There are cigar events and then there are cigar events. I have been to enough of them over the years to know the difference pretty quickly. The Smoke-Onos cigar festival up in the Poconos was one I had been curious about for a while, and after finally making the trip with Eddie and Eric, I came back with a full pack of cigars, a backpack I am genuinely going to use, and a story involving Michael Herklots that I have already told twice this week.

That is what Episode 048 is about. Pull up a chair.

What Smoke-Onos Actually Is

For anyone who has never been, the Smoke-Onos Cigar Festival is held up in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. It fills a void that a lot of us felt when Cigarfest ended. I went in expecting something similar and came out realizing the format is pretty different.

There are no tickets, no coupon books, no shuffling through a booklet trying to match numbers in the wrong order. Instead, every manufacturer has a table with cigars available at 20 to 25 percent off. The whole thing runs cashless. When a vendor was ready to make a sale, they waved a small American flag and a Best Cigar Prices staff member came over with a scanner and handled it right there. The first time I saw someone wave one of those flags I thought they were just being patriotic.

The format has a tradeoff worth talking about. At Cigarfest, those tickets guaranteed you face time with every manufacturer at every booth. You were going to stand in front of that rep and get your cigar whether you were buying or not. Here, if you walk up to a booth with no intention of buying anything, you are low priority and rightfully so. I was not offended by that. But I did find myself missing that guaranteed conversation. The ticket system always felt like a hassle in the moment. Looking back, it had a real purpose.

The Swag Was Genuinely Good

I want to be clear about something because I know how festival swag usually goes. Most of it ends up on a shelf somewhere and you never look at it again.

Not this time.

The backpack alone was worth the trip. It is big, it is well made, and the second I got home I was online looking for custom Velcro patches to put our logo on it. Eric beat me to it. He had already ordered Smoke and Steel patches for all three of us by the time I went looking.

The cigar pack was the other surprise. We came home with around 35 cigars. Nothing in there was top shelf, but nothing was bottom shelf either. Every person we have shown the pictures to has said some version of the same thing: that is not the junk we thought you would get. I smoked the Dunbarton Red Meat Lovers my first night back. The one that really caught Eric off guard was the Outcast by Miami Cigar Co. It has a sugar cap, which is not usually his thing, and it has Cavendish pipe tobacco blended in. He did not know any of that when he lit it. He just grabbed it off the pack and went for it. It was fantastic. Walked that line between sweet and too sweet perfectly. Would he buy a box? No. Would he pick up a few to have around? Without question.

The Content Was a Different Story

I have to be honest about this part. From a content standpoint, the trip was a big fat fail.

Eric did his selfie video right under the arch at the entrance. Everyone around us was staring. We thought that was going to kick off a full day of filming. It was the only video we shot all day. The moment just took over and we stopped thinking about cameras.

That said, the manufacturers we did connect with made it worth every second.

Michael Herklots and the Best Moment of the Festival

We had been walking the grounds for a while. I had just pitched my cigar in the ash can maybe twenty yards back when I spotted Michael Herklots standing by himself. The crowd had thinned out a little, people had gone to get food, and there he was. I walked up and the first thing out of his mouth was that I was at a cigar festival and I was not smoking a cigar and we needed to fix that immediately.

He cut a Timeless Supreme and lit it for me right there. He did the same for Eric. The whole interaction was just easy and generous. Michael is someone I have crossed paths with a number of times going back to his days at Davidoff, and he has always been a gentleman. He was not performing, he was just being himself.

Eddie ended up with a Ferio Tego Suma out of the exchange. He was not complaining.

I also got to spend some time with Abe Flores from PDR. Abe grabbed my phone and put his number directly into my contacts. That is the kind of connection you hope to walk away from these things with.

The Woods

I would be leaving something out if I did not mention the shortcut.

We could not get on the shuttle back to the parking lot because none of us were willing to put our cigars out. Eddie spotted a sign pointing through the woods that said shortcut to the parking lot. We followed it. It was not a short shortcut. We went through the woods, around a field, and back down again before we hit the parking lot. The whole time we were joking about ticks and wondering who was going to find us. By the time we came out, the guy who had been standing at the shuttle stop when we left was getting off the return trip. He told us it looked like we took about the same amount of time. He was right. We had cigars though, so it was worth it.

What We Were Smoking

The Kelner 80th Anniversary was getting real attention in the garage this episode. It came in the collective pack and the verdict was that it is a great cigar. Great burn, great flavor from start to finish. Eddie was wishing he had coffee to go with it about halfway through.

The Plasencia Alma Fuerte Colorado Claro made an appearance courtesy of Bruce and the early reaction was positive. Retro hale on that one is something I keep coming back to.

We spent some time on cigars that do not always get talked about. Curivari came up and I will echo what was said in the garage: that is a cigar that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.

Joya de Nicaragua came up in a similar conversation. They parted ways with Drew Estate for distribution a few months back and are doing their own thing now. Their cigars have been around a long time and they deserve more attention than they get. The Classico and the Dark Corojo are the ones we tend to keep reaching for.

The Thunderkiss from Crowned Heads came up again. The first batch was exceptional. The second batch came in and the initial reaction from the crew was that it was not the same cigar. The good news is they are coming around with some time in the humidor. The general feeling is that demand got ahead of the aging on that second run. At seven dollars a stick, even the second batch is worth your time.

The Box Pass Is Done

Eric ran our first community box pass and closed it out this episode with some numbers that honestly surprised me.

83 cigars passed through that box. 17 stops. 11 states. The box traveled 12,143 miles total. Eric did the math and said that is roughly driving coast to coast 4.3 times. Nothing was stolen, nothing arrived damaged, and the people involved were generous beyond what any of us expected. Sean added vacuum-sealed humidification packs throughout so nobody ever had to worry about the condition of what they were passing along.

We voted and the box pass is going to run twice a year going forward. One warm weather, one cold weather. The consensus was that keeping it running constantly takes the fun out of it. The winter one is coming. If you want in, keep an eye on the Discord.

A Few Other Things Worth Mentioning

Mark smoked his first Padre Eligido and liked it. We also got into a long conversation about Connecticut wrappers and how much they have changed. They are not the ultra-mild, inoffensive cigars they used to be. The flavor profiles have developed and the better ones in that category are genuinely interesting to smoke. Johnny Tobacconaut, Oliva Connecticut Reserve, Nub Connecticut, and the EPC New Wave Connecticut all came up as morning smokes worth keeping around.

Eddie went on a quick trip to Reno and stopped into Fumare while he was out there. He picked up a One Off Black and Tan and some Joya de Nicaragua Classicos from a bin for six dollars apiece, cello so clouded you could barely see through it. Those are the kinds of finds that make traveling worthwhile.

Epps Beverage in Limerick got a shoutout again this episode. If you are in the area and you have not been in, go. The selection is not what you would find in a dedicated cigar shop, but the deals are real. Several boxes of the Plasencia Alma Del Cielo on the floor at $170 a box. That is below MSRP by a stretch. Karina, who handles the cigar buying there, has been great to deal with and has expressed real interest in working with us. More on that as it develops.

We also talked about Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia. They moved into a converted bank building and the setup is impressive. The air filtration system is better than the old location, which was already good. They have since expanded to Malvern as well, and by all accounts the Malvern location is even better. If you can sit in a full lounge and walk out without smelling like smoke, they are doing something right.

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Stay in the Conversation

If you want to keep up with everything we talk about in the garage, subscribe to the Stogie Review YouTube channel where Smoke and Steel lives every week. And if you want to get into the box pass, talk cigars between episodes, or see pictures from Smoke-Onos, come find us on the Stogie Review Discord. That is where the real conversation happens.