Montecristo Cigars

   I am a big fan of Cuban cigars and love the taste I’ve been experiencing with many of the Cuban brands available to Canadians but today I decided to light up a cigar from Rocky Patel that turned my head and made me wonder why I haven’t been smoking more of these.. This Toro comes in at a 52 ring gauge and 6.5 inches long.. The box press gives you the illusion that this is a smaller ring gauge but once this cigar is lit, you are reminded that a big big flavor has been waiting for you……The pre-light draw from this cigar with the Corojo wrapper from Honduras and filler from Nicaragua left a bit of a tingle on my lips which told me that I would be in for a bit of spice before this cigar experience came to an end but upon lighting this cigar and tasting the first few puffs I was instantly met with loads of sweet coffee and a slightly caramel flavored chocolate that was very satisfying.This was a complex cigar that kept it’s smoothness throughout but evolved into a multi faceted profile that introduced slight woods and even leathers that danced around my palate well into the second third…..Notice the whitish grey ash that held quite strongly until about 3 inches before deciding to fall into my ashtray which was hiding a perfect cone……  This cigar was rolled very well and the draw was easy and pleasant to deal with.  A great drawing cigar really lets one control the temperature of the flame so you get the smoothest flavors possible…….  It seems that Non-Cuban cigar companies have no trouble giving you a consistency that makes you wonder why it seems to be so hard for all cigar makers to achieve this featHaving at least 2 hours for this elegant toro is necessary if you want to take time to quietly contemplate all that this Olde World Reserve has to offer……  As I write this at 10:15 at night I wonder how pleasant this would be to smoke first thing in the morning with a strong coffee and a warm deck on the golf course. ……. If this is what the Old World had to offer than I’m living at the wrong time..Another good Rocky Patel cigar I recently smoked was their “Sun Grown” series with the 5 year old Ecuadorian Sun Grown Sumatra wrapper……..  A robust  spicy smoking experience that was perfect after a big meal of rich flavors.   …….The long lasting finish from the Sun Grown series was tasty and again had me wondering why I hadn’t tried these sooner..Its been a great couple of days smoking these and becoming more rounded in my search for the perfect cigar.. ….. I’m sure that this quest will not be ending soon but I feel I’ve been given a few new gems to think about when buying more stogies for my humidor.

On Canadian television we have a program called, “How it is Made”.. This is filmed by people east of us in Quebec and it really is a fascinating program that takes you into factories and shows you in great detain how products, from toothpicks to model trains to clothes pins, are all made… I’m always fascinated by the machines that man has created to do the lion’s share of the work in automated factories.. These are quite complicated devices that melt, bend, form and mold anything from plastic to the hardest of metals and before you know it the finished product is laying in some attractive packaging that is ready to load on to trains, planes and trucks to be delivered around the world…. You can send in requests to this show and ask them to get behind the scenes to film the production of almost anything but I HAVEN’t seen them spend any time on handmade cigars.. We, Canadians thankfully do NOT believe that Cuba is any kind of threat to our way of life and I can’t see any reason why the film crew for this program shouldn’t fly down to one of the cigar rolling factories in Havana and show the world how cigars are rolled…. But…. There is always Youtube… Go there and type in Havana and before long you are getting a step by step demonstration of the finest cigars in the world being made… Any cigar enthusiast has seen this and a lot of people who adore Cuban cigars have probably already witnessed a professional guest roller from Havana making beautiful cigars in their own home towns… Montecristo, for the most part, are handmade cigars and some of the most popular in the world but a few smaller sizes are machine made and actually taste just fine.. I guess its in the tobacco…. Time to stop typing and light one up!

Any attempt on my part to try to pass on any new information about this year’s Habanos Festival in Havana would be senseless.  There are many sites online that give you all of the info you need to learn about this year’s huge party and this isn’t it…. I’m always interested, though, in learning about the new cigars that will be presented to the festival goers.. Last year the Behike was the big news and it didn’t let Cohiba down in the least…. The popularity and frenzied purchasing of the 3 sizes Cohiba delivered this past year set records in how fast a cigar can be sold.. The 56 was the one that was the hardest to get, I guess people like BIG cigars but I have to agree with Cigar Aficionado’s rating of the 52 as being the one that won their first pick for last year.. That was a fine cigar and the few I have in my humidor will be sitting around and aging for a few years since I’ve really cultured a taste for aged cigars lately.. The Cohiba Behike 52 was delicious when young ( a tricky thing to accomplish ) but aged should prove to be thrilling…. This year we’ll be seeing the Montecristo Gran Reserva in only 5,000 boxes being produced .. They should be tasty, a tad expensive and probably somewhat difficult to get our hands on…. I love a challenge and can’t wait to light one up……..

Take A Montecristo Edmundo from Sept 06 and care for it, love it and keep it under optimum conditions in a humidor and you get what you se in the picture above… These three Edmundos are what’s left of the 4 I got in that incredible cigar purchase I made around Christmas..  Oh I wish I had boxes of these because of the incredible smoking experience I had with the first of these Edmundos I lit up a few days back…. For a number of years I used to hold these cigars in high regard and placed them very high in the Montecristo sizes and then I smoked a few in ’09 that left me feeling that more time should be spent with the No 2′s, A’s, No 4′s and more of the different sizes that Montecristo has to offer… So when I lit this Edmundo again I wondered if I’d feel all of the pleasant memories I’ve had with this cigar in past years… What I tasted after the cap was removed was a pre-light draw that had very little resistance and flavors of tobacco, tea and wood… I usually find that the first few puffs of any cigar can be a bit sharp and I have to remind myself that smoother roads will be travelled before the nub is set down but upon lighting this Edmundo I was met with a smooth, slightly strong but manageable taste of smoke that was full of wood and strong coffees which stayed until about a half an inch burned down ….. The dark chocolate crept in and proceeded to stick around in the profile with the coffees, cedars and I had a difficult time remembering when I had tasted an Edmundo this balanced before..  I guess the slight hint of Plume on the wrapper and the fact that these cigars have aged for a bit over 4 years should have told me that this would be a good smoke but I guess I was caught off guard… Well, Edmundo’s stock just took a bit of a jump!

I wasn’t intending to place an entry into today’s Monte blog but after lighting this Petit Edmundo, I was inspired to take this picture,write and try to describe this cigar’s great taste and let you know how I came to own this cigar…. I’ll start with how I found this cigar ( well, 6 Petit Edmundos)… I met a guy who was selling a bunch of Cuban cigars at a very very very low price…. He had a few boxes of cigars stored in a downtown cigar shop that was going to be closing it’s doors soon and so there was an issue of what he was going to do with them…. Not a real frequent smoker so he decided to get rid of all of his cigars for around $6 a stick….. I ended up with 6 Petit Edmundos, 4 Edmundos, a box of Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2′s, 3 Montecristo No 2′s, 3 Partagas Serie P No 2′s and 20 Partagas Serie D No 4′s at these prices………. Needless to say this was a bit of a saintly guy and I owe him big!!!! I’ve never seen such a great deal and my heart was pounding from the time I got wind of this deal until I finally had them in my hands….. Deals like this come by very very very rarely in life…….. Oh, did I mention that all of these cigars were from 4 to 6 years old?……. Now to the taste ! …. I was reminded again of how wonderful a Montecristo can taste when left alone for a while and this Petit Edmundo was full of cedar,  chocolate and very spicy…. The woody flavors were a tad predominate because of the time spent in their box but there was no question of any sign of imbalance….. The construction was fine with an amazing even burn and an easy draw…. In closing, I want to thank this guy once again for his kindness and I’ll be thinking of him many times this year as I’m golfing, fishing and loafing around the house with one of his cigars in my hands

     Not sure who the first film director was that gave some loud mouthed idiot a cigar in the movies but I’d love to shake his hand…We’ve all seen the guy in one form or another but there’s no escaping the fact that this guy’s image is permanently burned into our minds….Edward G. Robinson was often seen with a cigar and to a degree that made the image all the more menacing as he’d convincingly play his parts in the odd gangster movie…… Humphrey Bogart often smoked cigars in movies but I’m not convinced that I’d call him a loudmouth…. There are other examples of loud mouthed individuals in public places such as bars that use their cigars more as props than a smoke they would saver in tranquility… These tend to be a lot more annoying for some reason….

For some reason beyond my understanding, I smoked a fair number of milder cigars through Christmas which brought me joy and in a few cases a little less joy, so last night it was time to re-visit the Monte No 2 to fill my need for a cigar with a full taste…. First thing I want to mention is the perfect even burn this torpedo displayed and the slight resistance on the draw that made it a very orderly and easy cigar to smoke…. It had been a few months since I had smoked this No. 2 and I was again reminded of the wonderful flavors this cigar can produce without getting harsh in any way.  I enjoyed smoking this one down to the last half inch and was surprised at the smoothness that still appeared when I took a puff from a cool flame… I’m a big fan of smoking cigars to a very short length and although this was a fairly young cigar from the beginning of this year it often revealed some great flavors at the end.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of traveling to Cuba and spending time in Havana would probably really enjoy that Gordon Mott and David Savona have been writing this month in their “Cigar Aficionado” blogs…. I’ve been rushing home from work these days and going straight to the computer to see what they’ve been posting about their trip to Havana and all of the different activities they’ve participated in… If you have ANY kind of passion for Cuban cigars, you’ll get some good insight on recent Cuban releases and the state that Cuban cigars are in this year from 2 people who really know cigars, are superlative writers and very generous in the sharing of their knowledge … Hearing about the privately owned paladars, their locations and what they had to offer was especially helpful if you’re planning on going to Havana any time soon…. Reading their entries this last little while has made me want to go back to Havana next spring and feel, once again, what it is like to sit in a Havana hotel lobby, light up a Robusto and have NO dirty looks sent my way…. Thanks guys!

So here I am posting this picture in this blog entry and before I started to write, what I thought, would have been an interesting thought, I went over to youtube and was watching one of my favorite comedians do a few routines….. Maybe you know this guy, he’s the one with a texas ( ? ) accent and is always seen with a drink of Scotch in one hand and a smoke in the other… This time I noticed he had a cigar so I checked out a few other postings and saw that he had a few different cigars with assorted ring gauges.. In one post he stopped smoking and reached into his pocket for, what looked to be, a single jet butane lighter to do a bit of a correction on the cigar’s burn…. I saw that these cigars he had didn’t have bands on them and that got me thinking…… You thinking what I’m thinking????  Cigars from Nicaragua ?? Hmmmmmmm……….. I feel very fortunate that I live in a country that has every Cuban cigar available and I take advantage of smoking as many of them as I can.. Yeah we have a real nasty sin tax but at least they are available just down the street… George burns smoked cigars on stage, as did Alan King… Letterman still may smoke them… I’m not sure……. Here’s hoping that my favorite comedian gets all the Montes or Cohibas he wants and if he ever comes to Canada I’d love to hand over a few of my prized aged beauties….. Anyone who can make me laugh THAT much deserves at least that much!

It is getting more and more difficult to have a great Havana cigar after dinner when going out these days but there are options, rules of etiquette and common sense that can sometimes surprise you more often than you may think… Some outdoor patios allow those who wish to smoke after a meal all the freedom and comfort that we remember seeing in years gone by… Something to think about before lighting up is to ask neighboring tables if they have any problem with you lighting a cigar… I often hear people saying that the smell of a Havana reminds them of growing up in different times when relatives of theirs had cigars burning after family meals and they love the smell.. Being seated by cigarette smokers definitely gives you more of a fighting chance and the most important thing is to always wait until everyone is finished eating and well into their third or fourth bottle of wine… Yes, I do realize that we are slowly becoming the minority but a little common sense, a little leniency with restaurants and a good downwind will always help.