Arandoza’s Battle of the Bands – White
Arandoza’s Battle of the Bands – White Arandoza Cigars is a family owned and operated company that apparently started early in 2011 with the stated intention of combining their knowledge of tobacco, passions for cigars and hard work to develop and market a unique line of cigars. A large part of the uniqueness comes from Arndoza’s approach to the blending of tobaccos. All of...
New Life for Juan Lopez
Altadis USA is breathing new life into the Juan Lopez brand name. They are offering an all Nicaraguan cigar – a “Nicaraguan Treasure” as per their marketing materials – in 3 sizes (selection no. 1 is 5 X 54, selection no.2 is 6 X 54 and selection no. 3 is 6 X 60) packed 16 to a box. Altadis made an effort to blend the tobacco from all three growing regions in Nicaragua to create a...
CLE Corojo – Another Great Corojo from Christian Eiroa
Christian Eiroa is a man with big ideas. He was the driving force that made Comacho what it is today and having left that behind he has moved on to other things. Bigger and better. With an idea to entrepreneurship and giving small cigar makers a chance, Eiroa opened a cigar making consortium in Miami. He has partnered with some people who wanted to make cigars by creating a factory. He...
Oliveros Sun Grown Gem
Oliveros is a cigar company that is working hard to accomplish its goals. They want to provide the market with both a traditional cigar as well as doing some more edgy things. Rafael Nodal, who runs the company, has managed that quite nicely. He segregates his more traditional offerings into the Oliveros brand and uses his Boutique Blends with the SWAG and Aging Room front marks for his...
Erez Maduro Strikes a Chord
What do you do when you retire at age 34? Yaniv Erez smoked cigars. He didn’t always smoke but a five year stint in the Navy left him with a taste for both good cigars and the camaraderie that accompanies them. But, retirement was boring so rather than just smoke cigars, Erez decided to get into the business. He found that many times guys would sit down to smoke and finish at...
Why I’m Not Smoking Any More Cuban Cigars
It’s been over 40 years since I smoked my first cigar. And it’s about a year since I decided to write a cigar review blog. In those years cigars have always been a part of my life. I have celebrated, reminisced, mourned, and just plain enjoyed. But the last year has been an eye opening experience. I have been exposed to a bunch of wonderful, dedicated, hard working,...
