The Padron Black Label No. 89 TAA is one of the most anticipated releases in recent years for Tobacco Association of America (TAA) and was released in both natural and maduro wrappers. The Padron Black was originally released in very limited quantities for Jose Orlando Padron’s 89th birthday in 2016. They were a huge hit […]
IPCPR 2017: Complete Digest
At long last, the marathon of IPCPR 2017 coverage is complete. It took a little longer than expected to get them all posted, but then, we filmed a few more interviews than we did last year. About a dozen more, in fact. That included a big expansion of videos covering products (and topics) related to, […]
IPCPR 2017: Drew Estate – ACID & Larutan
In the opposite corner of the Drew Estate booth from Pedro we met up with Fabien Ziegler (aka Dirty Fabian) to talk about developments in the ACID department for IPCPR 2017. He revealed his devious plan to rock everyone’s world by introducing a Blue line blend with a candela wrapper leaf. Do not adjust your […]
IPCPR 2016: Drew Estate
Jonathan Drew can be a hard guy to track down at IPCPR, and a tour of the all the new products in the Drew Estate booth would be difficult to accomplish without numerous interruptions from customers and fans. Everyone’s looking for a few minutes of Jonathan’s time. So we took the pragmatic approach this year, […]
Ben’s Week In Smoke – Bayou Edition Lucky No. 13
It has been awhile since I’ve done a Week In Smoke, so I figured it was due to get one out. I traveled to Houston, TX this past weekend to visit my wife who is working there on a temporary assignment. I usually travel there to visit her with my mom and my son, but […]
Sosa Classic Wavell Maduro
The Sosa Classic has been around for quite awhile and was one time in the Top 25 Cigars of the Year from Cigar Aficionado. I have smoked several of these over the years in the natural wrapper, but rarely, if ever, smoked their maduro version. I’m very picky about maduro cigars as I only like […]
The Box-Worthies: Brian’s Top 10 Cigars of 2012
Making a top ten list is never an easy task, but I think it’s a worthwhile exercise to revisit the year, and spend some time thinking about its finer moments. I gave some thought to changing the way I do my top ten this year, like limiting it to only new releases. But then it […]