regrets... i thoroughly enjoyed the lot of'em. That nicaraguan Bomb certainly lived up to my name.

Other cigars present were a lovely cafe creme flavoured Quai d'Orsay Panatela (def. not a whisky match), more than one Bolivar Petit Corona, and Joel's consolation Bolivar Gold Medal.

Many thanks to ¡Chupapoya! (Sam) for setting up the occasion.

¡Chupapoya! y Wild Bull Hardcock

Chupapoya trades in Injun for chips

.

Dapper Dan caught in Gloria's fishnets

Stands-With-a-Flush with a Quai d'Orsay panatela

TV Cigar Hero of the Month

Mainly because he has hair all the way down the front of his deltoids/biceps and narrowly escapes death by termination. [Yeah i saw it on TV last night.]

After the cowboys, indian and Glwhoreria have gone their separate ways

Candice and I went out for some romance tonight - cigar, chilli chocolate denso and strolls down the Parnell boulevard... score















Cohiba Siglo I

JULY-August: the Deadwood Batch

Howdy partners,

A very late batch but a good'un nonetheless. Poker is the theme, poker requires heavy liquor, heavy liquor requires heavy duty cigars. So that's what you've got...

• Arturo Fuente Exquisitos x2: little brothers of the Hemingway Short Story but with a maduro wrapper. Very handy. 
• Cohiba Secretos: a repeat prescription at Sam's request, not quite a full batch but hey. The tobacco in these ones is so full-flavoured it could happily be joined with the heavy stuff.
• Illusione 68 Bombones: this little 4x44 calibre shell is a nicaraguan puro that packs a big wallop. Specifically made to embody the spirit of nicaraguan tobacco - good chocolatey sheepshit. OOMPH. You have been warned. 
• Bolivar Petit Corona: recently video reviewed  these are only a year old but well into their stride and definitely deserving of a fine scotch. Spectacular.
• Nub 464 Cameroon: 4x64 sounds big but with a cameroon wrapper these torpedos have a smooth smooth flavour that won't get in the way of your favourite tipple (reminder: take almost 2hrs to get through)
• Partagas 898: This Churchill Party ain't as strong as a Short, but it has almost Bolivaresque tinges to it that match well with light whiskies. Still young but rich flavours which are hopefully maturing nicely - been a half year since we first tried it. 

How a master blender arrives at the blend you love

This is some interesting reading on cigar blending.
http://www.tabacordillera.com/tobacco-blending.htm

In Cuba, this is how it works for a new cigar (dixit Rob at Czars):
Habanos s.a decide on a new concept for a cigar. TABACUBA (separate to Habanos s.a. and owner of the fields, processing houses and factories) is then commissioned to come up with the cigar. TABACUBA is briefed on the vitola and marque which immediately gives them the parameters for blend.

TABACUBA selects a team of approximately 40 of their most experienced people and holds a series of meetings to discuss the new cigar. The questions covered are along the lines of:

"What will be the essential characteristics of the cigar in order to remain true to the marque?"
"How will we define this cigar in terms of flavour?"
"From what districts will the tobacco for the blend be drawn?" (ie there are approximately 16 districts in the Vuelta Abajo region. Take San Luis, it has 22 sorting houses to handle the tobacco grown from that district alone).

The TABACUBA team will decide on two different blends and commissions approximately 200 cigars of each blend to be rolled by the finest rollers available. Once rolled they are tagged and bundled separately and aged for 1 month.

After the one month a tasting team is assorted of the best tasters available and a blind tasting of each cigar (each taster is given a pair of unbanded cigars) is completed to a strict tasting sheet. In the flavour profile the core flavours only are assessed such as :Salty, Sweet, Sour, Tannin, Acid. Additional comments can be made on other flavours such as coffee etc. The tasting sheets cover wrapper, combustion, aroma, body etc.

Only half the cigars are tasted at this first session. A second tasting takes place exactly one month later. Tastings take place between 9am - around 1pm. Only luke warm tea is available to cleanse the palate.

The notes are collated and assessed and if the results favourable...the blend is chosen and final cigars submitted for final approval by Habanos s.a.

The blend is only known by a select few at TABACUBA. It is written down. It is not disclosed to Habanos s.a. 

Zino Davidoff

His is the quote of the month:
'Moi quand je prend un cigare dans les mains, je le regarde, je le tate, je le touche... et il me semble qu'a un moment donne, j'en ai fait le tour, eh bien je l'allume.

Et ben vous savez, quand vous avez une femme dans les bras, et bien c'est exactement la meme chose... Si vous oubliez de l'embrasser, de la caresser, de la choyer, elle s'eteint...'

'When I take a cigar in my hands, I look at it, I feel it up, I touch it... and it seems to me that at some point, i've been around it, and then i feel ready to light it up.

When you have a woman in your arms, it's exactly the same thing... if you forget to kiss her, to caress her, to spoil her, she goes out...'  

and the documentary it came from (below). Which completely omits the fact he fell out with the cuban tobacco company in 1991 and stopped putting his brand on cubans to instead make them in the dominican republic. Having tasted a couple of these dominican Davidoffs in recent years, I can say that they are smooth, light, simple and relatively boring (he ain't around to do the blend no more). The line of 1492 cigars in the Cohiba brand - the Siglos I II III IV V VI - was started in the early 90s to replace the Davidoff brand on the cuban side of things.

Bolivar Petit Corona & Pool Games

 

Forgot how young they were (Feb'11) when i first tried one a few months ago... As Scott and myself found out, they needed those extra 6 months to come into their own, and mature into their Revolutionary Identity.  

Icing on the cake...

Intrigued but the unlit fumes of this powerful scented cigar I had a half hour spare to light up. Pulling it out of the wrapper I was kicked in the nostrils with some massive vanilla bean fists. "go on try me" it said. Quick notes as follows















Looks

• sweet

Taste

• sweet

Draw

• sweet with some sugar on the lips

Lit

• cream and sweet and kind of what I was expecting

Never went out, even burn, nothing unpleasant and nothing spectacular. Overall, the most interesting thing was the sugary tip of tongue and lips moments at the beginning. This is not a review but just a quick post to say I tried the Greg cigar.

June-July - "Matariki transits Venus" Batch

The Seven Sisters rise again from the icy horizon while the goddess of Love cuts out the lord of Light... your manhood will be in the ascendant if you use both bed covers and the body of a loved one (or seven) to shield yourself from the coming winter.

As usual i'm making up for too many cigars last time with too few this time. It's winter so I chose a lucky trio that are basically the best of the best small cigars, all from top notch boxes, and one bigger newcomer.

• Vanilla flavoured non-cuban x2: Yes there are flavoured cigars out there - these jokers in the pack provided by Greg who is exploring el cheapo small coffee cigars. (don't keep them in the same humidor as other cigars without bagging them first). 


• Cohiba Maduro5 Secretos: a new box carefully selected for thin wrappers, which in this particular cigar makes for a richer sweeter smoke (last ones were ok but a bit bitter compared to previous examples). The King of luxury small cigars, very good for morning coffee or evening dessert cigar.


• Partagas Short: the short meaning of life. savour these, maybe after a heavily red wined meal. 'nuff said.


• Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story: another luxury short cigar from the top dominican manufacturer (but with a cameroon wrapper - check comments on this post).  Has a wonderful opening sweet christmas allspice once you fire up That Nipple - i could write poems about those nipples - that lasts for half the cigar before turning to minty white pepper. It marries well with a heavily sherried whisky like the Aberlour A'bunadh ... heavenly match as Matt and myself found out a few weeks ago. (and here's a vid review of the Hemingway Short Story from years ago)


• Juan Lopez Seleccion no.1: new cigar, new brand... this low production, lesser known cigar always delivers in the cedar department, and the right box with a little bit of age, delivers a characteristic biscuity vanilla sweetness (similar to the aged Hoyo Epicure no.1 as Scott pointed out recently when smoking them side by side). This jan'10 box is smoking damn well, really rich flavour... top tobacco, yum. Details to follow in a post.

No Angie, no wifi feed, no tub... but a grande plume of smoke aura.

Rafael Gonzales a la playa roja

Footage from our Rafael Gonzales experience in Red Beach the other day. Joel shares cigar impressions and there's some footage of the backyard and a bit of Leo in there too. Enjoy.