No (Smoking) Jacket Required: Iggy's Cigar Thread

[IggytheBorg]

Went to a family friend's home for dessert last night. One of the guys there is a cigar smoker, & I brought my travelin' himidor, so we lit out & lit up for a most pleasant hour or so. I told him all about Cigarbid.com, and soon as we went inside he created an account & bid on 2 auctions. One of them was a new Gurkha blend I hadn't heard of; he said he'd bid on 2, & we'd smoke 'em up when they came in. He texts me this morning to tell me he lost that auction. I noted last night there was another closing tomorrow night, and logged on myself just now to see about bidding on 2 myself. Lo & behold, I note his initials beside the winning bid on FOUR of them now. I logged off, chuckling to myself. I think I've created a monster. His wife's gonna kill me. . . .

[IggytheBorg]

Over my week off in Myrtle, I smoked a cigar every night but one, and all were old favorites except the CAO Osa I smoked Friday night. This is a new blend, and was quite good. It had a mainly earthy core, with almost grassy notes like you'd get from a candela (green leaf) wrapped cigar. Its wrapper was a brown habano - I believe - so I'm not sure where the grassy notes come from. But they certainly were not unpleasant. Quite the contrary. A mellow mild to medium bodied smoke, it had a very long finish w/ notes of sweet mellow spice reminiscent of a Don Diego or a Sol Cubano Connecticut, but a bit fainter. A nice close indeed to a fine smoking experience.

[IggytheBorg]

I converted a $100.00 bill mom gave me for X-mas into 10 Gurkha Titans, 10 Gurkha Blue Steels, and 5 Gurkha Widowmaker Maduros. Jesus, I'll be smoking nothin' but Gurkhas for MONTHS.

[Timothy225]

Gurkha Rules! Especially in Iggy's case!

[IggytheBorg]

[Rubs Hands in Anticipation]

[teledork]

I had a Gurkha once. It was fairly marvelous, as I recall.

[IggytheBorg]

Gurkha has more blends than you can shake a stick at, because Kaizad Hansotia (the owner) has a penchant for buying small, limited runs of tobaccos that he could never get more of, & releasing limited editions. Their high price tag ensures they stay around awhile in most cases, so if you're patient you can pick them up cheap (like I did) from CI or Cigarbid.com. Do you by any chance recall what blend it was?

[teledork]

Nope. I usually bought Ashton Maduros at the time. I think the Gurkha was a "guy at the shop recommendation" on a lazy Friday night.

It's been a while since I had a good cigar. I bought one last month to celebrate the birth of my first grandchild, but had little context with which to judge it. Nowhere within 50 miles of here handles real cigars.

[IggytheBorg]

Herein lies your solution:

http://www.cigarbid.com or http://cigarsintl.com . Armed w/ the info in this thread (& its DERP based predecessor if you care to dig), the way will present itself, Grasshopper.

[IggytheBorg]

Smoking a Gurkha Widowmaker Maduro right now. Marvelous. Medium-full in body, but a nice mellow flvor profile. Notes of mild coffee, dark chocolate, earth & sweet spice wash over your palate in waves, pretty much in that order. A very complex cigar, made all the sweeter b/c I scored 5 of these (which normally retail for $15.00 apiece, even at CI) for $39.95, & they threw in 10 Blue Steels fo' free. I think the eal got extended, and I'd urge all to take advantage.

[IggytheBorg]

Smoked a San Lotano Maduro last night. I go this as a 2011 Cigarfest freebie. Wasn't too thrilled, b/c the label looks cheesy as fuck, and I thought it was some no name bargain brand. A few months ago, I got a Cigar.com catalog that indicates these are in fact a new blend from industry wunderkind AJ Fernandez. So now I was intrigued. This turned out to be a pretty good smoke. Medium-full in strength, with strong notes of coffee & slightly fainter notes of sweetness & spice. Not a favorite by any means (the coffee notes were just a little toos trong), but well worth the time. A sister, the San Lotano "Oval" was voted one of Cigar Journal's top 25 cigars for 2011. A Habano was included in the Cigarfes freebies as well, and I'm looking forward to trying it.

[IggytheBorg]

Had to get up at 4:30 AM to do it, but secured tickets for me & Potch to go to the 2012 Cigarfest on 5/5/12. Another huge pile of freebies, hopefully a goodly amount of booze & cigar related swag awaits! Iggy's Mobile Smoking Lounge will again be in full effect! I may actually get up the ambition to make up the banner this year.

[IggytheBorg]

Smoked a Victor Sinclair Triple Corojo last night. I had been putting this off for a long time because I was afraid it'd be way too full for my taste. Make no mistake, it was very full, but also very smooth, and really, really spicy. I like spicy smokes, so this appealed to me a great deal. Another impressive, economically priced blend from Victor Sinclair. Good show.

[IggytheBorg]

Smoked a Don Rafael yesterday while typing up some dep summaries. I had been looking forward to thi for awhile, because CI talks them up something fierce in their catalog. hey've also been running a 2-fer, seling 2 bundles of 25 for the price of 1 for years. Customer comments also seemed to be favorable. But in truth, I was a little disappointed. It was a decent mild bodied smoke, & had some pleasant flavors going on, But nothing about it really intrigued me. Maybe a faint hint of sweetness, and some toasty characterisitcs. But one could do a lot beter on the mild front, w/ a Don Diego, Sol Cubano CT, or a Victor Sinclair CT. Which is ind of ironic, since Victor Sinclair makes these. And w/ CI's prices on a box of 30 of those being comparable to the Don Rafael 2 fer, you might as well go w/ those, IMO.

[IggytheBorg]

Smoked a La Reloba Sumatra last night. This was a lower priced brand from Don Pepin Garcia. Honestly, I haven't been thrilled by any of the 5 Don Pepin blends I've tried except the 5 Vegas Miami. And this one fit the general pattern. It was OK, I guess, some spice & (particularly in the opening) a faint trace of sweetness. But not really pleasant tasting at all. Bold, firecracker smokes seem to e the order of his day. I just bought a Series JJ, and I am very hopeful that it'll be worthwhile, so much did I love the 5 Vegas Miami. Hope springs eternal, I guess.