Its no shock to my loyal readers, I have always been a fan of Nub Cigars, made by Oliva, a creation of Sam Leccia. When I heard Sam and Nub Cigars was coming out with a cigar that is almost all ligero (82% to be exact), I knew I had to have them. I talked to mike at LeafAndAle and ordered a couple samplers with the Habano and Maduro wrapped cigars, along with a couple of the Cain “F” uber powerful smokes included. Without further babbling, here’s my review on the Cain 6×60 habano wrapper.
I had also heard from my friend Rob, that our local BevMo! started carrying the Hangar 24 beer in 6 pack bottles. Hangar 24 is a microbrewery in the same town as my home cigar shop, and I had been waiting patiently for them to come out with the beer in 6 pack bottle form. I had gotten my hands on a lot of Hanger 24 brews, and was excited to pickup a 6er in bottle form, so I thought, why not review both at the same time?
1/3: As I lit up this cigar, I took a few puffs, then a few chugs of the Hangar 24 Orange Wheat. My first thought was, “this is going to be a nice pairing!”. The first swallow of beer was as I remember, having had my fair share of pints of this beer. It has a nice fruity flavor, with a nice amount of bitterness, and sweetness, with that hint of orange flavor that you’d expect in a beer named “Orange Wheat”.
The Cain Habano 6×60 was nicely peppery, with some straight forward tobacco flavors. I’ve had a few of these now, and while they are on the full side, for me, this cigar isn’t really a “powerhouse” that they claim it to be. The flavors are nice, and straightforward. Enjoyable enough, but not overly complex, or bursting with flavor. The burn at this point is very straight, and the ash is fairly solid. So far, its an enjoyable cigar, that I may keep in my humidor as a smoke for when I am looking for something straight forward to smoke.
2/3: The Hangar 24 Orange Wheat is still giving me nice flavors of Orange, bitterness, and sweetness. At this point, it’s just as I remember, and still one of my all time favorite beers!
As far as the cigar is concerned, the burn is starting to get a little off, and I have a wrapper split happening. I have smoked somewhere between 5-6 Cain cigars, in both maduro and habano, and EVERY one of them has split the wrapper at about the halfway point. This is very dissapointing for me. I love most of the stuff that Oliva Cigars and Nub Cigars puts out, but I haven’t had this many construction problems with this many cigars in a long time. At this point, I am a bit dissapointed in this cigar. While the flavors are decent, the construction issues that I’ve had with each one of these is enough to keep me from buying them. The ash is flakey at this point, and the burn is wavy. Not real happy with this specimen either.
3/3: As I finish up this Hangar 24 Orange Wheat beer, I realize I still have a lot of cigar left, so I go to the fridge and grab another. I really really really like this beer, and I am definetly gonna have to buy this stuff by the case, now that I know I can find it in bottle form.
As far as the cigar goes, I am starting to get irritated with the wrapper. Its cracked in about 4 different places, which is pretty indicitive of this cigar. Every cigar I’ve sampled of the Cain has cracked in at least 4 places. This is enough to keep me from buying them. The flavor is still pretty much straight forward tobacco and spice, but its not nearly as strong as people have touted. The burn is crooked, and the ask is falling all over the place.
Overall Impression: Overall, if you can’t tell, the Hangar 24 Orange Wheat is a great beer, that I recommend everyone try at least once, if you can find it. Its got a nice sweet, orange flavor to it, with nice hoppy flavor and everything one could want in a beer.
I wish I could say the same for the cigar, but after smoking 3 of the habano and 2 of the maduro, and having ALL of them split on my in numerous places, I can’t say that I will be keeping them on hand often. They taste decent, but construction issues are my biggest pet peeve.
The beer is something everyone should pickup. The cigar, I can’t recommend fully. While the flavors weren’t anything horrible, and actually fairly enjoyable, the construction issues I’ve had with every one of them has got me thinking these are not the worthy of a box purchase. It really does pain me to say that, as I love Oliva Cigars and Nub Cigars, but this cigar just didn’t do it for me.
Scott
As many of you know, I am fairly active in the Cigar Forum/Internet medium. Over the years, I have seen plenty of write-ups on how to convert a wine cooler into a humidor, but I thought I would document it for the readers of Cigar Choice.
The biggest benefit to converting a wine cooler to a humidor, besides the room, and airtight seal, is the fact that it is tempurature controlled, and at its warmest setting it keeps the cigars at around 65 degrees. For me, tempurature control was not as necessary as it is for some. I live in a mountain area, and my home rarely gets over 65-67 degrees. I did it mostly because I needed the room, and needed to condense my cigar stash. I had a 48 quart coolidor, a 400 count havana footlocker and 3 desktop humidors, and a wife that was getting tired of tripping over all my stuff!
So after a couple years of constant box tetris, and coolidor making, along with a wife that was getting sick of tripping over all my cigar paraphernalia, I got the go ahead to make a purchase of an Edgestar model TWR282S. This particular model is almost identical to the VinoTemp 28 bottle wine cooler, but costs about $150 less. Here we go, step by step instructions on converting a wine cooler into a humidor.
First things first, you need to order your wine fridge. I ordered mine from www.compactappliance.com . I was very impressed with thier service and will remember them when it comes time to order wine fridge #2, because I know that will happen! I ordered the Edgestar at about 8am on a Tuesday. I got notice that it shipped at 12:00 noon on the same day! It was scheduled to be delivered by UPS on the following Tuesday, so I was waiting patiently, checking the tracking number every hour, it seemed. I then got an email the following FRIDAY that the wine fridge was sitting on my parking deck, delivered. Talk about outstanding service! 3 days from order to delivery, and it went from Texas to California.
Here is how the Edgestar was delivered. Double boxed, padded in styrofoam. At this point, I am very impressed with the way they packaged this thing!
Here are a few pictures of the Edgestar out of the box, next to my beer fridge. Talk about a great combo, beer and cigars!
As I opened up the door, here is what I saw:
Here it is with the shelves removed:
Close up of the temprature control and light switch:
Once its all unpacked, the first thing that needs to be done, is you need to get rid of the plastic smell of the wine fridge, so it does not mess with the taste of your cigars. There are a few methods to do this. I pulled all my shelves out, and left the door open, and let it air out, while unplugged for a couple days. After a couple of days, it still had a faint plastic smell, so I decided to take the next step. I wiped the inside down with some mild palmolive soap and water.
Another method is to use water and baking soda as a method to get the smell out. I used soap, because that’s what I had handy.
Now that the plastic smell is out of the Edgestar, its time to start it seasoning. At this point, I put the wire racks back in, and took a few bowls and filled them with distilled water, plugged in the unit, and added an oust fan to the mix, to work on seasoning the inside of the fridge.
I also added a couple of empty cigar boxes to the mix, in order to help move the seasoning along. I left the bowls in the fridge for a couple of days, until it stabalized at about 72% humidity.
After a couple of days of stabalizing the fridge, I put about 1.5 lbs of beads from Heartfelt Industries in the fridge, and started to load it up with boxes of cigars. This was the hardest part, as I don’t have any drawers or singles trays, but I have a lot of singles. This made it interesting. I am working on getting some cedar shelving and at least one, maybe two singles drawers from Chasidor.com to complete my wine fridge. At this point, the wine fridge is completely full, and I need another! Gotta love this hobby. There you have it. Just like that, you can convert a wine fridge into a humidor.
Lastly, here is the fridge completly full with my entire collection. While it was a bit of work to do the conversion, and took a few days, it was worth the time and effort, to have the extra room. I hope this post helps others looking at doing the same thing. I am enjoying the wine fridge now, but as I said, I need another one already, and I just got this one!
Smoke Em If You Got Em, Buy Em If You Don’t!
Scott
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