Top 3 as of February 2024

So I have to start off the first real activity blog with letting you know my top 3 favorite sticks in February of 2024. The are:

Ramon Allones, a great cigar by AJ Ferenandez. A full-flavored smoke that has been my "go to" for quite some time.

I first discovered RA at the Heights Cigar Lounge in the old historic Heights section of Houston. My friend Paul Carrol opened it on January 27 thirteen years ago. Pretty amazing for any small business to survive over 10+ years, so I tip my hat to Paul and his business [you will be hearing more about this shop in later blogs as we feature info on shops you will want to visit.

I keep a spreadsheet of cigars I have smoked since the middle of 2023 and I smoked one if September of that year. My favorite shapes are the Toro [6 x 52] and the torpedo [6.5 x 54}. The wrapper is LaVega Especial, grown on AJF private land in Nicaragua. The binder is Nicaragua Broadleaf and the filler is Nicaragua Piloto, cubano seed mixed with Mexican Ligero.

La Palina's Mr. Sam. I have smoked many of La Palina's cigars and I also love their story of how they started, stopped and got born again. But that will come in later posts with more of the full story. According to my Cigar Master, I bought and smoked my first Mr. Sam in Aril of 2023. It was a Toro [6 x 50] and it had an Ecuadoran Habano wrapper, a binder from Nicaragua and the filled was from Nicaragua and Honduras. I knew right on the spot that RA had a new rival for number one.

La Palina makes many cigars and I have tried to smoke many of them to make comparisons, so you will be hearing more about that story in future blogs.

EP Carillo's Encore. I stumbled on to this cigar in a small cigar store just outside of Fredericksburg Texas, a lucky fluke, in October 2023. It is a Robusto [sometimes referred to as Majestic] and is 5 3/8 inches long with a 52 ring gauge. It is Nicaraguan throughout with the filler being from the Esteli, Condega and Jalapa areas of Nicaragua. My notes ay outstaning stick, absolutely would repurchase and a 9.75 rating on my 1 to 10 scale.

Another thing I liked is that EP Carillo has used the success of this particular stick to donate over $40,000 to the Els for Autism cause in April 2023.

It was Cigar Aficionado's number one cigar in 2018 and I can see why.

So what conclusions can you draw from these ramblings? If you are a fairly experienced cigar smoker [ I have been at it for about 17 years], these might give you a few new sticks to try.

One trend you might notice is that Nicaragua keeps popping up. They are making more cigars there than any other importer to the US and they are in my mind, making lots of very good cigar. So if your helper in the Cigar Lounge you choose points you to some Nicaraguan sticks, give em a shot.

If you are fairly new to your cigar adventure, these are probably not the place to start. There will be more tailored to you in some upcoming posts.

Hope you enjoyed the inaugural post and got some entertainment and education out of it. That is what we intend to be all about.

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Thanks. Go enjoy a good smoke!