CigarChoice.net- Cigar Reviews and News

I first read about this cigar on Twitter, thanks to Jerry Cruz of Stogie Review.  He raved about it being oh so great, and a wonderful cigar, and I know that Jerry and I have the same general taste in cigars, so it made me anxious to try it.  One day I was out visiting a local shop, and I happened to notice that they carried Camacho Connecticuts.  At that moment, I looked at the price and was shocked.  I found the pricepoint to be very good on this cigar, especially in Calfornia, the land of high taxes.  I think I paid $5.90/stick plus tax.  I know this cigar has been reviewed a few times on some much more popular blogs, but its my turn now, Damnit!

pre-light:  As I pulled this cigar out of the cellophane, I noticed, as I do with most Camacho cigars, that this cigar had a nice sheen to it, but not overpowering.  It also was constructed very well, with no real noticeable veins in it.  As I ran it across my nose, I got the typical buttery sweetness smell, with a touch of pepper, which is an interesting combination in a Connecticut wrapped cigar.  I clipped it with my ever trusty Palio and lit it up with my trusty Ronson Jetlite.

1/3:  As I started on this cigar, I got hit with the typical Camacho spice, but it was backed up by this nice, buttery, creamy taste, with lots of billowing smoke, and a nice ash.  It was a little nutty, but very creamy, with hints of peppery spice that Camacho cigars are known for.  I am enjoying the fact that I can get so many different tastes out of one cigar, and so far, Jerry over at Stogie Review is spot on about this cigar!

2/3:  As I ventured to the 2nd third of this cigar, the burn wavered a little bit on me, but not enough to deter the flavors any.  As I got to this part of the cigar, the spice picked up a bit, especially on retrohale, but the buttery sweetness, with a little creaminess was still there on the pallette when smoked.  The burn started to correct itself at this point, and the ash flaked off.  So far, the smoke is billowing nicely, and I am really enjoying this cigar!

3/3:  As I finished up this cigar, the spice kicked itself to the back of the pack, and the buttery and creamy finish became more apparent.  The cigar is still burning well, with minimal touchups, and the draw and smoke are great!  I am very impressed with this cigar up to this point, and its not your typical connecticut wrapped cigar!

Overall Impression:  Overall, this cigar for me, is box worthy, and probably worthy of MULTIPLE boxes.  This is a great anytime smoke, with lots of complex flavors, and incredible construction with a great draw and nice wrapper.  I am looking into getting a few boxes of these as soon as I can!  I recommend anyone who loves complex, great tasting cigars, try these out.  They are wonderful smokes, for not a lot of money!

Smoke Em if You Got Em, Buy Em if You Don’t!

Scott

CIGAR RIGHTS OF AMERICA

10533 Main Street, Fairfax, Virginia  22030, U.S.A.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: August 24, 2009

Contact: Brian Berman

Phone: (818) 541-1535

Email: brian.berman@cigarrights.org

CRA Offers 2 FREE Exclusive Premium Cigars – FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!

Fairfax, VA – Cigar Rights of America (CRA) has announced an exciting new bonus offer exclusively for members that will serve as a unique member benefit, while advancing the cause of protecting cigar enthusiasts from intrusive taxation and regulation.

An initial coalition with approximately twenty of the world’s top cigar makers have joined forces to create an exclusive one-of-a-kind collection of cigars specially blended or sized for CRA members only!  These cigars are not available anywhere else and you must be a CRA member to get them.

THE BONUS OFFER: Starting today, anyone who joins CRA or renews their existing CRA membership, will receive 2 FREE exclusive premium cigars.*

The cigars will be randomly paired and packaged from the following brands:

For more information, or to join/renew, please visit www.cigarrights.org

About Cigar Rights of America

Cigar Rights of America (CRA) was founded on the principle of fighting for the freedom to enjoy premium cigars. A consumer-based, non-profit public advocacy organization that works with local, state and federal governments to protect the freedoms of cigar enthusiasts, CRA works with its constituency of members including manufacturers, retailers and cigar enthusiasts to focus on opposing restrictive smoking bans and increased taxation of cigars.

* While Supplies Last. Member must pay $5 for shipping/handling. Cigars are Toro size.

I know, you guys are thinking this is crazy.. 2 cigar reviews that AREN’T a month apart?  Wow, huh?  I got a nice bomb from a friend on Stogiechat, that included an elusive Tatuaje T-110.  I don’t like doing reviews based on one cigar, but I’m gonna do it this time, only because I don’t know when I will get my hands on another one.

Pre- Light:  First thing I noticed with this cigar is that it is one oily SOB!  Its a shorty, so I figured on it lasting about 35-40 minutes.  Its a 52 ring gauge with about 4.5″ in length.  It smelled very nice, with some typical Tatuaje spice, with some nice raw tobacco flavors.  I clipped this cigar with my trusty Palio and lit it up with my Ronson Jetlite.

• Country: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Wrapper: Nicaragua
• Size: 4.5 Inches- or so…
• Ring Gauge: 52

1/3:  Upon lighting this thing up, I was BLASTED in the face with a shot of black pepper, and raw tobacco.  The pepper was almost overpowering, but I got through it.  I did make the mistake of retrohaling on this cigar, and it had me almost crying!  My eyes were watering, and I coughed a few times.  This cigar has by far the most pepper I’ve ever experienced.  Once I realized that retrohaling was not a good idea with this cigar, as I continued to smoke this cigar, it was tasting nice, and burning decent.

2/3:  As I continued on this cigar, I was still getting a lot of pepper with some raw tobacco flavors.  At this point, its not overly complex, but the flavors are nice.  The smoke is billowing nicely, but to me, the draw is a bit loose, and its starting to burn crooked.  I am still enjoying it though, so at this point, I won’t let the burn bother me, and I will just touch it up.

3/3:  As I finished up this cigar, I was still getting a lot of raw tobacco flavors and lots and lots of pepper.  The smoke was billowing nicely still, and after the last touchup with the Ronson, its burning ok.  The ash is fairly solid, but not the most solid I’ve seen.

Overall Impression:  Overall, this was a very strong cigar, with ALOT of pepper.  It wasn’t overly complex.  It tasted really nice, but I was not comfortable with the retrohale.  It was a bit spicy for me on retrohale.  My overall impression is that this is a decent cigar, but I won’t search out a box, but if I can get a 5 pack somewhere, I may buy them to keep them in the humidor.

*Disclaimer: The pictures are taken with this cigar, while I sit in my beater toyota pickup, hence the toyota emblem on the steering wheel, and the speedometer in the background.

Smoke Em If You Got Em, Buy Em If You Don’t!
Scott

Its been a while since I’ve done a good old fashioned review, so I thought it was about time. I also did some revamping to the site, and those of you who pay attention, I’ve also stopped the re-direction of the site. It used to re-direct to http://cigarchoice.wordpress.com. I decided I didn’t like that, so here we are. I also changed up the colors a bit, and I am not sure how much I like them, but we’ll see how long they stay. Anyway, on to the review..

Today’s review is of the Oliva Connecticut Reserve Lonsdale. I had heard about this cigar on Twitter for the first time. I know they have been out for a while, but I’d been having a hard time finding a place here in So Cal that stocked them. I managed to find a place that had them, so I picked up 3 lonsdales to review!

Pre-Light: Upon pre-light, the first thing I noticed was how well wrapped this cigar was. As is typical with Oliva’s construction of cigars, this one was impeccable. As I ran it across my nose I didn’t get a whole lot of smells off of it. I got a little bit of a buttery smell out of it, with a decent amount of raw tobacco smell. I am really looking forward to lighting this bad boy up! I clipped the cigar with my trusty Palio, and toasted and lit it up with my Ronson Jetlite.

1/3: Upon lighting this cigar up, the first few puffs were very solid tobacco flavors, but very smooth, almost buttery in smoke texture. The smoke was plentiful, and the draw was just about perfect. As I retrohaled this cigar, I got a little bit of spice, with some sweetness, and that nice buttery flavor that connecticut wrapped cigars are known for. As with most connecticut wrapped cigars, this one is on the mild side, but very tasty. So far, I am really enjoying this cigar, and the hype behind it on Twitter is not undeserved.

2/3: As I kept puffing away on this cigar, I was getting a lot of nice different subtleties with this cigar. I got a nice sweetness, with a bit of spice, along with the buttery flavors that I am really enjoying. The smoke is still billowing nicely, and its smelling great. Its still in the mild ballpark, but I am still very impressed with this cigar, and at this point, I can see a box purchase in the near future.

3/3: As I got toward the end of this cigar, It stayed fairly consistent, but as the end was near, I noticed that it was starting to get hot. It might have been because I was enjoying the cigar a lot, so I was probably puffing on it a bit too hard. I have a few more of these, and I will make sure that I slow down a bit to see if the heat comes out on each of them, towards the end.

Overall Impression: Overall, this cigar is VERY box-worthy. If you like smooth cigars, with not too much strength, this is one you should try. It is very smooth, and flavorful, and the pricepoint is pretty easy to deal with as well. I plan on getting a box or two of these to put in the cooler, as they are VERY tasty!

Smoke Em If You Got Em, Buy Em If You Don’t!
Scott

Thats right guys!  I’ve run one other contest on this site, and was approached by Brian at www.buylighters.com/www.cheaphumidors.com to do another one, with his help.  There are going to be two parts to this contest.  The first thing you need to do in order to be entered into this contest, is to subscribe to the E-Newsletter of www.buylighters.com/www.cheaphumidors.com.  They won’t send you any spam, just great deals on good lighters humidors, and lots of info about what’s going on in the world of cigars.  Once you enter to recieve their newsletter, you will be taken to a page where you can sign up for a free “e-book” that is a beginners guide to cigars.  I have read through this personally, and I have found some very useful info, even though I have been smoking for quite a few years now.  I encourage everyone to sign up for the free “e-book” as well as their newsletter.  You can enter the contest by simply emailing Brian@cheaphumidors.com with the subject line “Cigar Choice Contest”, then put your name and email in the body of the message, and you will be entered! Once again, the email address is:

Brian@cheaphumidors.com

The next item you’ll need to do to enter the contest is subscribe to my RSS feed, which will keep you abreast of all the information that I put up on this site.  You can subscribe to my rss feed by clicking the logo below:

Once both of these things are done, and here is how the prizes break down:

•     If there are 1-99 participants, one $15 gift certificate will be (randomly) given

•     If there are 100-199 participants, three $15 gift certificates will be given

•     If there are 200-299 participants, six $15 gift certificates will be given

•     If there are 300-399 participants, ten $15 gift certificates will be given

•     If there are 400+ participants, fifteen $15 gift certificates will be given

Gift certificates are for cheaphumidors.com.  On top of this, I will throw in a 5er of some of my favorite cigars to the winner as well, just because I feel like it.  The contest will run from now until 8/24/2009 at midnight, PST.

*Disclaimer* To make it fair, one entry per email address.  Please do not create 100 fake email addresses in order further your chances of winning.

Good luck, and look for this on Facebook and on Twitter!  You can follow me on twitter here: www.twitter.com/cigarchoice and you can follow buylighters.com here: www.twitter.com/buylighters

Good luck to everyone who enters the contest!

As many of my readers know, I am an AVID cigar guy.  What many of you may NOT know, is I am such an AVID cigar lover, that I have made time to become an ambassador for Cigar Rights Of America. The way I see things, there are two types of people in this world, people who smoke cigars, and people who don’t.  As it stands now, the people that don’t smoke are using their power in numbers to try and outlaw or ban smoking of any kind.  They are slowly working their way toward convincing the government that we, as smokers are evil, and we need to be extremely over taxed because we enjoy cigars. Cigar Rights of America is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting for the rights of cigar smokers to do what we enjoy,  SMOKE CIGARS!

I plead with each and every fellow cigar smoker to support Cigar Rights of America.  Any donation will help, but becoming a member is a GREAT way to further the fight for our right to smoke cigars.  I will even make it easy for you, and give you a link to click on in order to sign up…  Just click the picture below!

If you could do me a favor, and put in my member ID number when you sign up, I would greatly appreciate it, as it allows CRA to track how we are doing as ambassadors.  My member ID is : 177812

Thanks for checking it out guys, and please help me and others out there fight for our right to smoke cigars!

Smoke Em If You Got Em, Buy Em If You Don’t!

Scott

I got my first ever Benchmade by Don Pepin and Ashton from one of my best friends,  Rob, who frequents the same shop as I do.  I smoked the one he gave me, and I really enjoyed it, so I thought I ought to smoke a couple more to review for my loyal readers.  Its been ALMOST a month since I have done a review, as time is getting away from me, so I felt like it was time.

pre- light:  This cigar is made by Don Pepin for Ashton, and you can tell its made by Pepin from the start.  Great construction for a short filler cigar, with a little pigtail on the cap. As I clipped this cigar and took a pre-light draw I got the signature Pepin spice, with some earthy and leather flavors on the tongue.

1/3:  As I lit into this cigar, the first thing I noticed was the burn.  It was burning great, perfectly straight.  The flavors were typical Pepin, with nice peppery spice, and lots of nice cedar and earthy flavors.  So far I am really enjoying this smoke.  The ash is holding pretty solid, but I expect it to drop from the cigar shortly, since it is a short filler smoke.  At the end of the first portion, this cigar is very Pepin like, and very enjoyable.

2/3:  As I continued on this cigar, I got a lot of the same flavors I got in the first 3rd.  The cedar flavors presented themselves a bit more in this section of the cigar, but the signature Pepin spice was still very obvious.  I was still getting nice billowing smoke, and the ash was pretty solid for a mixed filler cigar.  So far, this cigar is worth every penny paid for it, and then some!

3/3:  As I finished this cigar, the spice came back full force, and the leather/cedar flavors muted themselves a bit.  The smoke is stil billowing, and the ash is fairly strong, but falls off in chunks at about every 1/2″ or so. I am still enjoying the flavors I am getting from this cigar.  I smoked this thing down to the nub, and wished I had another one to smoke.

Overall Impression:  At just over $3 per stick at one of my local California shops, this is a screamin deal!  While it isn’t exactly an incredibly complex stick, its enjoyable, nonetheless.  It has a typical Pepin spice.  It also billows a ton of smoke.  These are some great smokes for the price, and I plan on picking up at least a box or two for my enjoyament!

Smoke em if you got em, buy em if you don’t!

Scott