Review of the SC Sit Down no. 9, and the Weekend Review!

The SC Sit Down no. 9 is in the books! It was the usual small fall crowd but a very good bunch! We had a couple first-timers, too. There were a total of 25 people who attended. Carson Ross, the Camacho rep, attended and helped out with some cigars for everyone. Camacho had sent me a box of cigars earlier in the week, so everyone got 3 good cigars!

We decided on next spring's event date. In an attempt to avoid most other early spring activities, we decided on Saturday, April 18th, 2009. This will miss both Easter Sunday and The Master's week altogether.

Below is the top level of my traveldore as I arrived:

With the cigars that the Camacho gang had, I only smoked the Opus X Double Corona from my personal stash!

Here's pics from the day:

Matthew Elrod (l), first timer with Phyllis and John

Dale (l) with Carson Ross, Camacho rep (r)

Robert with Susan Foster, Phyllis's sister.

Susan's first event!

Overall group pic:

Now, on to the weekend reviews.

Belive it or not, I still had a cigar or two after the event. Here's the cigars I'm reviewing this weekend:

• Partagas Serie D No. 4 (Cuban)
• Trinidad Maduro Churchill
• Don Pepin Garcia Serie JJ Sublime
• Padilla Series '68 robusto
  

Saturday, October 25th, 2007 (after the Sit Down)

Partagas Serie D No. 4 (Cuban) (4.88x50) Box code Oct., '07
A beautiful cigar. I picked this up from the LCDH in Roatan, Honduras; box code Oct. '07. A very spicy cigar with citrus undertones. Light white pepper noted. The finish is fairly long. Inter-mixed in the spice are light caramel notes. A perfect burning cigar. One of my favorite Cuban cigars. Love 'em!

Score: 95



Trinidad Maduro Churchill (7x58)

A huge cigar! It's heavy; dense; very well packed. This cigar has been in my humidor for over a year and a half. It is almost jet black! Eventhough it's so thick and heavy it drew well. As soon as you light this cigar you get a blast of spice with a ton of pepper! The maduro gives it a nice sweetness, too. Long finish. Very full bodied. Powerful cigar. The last quarter got a little harsh.

Score: 89



Don Pepin Garcia Serie JJ Sublime (6x54)

Nice, dense feeling cigar. Good looking construction. A ton of spice with citrus notes and some light pepper. Not quite the power of other DPG cigars. The finish is long. Spice is the primary "thing" with this cigar. Not as much citrus flavor as a DPG Blue or a 601 Red. More of a medium bodied cigar.

Score: 89





Padilla Series '68 Robusto (5x50)

Very spicy with pepper and leather undertones. Finish is fairly long. Nice spice and pepper combination. Very enjoyable. Medium bodied. Light citrus tones. Nice cigar.

Score: 89

Weekend review; October 18th and 19th

Much cooler weather has moved in! It feels like fall! I like it. But, the yardwork will still continue well into November!

I had some good cigars this weekend. Here is my review list:

• CAO Palms Resort Super Bowl Perfecto (2/1/04)


• Griffin Maduro Robusto


• Romeo y Julieta Cazadore (Cuban)


• H. Upmann Reserve Maduro Toro

Saturday, October 18th, 2008



CAO Palms Resort Super Bowl Perfecto (6.7x54)



This cigar has been sitting for quite awhile. I'm sure they're rare since they were made for the Palms Resort exclusively. They were given out at the 2004 Super Bowl party. The blend is supposidly secret. I decided today was a good day to have it.



First of all, I think cigars with this shape are very cool. After cutting the cap, I tested the draw, which was good. The first draws were leathery and spicy. I felt pepper on the rear of my pallet and throat. The pepper is a very welcome surprise! I enjoyed that aspect of the cigar. At the midpoint the spice dropped off somewhat. it picked back up shorth thereafter. Pretty nice medium bodied cigar. I really enjoyed it!


Score: 91







Griffin Maduro Robusto (5x50)



Started off with nice spice and black pepper tones. Not a significant amount of maduro sweetness. The finish was rather short. More pepper than most maduro cigars. Very good cigar but I'd rate it higher if it had more sweetness from the maduro.


Score: 88







Romeo y Julieta Cazadore (Cuba) (6.4x44)



Known as one of the fuller bodied Cuban cigars, these are a favorite of mine. I've had several over the years but this is my first review of one. These cigars have NO band. The cigar has very good spice with pepper undertones. Not overpowering pepper, just enough to be nice. Finish is short. The spice has somewhat of a vanilla tone. The draw was very good, also. I tend to keep my Cuban cigars at 62% humidity. This helps them open up and draw well.


Score: 91







Sunday, October 19th, 2008



H. Upmann Reserve Maduro toro (6x54)



I picked up this cigar at the Tobacco Merchant recently. Nice looking cigar. Too bad the taste was not as nice! The cigar had no real flavor until 1/2 inch into it. After an inch the cigar is quite disappointing. Very little spice and hardly any maduro sweetness, but it has decent pepper. With 2" left the cigar stayed fairly consisten with a little more maduro flavor coming through. This is suppose to be one of Upmann's top cigars but I see it lacking in the maduro sweetness category! The finish is fairly short. A disappointing cigar.


Score: 85

Weekend review; October 11th and 12th

Fall is definitely here. The leaves are starting to fall, which means the yardwork will continue until they finish! Anyway, here's a list of the cigars I'm reviewing this weekend:

• Don Pepin Garcia Tobacos Baez Monarcas


• Tatuaje Black Label


• Camacho Select Super Robusto


• CAO MX2 Belicoso

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Don Pepin Garcia Tabacos Baez Monarcas (6.5x52)

This is my first try of these. They are pretty new. DPG is continuously turning out new cigars these days! It's kinda hard to keep up with him! Of course, it's triple capped:

Anyway, right off the bat this cigar had a blast of spice and pepper. It has the usual Pepin-like flavor but in a slightly different blend. A sweetness is observed. It's tangy and somewhat like a tangerine. (Now, I'm not very good at describing the different cigar flavors but that's as close as I can come with this one.) The finish is long. If you want the biggest explosion of spice, pepper, and the "tangerine" flavors, try blowing the smoke through your nose! This is a very good cigar! I'm glad I tried it!

Score: 94

Sunday, October 12th, 2008

Tatuaje Black Label (5 5/8x46)

Earthy spice with black pepper. That's the story of this cigar in short form! Suprisingly, the finish is rather short. This is the fullest bodied cigar that I've had by Pepin. The pepper really stands out! Consistent. Slow burning. Nice, but not my favorite Pepin-made cigar. It has lots of power but not that much "taste", IMHO.

Score: 89

Camacho Select Super Robusto (5.7x52)

Nice spice with a citrus overtone. Pepper noted and especially on the aftertaste. I found that interesting. The cigar was soft in the center. It was underfilled at that point. Slight hints of caramel-like undertones. Reminds me of a smoother version of the Coyolar. Stayed consistent. Nice cigar.

Score: 90

CAO MX2 Belicoso (7x56)

Very dark cigar. Decent spice initially with some maduro sweetness. Slow burning cigar. It lasted well over 2 hours. Maduro flavor seems to increase as the cigar burned past the 1/4 point. Finish is decent but a little short. Tight ash! Not a bad maduro cigar but I like mine with more sweetness.

Score: 86

Connie surprises me again, plus...weekend review for October 4th and 5th, 2008

Well, as you may remember, Connie surprised me for my 49th birthday with a very nice end table humidor. Then, she did it again at Christmas with a floor humidor. Now, she's done it again!


We had a little money left from our vacation so we divided it up. She is always wanting to do things to the house. This time she focused her efforts on the dining room where my bigger humidors are housed. I had no idea what she was up to until I came home one night and noticed several "things" on the dining room table. I took a look and it was wallpaper! But not just any wallpaper; cigar wallpaper! She said it was suppose to be a surprise but now I knew! The pattern is old cigar logos with a lot of them Cuban. She spent the day Saturday and Sunday (a week ago) doing the prep work and hanging the wallpaper. I helped with a little trimming around corners, etc., but 98% was done by her! I think it turned out very nice. Below are some pics.

I think I'll keep her another week! ; )

Now, I'm reviewing only 2 cigars this weekend although there were a lot more smoked!

First, the Vega Talanga Blanco Toro (6x52)

This cigar has a shaggy foot with a pigtail cap. Here's a close up of the foot:

Nice spice and pepper initially. Classic corojo flavor. This cigar is full of corojo. The Corojo Blanco has a beautiful, shade-grown Talanga Cubano wrappers, and with a blend of Honduran Corojo, Honduran Havana ’92, and Nicaraguan long-fillers, all bound by a thick Honduran Corojo leaf. (as described by cigarbid.com) Actually, I'm shocked this cigar is as good as it is. I practically got them for free on cigarbid. I paid $3 for the 5 pack! Just past the halfway point and the cigar still has a very nice corojo flavor and the pepper is still there too. The finish is fairly long. A shockingly good cigar.

Score: 92

.

Cohiba Esplendido - possible fake (7x47)

I had serious doubts about this cigar being legitimate from the very beginning, but since it's a cigar and it's made for smoking, I'll smoke it! If it sucks, I'll toss it! Someone gave it to Jim a long time ago and he gave me one.

I looked in very bright light for the triple cap. I came to no definite decision. It appears it may have a triple cap but it was very hard to definitely tell.

The construction was decent but the cigar band did not quite look right.

Ok, let's just smoke it and see what it tastes like. It had nice spice immediately. There were some caramel notes. The finish is long. The spice stayed consistent throughout. Not a bad cigar at all but I really doubt it was a real Cuban cigar. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

Score: 91