In the mid 19th Century, Jose and Eusebio, cousins and offsprings of immigrants from Canary Island owned a small cigar factory with about 12 employees on Macías Street of Santiago de Las Vegas, a province of Havana. Their cigars were made from the leaves cultivated in two small tobacco plantations of their own inherited from their parents located 25 kilometers apart from each other. One was located in the town of Santiago de Las Vegas like their factory. The other was in Tapaste, a village in San José de Las Lajas, also a province of Havana....

I'm going to digress a little in this review, but I don't want to bury the lede, so, in short, you owe it to yourself to try the Perla Del Mar even if you don't usually like mild cigars.

My first premium cigar was a Hoyo De Monterrey Exacalibur #3, purchased in a shop in a large mall just north of Chicago the summer after I graduated high school. I was going in blind, and had no idea what I was looking for, but the light wrapper (I would later learn it was called a Connecticut leaf) and name I vaguely recognized seemed inviting. Smoking that cigar was an experience entirely different than the convenience store tubos...

Created in the mid-2000s by Glenn Case, the Kristoff-brand is a rising star in the higher-end ($10-$12) cigar market.  Kristoff focuses on creating full-flavored cigars that exhibit none of the characteristic harshness of their full-bodied competitors.  To accomplish this, Kristoff cigars use Cuban-seed tobaccos that are double-fermented to produce a smoke that is uniquely smooth and complex. 

I was actually turned on to the Kristoff GC (“Glenn Case”) Signature Torpedo by a regular...

CLE cigars is on a roll with two cigars that beg to be noticed. The Asylum 13 6x80 cigar I most recently reviewed draws comments from everyone who sees it, and the new 7x70 Ogre, with its barberpole wrapper intertwining a green candela wrapper with the traditional Habano maduro wrapper is a standout as well.

Those of you who have read my other reviews (thanks for reading, by the way) know that I'm not a fan of large ring gauge cigars. I will rarely smoke even a 60 ring gauge, even though they continue to be one of the most popular sizes on the market right now. When we started seeing 70 ring gauge cigars appear a few months ago, I couldn't bring myself to even try one. But when CLE cigars released the Asylum 13 in an 80 ring gauge, it was too intriguing not to try.  

The Asylum 13 has been...

Fleur De La Reine is the creation of the United Cigar Group, makers of the Wheel Box Limited Edition and other great brands.

Given my preference for full-flavored robustos, I decided to review the smaller Quatre Maduro -- although the Fleur De La Reine line features both a 6x60 (Six) and a Churchill (Sept). 

Measuring 4 ⅞" long, with a 52 ring gauge, the Quatre features a Connecticut broadleaf maduro wrapper, with a Dominican binder and a Honduran filler.

The Quatre's wrapper is thick and veiny,... 

Rocky Patel is one of the brands we carry that really needs no introduction. Patel himself is one of the rock stars of the industry, and it seems like he's releasing a new line every other month. The prolific nature of Patel's production creates...

Toro Gordo
54 X 6.5
Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Sungrown
Binder/Filler: Nicaragua
Body/Strength: Medium full

It is time to review Cigar Aficionado's 2012 "Cigar of the year", and see what this cigar is all about! Many of our customers...

The Curivari Cafe series is another strong addition to a string of Nicaraguan releases that attempt to capture the experience of a Cuban cigar.  

As I've mentioned before, the "What do you have that's like a Cuban?" question is a common one in the shop, and it's a hard one to answer. I'm a firm believer...

Since cigar legend Christian Luis Eiroa returned to the forefront of tobacciana in 2012 from his former company Camacho (now a subsidiary of the Davidoff Group) with a cigar company under the acronym CLE much alike CAO. Christian’s tobaccos primarily hail from Honduras, with secondary front mark’s Asylum (Nicaragua), and Wynwood (Miami) the focal point of this long overdue review. CLE Cigar Company is based out of Miami (the penultimate melting pot of the industry)...