News and Notes
A Sad Note Rolando Reyes, Sr. passed away last week at the age of 89. Born in Cuba in 1924 he was a lifelong ‘cigar guy’ starting the ‘Los Aliados’ brand in Cuba. When the factory was nationalized he refused to work and was sent out to pick rice as manual labor. He is best known for his Puros Indios brand which is run by his grandson today. Hailed as a mentor and...
A Dark Knight Shines on Second Blush
To be honest, this is the second stick of this vitola that I smoked. Both came as a gift from General Cigar as part of their ambassador program aorund Thanksgiving. And, the first was not anything to write home about. Others who got this package also felt the smae way. But, tonight, I decided to give it another shot. And, I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps a few months in the humidor...
Estilo Cubano – A Nice Smoke
One of the nice perks of writing cigar reviews is that you never know what you are going to smoke next. Just yesterday I had a long drive in front of me and chose a rich dark cigar that I knew nothing about for the afternoon part of the journey. This stick turned out to be a nice one from Ventura Cigar Company called Estilo Cubana. Upon first inspection you notice a few nice things. The...
The Griffins – An Interesting Surprise
It’s been years since I’ve had a cigar by The Griffins. Usually, I consider them to be to mild for my taste. This particular cigar was given to me at a show, and with an early morning drive, it seemed like a good choice for a ‘breakfast’ cigar. Upon first inspection this cigar really looks nice. It has a great natural Connecticut wrapper and just looks like what a...
Casa Torano
A few weeks ago I visited Jack Torano at his warehouse in Miami. We shared stories and cigars. While he was talking about being able to smoke in the office, he mentioned that for most of the staff the Casa Torano was their preferred stick to smoke during the day. So I was not surprised to find that originally this cigar was only available at rolling events and was somewhat rare....
