It seems like a year ago since I met up with Barry Stein at the Chattanooga Tweetup. Had with him samples of a robust new cigar called KILO he blended with the help of his employer, Miami Cigars. At the time, the fate of the cigar was a bit of an unknown. Barry was passing […]
La Palina Goldie Laguito No. 5
This year, La Palina released the next edition to the Goldie line, named after Bill Paley’s grandmother, with the La Palina Goldie Laguito No. 5. Replicating the Laguito No. 5 from Cuba, the cigar has a fantail cap and coming in at 5 5/8 x 54, close to the original which is 5 3/4 x […]
Brian’s The Week In Smoke, Issue 27
It’s once time again for another issue of Brian’s The Week In Smoke. In case this is your first Week in Smoke, be advised that it covers many (though not necessarily all) of the cigars I’ve smoked in the past week (or the past month, or however long it has been since the last issue), […]
God of Fire Don Carlos 2008 (first impressions)
Sadly, smoking a cigar has become a relatively rare event for me lately, as everything at home and work has been so busy. Having finally found an opportunity to enjoy a nice, long, relaxing smoke, I sifted through my coolidor looking for something truly top-shelf. A while back, our friend Keith Park of Prometheus sent […]
Herfin’ Heads: H. Upmann Legacy Toro
Welcome to a brand new, and long overdue edition of Herfin’ Heads. And this isn’t just any installment of Herfin’ Heads, this is a southern-fried cigar review. That’s right, Brian from Atlanta teams up with Ben from Mississippi to get to the bottom of the new H. Upmann Legacy Toro. Grab a cigar and your […]
Nat Sherman Townhouse Tour
Nat Sherman is one of those stops a cigar smoker just has to make when they visit New York City. If you’ve been in Manhattan, the chances are good that you’ve paid 42nd Street Nat Sherman Townhouse a visit. But if you’ve never been, the name is probably still familiar, conjuring up vague sepia-toned images […]
La Aurora Corojo
Years ago, when I first began visiting local cigar shops, I developed a bad habit of avoiding anything from La Aurora with the old-school-looking lion band. No matter what size or shape I tried, I just couldn’t enjoy it, no matter how hard I tried. That early distaste for the cigar still causes a bit […]
Davidoff Millennium Blend Lancero
This morning I woke up to a variety of alerts on my phone. The first one I read was in reference to a review of a Swisher Electronic Cigar on Stogie Review. While I’m a firm believer in a united cigar smoking community, I struggled with the concept of such a product being reviewed here. […]
Key West “Al Capone” by Rafael Fuente (first impressions)
Several weeks ago, I received a little sampler pack of cigars from Island Cigar Factory, a chain of three cigar shops down in Key West, Florida. They carry a line of their own cigars made at their own factory in the Dominican Republic. The most visually-stunning cigar among the samples they sent me was this […]
El Primer Mundo Announces Costa Fuerte
A little over a week ago I was surprised to see Sean Williams, owner of El Primer Mundo kicking back at my local shop. (But only a little, he is based in Atlanta, after all.) He was there with a friend smoking lanceros bearing the plain paper band you often see on pre-release cigars. When […]