Bolivar Inmensa (A Supplementary Review)

Manufactured: Totalamente a Mano (Made totally by hand; a description found on cigar boxes. Much better than Hecho a Mano [made by hand, which can sometimes mean it is filled with machine-bunched filler], or Envuelto a Mano [packed by hand].)
Length: 6 3/4"in. (170mm)
Diameter: 17.07 mm
Ring: 43
Format: Dalia (Dalia was the name of the galera, "factory", in which the cigars were produced. Its popular name 8-9-8 is derived from the original box in which they were packed forming 3 rows of 8, 9 and 8.)
Weight: 11.86 gr.
Tobacco Country: Cuba
Tobacco Procedence: Vuelta Abajo (a district in the Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. It lies in the west of the island, in the southern part of the Órganos Mountains. A great deal of tobacco is grown in the district, and "Vuelta Abajo" can also refer to the high-quality type of cigar tobacco from Pinar del Rio in general. The tobacco industry in this district dates from around 1830. The district itself is 90 miles long and 10 miles wide.)
Factory: Partagas
Presentation: 2 Layers in a Box of 25

Preface: I have kind of designed this review to be supplementary to the great video review I posted by "The Kids" earlier in the week. I really suggest you check that out before coming to this review. I will give you my opinion on this stick, because I have also indulged in one this week. The idea of this review, though, is to give you some of the technical specs, and information that wasn't provided in the Kids broadcast, so you can have the whole picture (see all the info provided above). I plan this to augment their review, as opposed to eclipsing it.

Appearance: This cigar, while rather rustic looking in initial appearance (which seems to be a common trait amongst cigars from this region, and does not seem to affect the cigar in any way), was graced with a lovely cassia hued wrapper. This cigar was evenly filled and only gave just a little bit to a light squeeze. The wrapped had one minor vein, but otherwise looked beautiful.

Pre-Light: The clip was easy and the pre light draw was exactly how it should be, providing just a little bit of resistance. The pre light notes were distinctly Habano, with that horse barn earthiness we all love along with a light cedar note.


Burn/Draw: While not absolutely perfect, the burn on this cigar is above average, and not really much of an issue. When the burn line wandered it generally corrected it self, I think I only touched up once. The draw was a dream, providing just the slightest bit of resistance. The burn was nice and cool and slow, producing cool round, medium full bodies white smoke by the billows. This cigar burned forever, I got about two hours out of this smoke. The ash on this cigar was dark and mottled and held on as well as could be expected.

Flavors: I have to say, Sergio & Jeebus have this cigar pretty much pegged right on! This is a pretty straightforward, and tasty Cuban smoke. It starts with a nice little burst of black pepper and then soon afterward it settles in to a nice, rich, earthiness that lasts throughout the length of the cigar. Over the final third of the cigar, in a rather unusual move, the cigar mellows a bit and a woody cedar note creeps in, just to liven things up a bit. This is a pretty consistent cigar, which I don't mind at all. Not every cigar has to be a constantly developing masterpiece. Some cigars can just start off well and stay that way. This is one of those cigars. Recommended.

TomC

"The Doc's" 100th Stogie Fresh 5 Podcast!

I just want to take this moment to congratulate my buddy the DOC on his 100th podcast, which will be released this Sunday. Along with StogieChat.com, the Doc is one of my most important influences when it comes to experimenting cigars, and especially when it comes to keeping up with the blogging about them. His podcast inspired me in part to start this BLOG and hes had been more than helpful, any time I have questions or need suggestions.

So check out his site, http://www.stogiefresh.com/ , and his podcasts, because not only are they informative, but they are a lot of fun to listen to!

Here's to HUNDREDS MORE, Doc!

TomC

The Kids Take On A Bolivar Inmensa!

It's another fabulous installment from my good friends Sergio & Jeebus!!











ENJOY!

TomC

Own Goal Nets Bhoys Three Points. . .

Scottish Premier League
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Celtic Park, Glasgow


CELTIC… 1
(Corrigan o.g. 64)

KILMARNOCK… 0

CELTIC (4-4-2) Boruc; Hinkel (Killen 16), Caldwell, McManus, Naylor; Nakamura (Sno 89), Brown, Donati, Hartley; Vennegoor of Hesselink (Riordan 16), McDonald.
Subs: M Brown, O'Dea, Zurawski, Conroy.

KILMARNOCK (4-5-1) Combe; Corrigan, Ford, Wright, Hay; Hamill, Bryson (Gibson 80), Fowler, Di Giacomo, Harpur; Invincible (Fernandez 87).
Subs: Harpur, Johnston, Morgan, O’Leary, Clancy.

Celtic returned to league action with a 1-0 victory over Kilmarnock, although the one-goal margin fails to tell the true story of the match.

This was a game that the defending SPL champions completely dominated and during the course of the 90 minutes, Artur Boruc did not have a single save to make while his opposite number Alan Combe was the busiest man on the park.

As it transpired, Celtic faced more than their fair share of trials and tribulations in this opening half and by the 16th minute Gordon Strachan had been forced to make two changes, with Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Andreas Hinkel both picking up injuries.

The Dutchman’s certainly looked the nastiest, with the Celtic No.10 leaving the field covered in blood after a clash of heads with Simon Ford. However, such setbacks did little to break the stride of a team who played with some style in this half and completely dominated their opponents.

(Article)

Three points today is a good result (even though they couldnt capitilize on their many chances), but at what cost??

Hail! Hail!

TomC

Tatuaje "Retro Cuban" RC184

Country: USA
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Corojo
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 7.25″x57

Presentation: These guys are presented as though they are something quite special. Dressed in a manner reminiscent of the Cuban Bolivar Gold Medal, with a foil wrapper covering half the vitola, and the band in the middle securing it, at least aesthetically, this cigar looks like it should be something special.

Appearance: The cigar itself was something to look at itself. The wrapper, cinnamon hued and glistening, without a vein or noticeable flaw to be seen, was begging to be sparked up. Overall initial impressions was that this cigar looked to be a great example of a well rolled figurado, firm and evenly filled with no noticeable soft spots.

Pre-Light: The clip was nice and easy and the pre-light draw seemed just right, offering the tiniest bit of resistance needed to be a good smoke. The pre light draw consisted of light earthy and woody notes.


Burn/Draw: The draw on this cigar was just right, the burn was cool and this cigar produced plenty of cool, flavorful smoke. Now the burn, on the other hand, was another thing entirely. Specifically, it was a disaster! It started burning lopsided and never really recovered. It got really bad at time but with some judicious touching up I kept it from being completely unsmokeable. Overall I found this to be tremendously annoying and detrimental to the overall experience, but bad burns bother the heck out of me. The ash was rather dark and mottled and firm, and this was a bit of a plus because the longer I left the ash on the more it helped the horrible burn.

Flavor: This cigar, from the flavor aspect, was something special. The two halves were like completely different cigars! The first half was mild/medium in nature and very very refined. Notes of wood, sweet tobacco and almond. The smoke was rich and round and flavorful despite the mellow nature.

During the second half of the smoke, this cigar decides to remind you that it is a Tatuaje! The power level kicks up like three notches and the flavors get big and bold. At the halfway point the spice and earthy notes ramp up decidedly, followed by the cigar increasing in complexity. Pepper and sage burst to the forefront, followed by sweet tanginess and leathery notes. Over the last third of the cigar, a charred oak woodiness comes to the forefront which hits the magic four notes my friend MikeD and I determined you find in almost every Tatuaje cigar in some amounts (Tanginess/Pepper/Wood/Leather). This is in no way a bad thing, this is one delicious cigar.

As a final summation, I found the wonderful flavor experience of this cigar tempered by the dreadful burn. I hope this was just anomaly was just specific to my cigar, but I can't answer that question for sure. If you don't have a problem with a funky burn I say go for it, this cigar tastes great. Me, as much as I enjoyed the flavor, at the asking price, I kind of expect a better burn and might be hesitant to invest in the cigar again. My verdict is, the Jury is still out.

TomC

Grow My Own. . .

As anybody who has read my post on the Tobacco Plants I ran across in KY knows, I am interested in the agricultural aspects of tobacco production as well as the cigar smoking aspect. Well thanks to a generous fellow Buckeye, I will be able to experiment with plant growth myself. This post is just the beginning, I hope of several during the course of the warmer months, chronicling the growth of my own plants. I dont necessarily intend to do anything with the plants grown, other than gain some appreciation of the process involved in making the cigars we all know and love. The one thing one can glean from this early post is, isn't it amazing how small the seeds are??

TomC

CAO Maduro Robusto

5" X 50, Maduro

Appearance: This was a rather pretty looking cigar. Wrapped in a very dark, almost dark, glistening wrapper, this cigar was a thing of beauty. The one thing of concern was, upon initial perusal, I noticed that this cigar was very firm, almost hard. Hopefully it would not affect the draw.

Pre-Light: The clip was easy as pie with the Palio pictured above. The pre light draw was a little tight but not horrible, and there were notes of sweet chocolate and rich coffee. The flavors before light had this cigar shaping up to be something pretty darn good.


Burn/Draw: The burn on this cigar was perfect, razor straight and with no need of correction. The ash on this cigar was bright white, and firm, and provided me with a great visual contrast while examining this stick. The problem is, that is where the good aspects of that cigar ends. The draw, unfortunately, was tight to the detriment of the cigar. It was hard to draw a decent amount of smoke from this stick, and I believe that caused the cigar to burn a bit hot. Very disappointing.

Flavors: I know a few people who really like this cigar, and because their opinions are quite reliable, i will try this stogie again before passing final judgment. That said, this cigar was not very good at all.after a nice burst of mocha at the very beginning, the draw became an issue early on. I always felt I was fighting the cigar, no matter what I tried to loosen it up. This cigar in return hot and produced very unpleasant flavors. Strangely I got both a burned charcoal note and a soggy vegetable note at the same time. Not pleasant. I gave up about halfway through, life is too short for crap cigars. I will give this stick another chance in the future but my initial impressions are just not good.

TomC

Summer Glau

Summer Glau (born July 24, 1981 in San Antonio, Texas) is an American dancer and actress, best known for her role as River Tam in the short-lived science fiction series Firefly and follow-up movie Serenity.

Glau was classically trained as a ballerina and also studied tango and flamenco. A professional dancer since age 12, Glau relocated to Los Angeles in 2002. She appeared in a few television commercials, but Glau's first television credit was a guest role as a ballerina on the 2002 episode "Waiting in the Wings" of the television series Angel. There she caught the eye of producer Joss Whedon, who later cast her in Firefly as River Tam.

Glau appears on the episode "Love Conquers Al" of the TV series Cold Case. She has a small role in the film Sleepover, in which she plays a high school senior named Shelly. Summer appeared in the CSI episode "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom?", and the second season of The Unit; portraying Crystal Burns, the girlfriend of Jeremy Erhart (Daniel Wisler).

Glau plays Tess Doerner, a paranoid schizophrenic returnee in the second season premiere of The 4400 (episode "Wake-Up Call"), and the season three episodes "The Ballad of Kevin and Tess", "Terrible Swift Sword" and "Fifty-Fifty". Her character has the power to compel people to do whatever she wants.

Glau stars in the science fiction film, Mammoth, which was filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S., and Bucharest, Romania.

Glau was voted Best Actress of 2005 by readers of SFX magazine for her portrayal of River Tam in Serenity. Glau also won a 2006 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in Serenity and was runner up for Best Actress/Movie in the SyFy Genre Awards for 2006.

Glau was cast in a TV movie on ABC Family called The Initiation of Sarah.

In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a series that debuted January 13, 2008, Glau plays the role of Cameron Phillips, a Terminator infiltration unit sent back to protect John Connor and Sarah Connor from Skynet.



TomC

The Kids Take On The San Cristóbal Classico!

"The Kids" return, with their take on a fine addition to the Ashton Cigars Line:











Hope you enjoy their take, I know I do!

TomC

Scottish Cup/Fourth Round

Scottish Cup – Fourth Round
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Celtic Park, Glasgow

CELTIC…3
(Vennegoor of Hesselink 37, McDonald 70, Nakamura 75)

STIRLING …0

CELTIC (4-4-2) Boruc; Hinkel, Caldwell, McManus, Naylor; Nakamura (Hartley 76), Brown (O’Brien 76), Donati, McGeady; McDonald (Killen 82), Vennegoor of Hesselink
Subs not used: M.Brown, O’Dea

STIRLING ALBION (4-5-1) Christie; Nugent, Ellis, Graham, Devine; Harris (Walker 71), Hay, Aitken, McBride (Lilley 79), Forsyth; McKenna (Rodriguez 65)
Subs not used: Hogarth, Taggart

ANDREAS HINKEL made his Celtic debut and Shunsuke Nakamura returned to action with a bang as the Hoops began their defence of the Scottish Cup with a routine 3-0 win over Stirling Albion.

The German produced an excellent display at right-back and linked up well with Nakamura, who provided the goal of the game with a trademark left-foot effort. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Scott McDonald were also on target.

On a freezing day in Glasgow, Celtic fans turned up for the club’s first game of 2008 perhaps expecting a glut of goals. That never materialised, but most importantly the Hoops progressed into the next round, where they will meet either Airdrie United or Kilmarnock.

Manager Gordon Strachan gave Stirling huge respect by naming a strong starting XI for the match. The First Division outfit fielded a young side but did have an ex-Celt in their starting line-up in midfielder John Paul McBride, who was with the club as a youngster during the 1990s.

Article

Got a positive look at the bhoys new signing and Naka seems healthy, a success all around in this cup match!!


HAIL!HAIL!

TomC

JRCigars.com Calls This "Plume"

JRCigars.com Tried to tell my girlfriend that the pictures above were cigar plume and that an experienced cigar smoker would enjoy the chance to smoke them (and tried to bully her out of return and replace). You wanna smoke em??



TomC

The Feast of The Epiphany Of The Lord

Epiphany, meaning 'appearance' or 'revelation', is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the "shining forth" or revelation of God in human form, to the Gentiles, in the person of Jesus. Some Christians commemorate the visitation of the Magi to the child Jesus on this day, while others use the day to commemorate the baptism of Jesus as an adult. It is also called Theophany, especially by those commemorating Christ's baptism.

The observance had its origins in the Eastern Christian Churches, and was originally a general celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and included the commemoration of: his birth; the visit of the Magi, or "Wise Men", who arrived in Bethlehem; all of Jesus' childhood events, up to and including his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist; and even the miracle at the Wedding of Cana in Galilee. However, it seems fairly clear that the Baptism was the event predominantly commemorated.

The date of the feast was very early fixed on January 6. Ancient Liturgies speak of Illuminatio, Manifestatio, Declaratio (Lighting, Manifestation, Declaration); cf. Matthew 3:13–17; Luke 3:22; and John 2:1–11; where the Baptism and the Marriage at Cana are dwelt upon. Christian Churches have traditionally emphasized the "Revelation to the Gentiles" mentioned in Luke, where the term Gentile means all non-Jewish peoples. The Biblical Magi, who represent the non-Jewish peoples of the world, paid homage to the infant Jesus in stark contrast to Herod the Great (King of Judea) who sought to kill him. Saint John Chrysostom identified the significance of the meeting between the Magi and Herod's court: "The star had been hidden from them so that, on finding themselves without their guide, they would have no alternative but to consult the Jews. In this way the birth of Jesus would be made known to all."


Pretty much the end of the Christmas Season today, hope yours was well!

TomC