Havana Night Club – The Cigar
Posted By Elvis on January 21, 2008
Here I am milking every second before I have to go to bed and wake up in about 5 hours for a business trip. Now, I bet a lot of guys like business trips….you get to eat steak and drink fine wine every night, you get a bed all to yourself and if you feel inclined you can even rent an adult film on the in-room TV and expense it since hotels have done you the favor of only listing the word “movie” on your final bill. I like these trips once I’m at my destination and settled in, but I really dread packing and traveling to get there. Plus if you have a family with kids like I do, it just messes up the whole household normal life. Also, I am totally a creature of habit and I don’t like a wrench thrown into my normal routines….especially the one of smoking a cigar every night in my PJ’s before bed. So, as of tomorrow thus begins my annual or sometimes bi-annual cigar exemption. Yep…four days of no smoking. My body won’t know what hit me. Tomorrow’s agenda is Washington, DC and although I have located a couple of cigar lounges through internet research, I doubt I will have time to visit one especially since my free time begins usually after dinner and I would bet these places close down around 7 or 8pm.
So, today I went to an in-town cigar lounge to catch the Patriots beating the Chargers and advancing to the Super Bowl. I smoked a very long maduro Punch cigar…not sure what line it is, but if there’s a regular old line of Punch, this would be it. Nothing special, but it was a good cigar. Tonight, I lit up a Partagas Black Classico and loved every minute of it until it started burning my lips when it got super hot at the end.
Still having some time before bed, I opened a new cigar bundle that IronMeden purchased. Now, I know why he bought it…it has the same name as our Minnesota Cigar Club….”Havana Night” and actually has the word Club at the end. Ironic! He got them at CI as a clearance item at $1 per stick. So, I didn’t expect much. And I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to blog about them since very few of you, if any will ever have the..um..pleasure of smoking one. Lucky you. All it says at the CI site is that they are handmade Dominicans. Well, so are a number of tortillas you can buy at the store, but that doesn’t mean you would light them up would you?
Unwrapping the cellophane, I first notice the very classy band that I think is trying to show a woman at a Cuban night club dancing down with some guy. Very shiny, colorful fancy bands. If only they had spent the same number of pesos or whatever the DR uses for money on the tobacco. The cigar was put together by noted roller Reymundo de Chucky. Or maybe it’s the Bride of Reymundo as I can see the stitch marks where they ran out of one solid wrapper leaf and thought they would be economical and just tie two leaves together. Why not? As I cut into this rare find and wet down the cap, I am greeted with a mouthful of tobacco bits. Little tiny annoying bits of tobacco fill the palate and I know I will be picking them out of my teeth for the rest of the week. This is a good thing since I won’t be able to smoke this week. Now perhaps this was the intial concept behind this wondrous stick, but no….as I peer into it, I can see it’s because it is made with 100% short filler much like the storied factories of Swisher International.
Upon lighting, the cigar actually has a very nice taste that reminds me of a Cameroon wrapper. A bit of sweetness with some cedar background. But cmon…it’s $1 per stick. Well, maybe the short filler is chewed up bits of Cameroon remnants swept off the floor or taken from ashtrays around the factory that weren’t smoked all the way.
This giant 7 inch Churchill is smoked in it’s entirety in no less than 35-minutes…perfect for the man on the go. The overall flavor profile was a bit of sweetness mixed with a little lemon juice…reminds me of tropical paradise.
I would run to CI and pick up four or five bundles before they run out! It is rare one gets to experience such overwhelming crap for so little money. Enjoy!
Elvis
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The free steak is one of my downfalls and one of the reasons I need to drop a couple pounds. Your not alone not liking to travel for business. I’m gone more than I like and now that we have another little one on the way it will be even harder. By the time you have dinner and back to the room it is eight. I try to sneak in a smoke at night before bed, you see I can actually smoke inside when I’m traveling so I guess it is not all bad.
As for the cigar; the band got my attention but CI doesn’t have much to say at all about this smoke and that scared me. CI can usually make a cardboard tube even sound tempting. So this is a short filler with a finished cap that needs cut? Never seen that before, maybe the mix filler but never all short. Since I’m always looking for a cheap smoke I might give then a try.
I’m off to Philly for the week
have fun in DC.
Update on the DC cigar scene. There are several cigar bars alive and kicking….they get an exemption as long as only 10% of their revenue comes from tobacco! Wow…compare that to 90% here in MN. I visited a place called Shelley’s on F Street…1300. Check it out when in DC….they have a small, but decent selection of many hard to find classic cigars…many Davidoffs and Fuentes and Padrons. I smoked a Padron Maduro Churchilll…not impressed. And then they had a CAO Maduro Toro…much better. My colleague smoked a couple of Hemingways by Fuente and he was quite pleased. They have an amazing Scotch and whiskey selecton and the place is nice and small and quaint. Lots of suited smokers…very classic! Check it out when in DC. Open until 2am and they have food as well.