Mike Ditka's partnership with Camacho Cigars began in 2012 with the release of cigars commemorating the legendary coach's life, and continues this year with the release of the Throwback, which recalls Ditka's time in the NFL. This rich, full bodied cigar is presented in handsome single-cigar coffins. Sometimes, famous names and fancy packaging are a sign of a cigar that...

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.