Hey everyone else has a limited edition, why can’t I, The Blog Father have one? By now many of you know Hewitt and I traveled to Nicaragua as guests of Drew Estate along with other members of the blogger community plus Thor from Cigar Press magazine (poor guy always gets lumped with us). I’m sure you have actually started reading daily recaps on other blogs. Hewitt and I will do some kind of recap ‘Herf’n Heads’ style once the two of us are caught up with work and all that other stuff that was put on hold while we were away.

During our trip to Nicaragua the group had the opportunity to blend two cigars. One with Jose Blanco at Joya de Nicaragua and another with Jonathan Drew at Drew Estate. The Blog Father Red Label Edicion Limitada is the cigar I blended at Drew Estate. The process was pretty straight forward. We were all given a Drew Estate Tobacco Menu which listed the types of tobacco available (wrapper, binder, filler) for us to choose from, their origin and a short description of each tobacco.

We each got to pick our own size and depending on the size you chose determined how many leafs you could use to make up the filler part of your blend. I think everyone in the group went under 50 for their ring gauge. I went a different route. The Sublime size of the Four Kicks has been really hitting my palate right lately so I went with the Sublime size at 6×54. With all the tobacco out in the open it was then time to start inspecting each type of tobacco by feeling it, smelling it and lighting them up to see how they burned and the aromas they gave off.

After all was said and done I leaned heavily towards flavor/aroma and pretty much bypassed any strength. I made the following choices (descriptions from the DE Tobacco Menu) for the Blog Father Red Label Edicion Limitada:

Wrapper: Capa Mata Fina Oscuro – One of the oldest native seed tobaccos. This tobacco is grown outside of Cruz de la Almas, two hours west of Salvador Bahia. This is a dark, sweet tobacco with an excellent aroma.

Binder: Capote Indonesia – This is a Busuki variety which is classified as being a sweet and aromatic leaf.

Filler: (1) Seco D.R. Piloto Cubano (Dominican) – Medium rich tobacco; regarded as the Dominican’s best black tobacco, often prized for its sweet aroma.
(1) Seco Jalapa Criollo-98 (Jalapa, Nicaragua) – The C-98 has a rich, lean, peppery flavor with a thin finish.
(1) Viso Jalapa C-98 (Jalapa, Nicaragua) – Sun grown and a step up in strength from the Seco C-98
(3) Viso Brazil Mata Fina (Brazil) – From Bahia region of Brazil, this tobacco is a dark, sweet tobacco with an excellent aroma.

So how do they smoke? I’m not sure. I haven’t smoked one. Ten were made and on the advice we got when we received our finished blends was to wait 30-60 days before smoking. It has been a week and I’m not sure if I can wait another three or seven weeks but I’m going to try.