JR CIGARS is jumping the gun! Avoid them!

The dreaded SCHIP tax is not going to take effect until 2009, but guess who is gouging their customers with increased prices already?

JRCIGARS.com! I recommend that you purchase cigars from anywhere but here, because price gouging is not fair. JRCIGARS is like the stupid gas station on the corner who jumps their price up by 25 cents per gallon even though the tank still has gas from the previous day.

It's been a long time! Happy New Year 2009, Valentine's Day, Fat Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday.

Wow, it's been a long time, and you know what? I just haven't had that much time for a cigar. I tried to smoke them during Spring/Summer softball games with my company in NW Indiana, but other than the usual La Floridita and JR Alt. Edicion Limitada cigars that I have been telling you about over the last couple of years, I have not many opportunities to smoke a good cheap stogie. Except for smoking one on the way to school (I'm working on my Masters degree at Indiana Tech), I haven't even smoked oneIn fact, my three humidors were running dangerously low. For a couple of weeks I consolidated everything and fit the cigars into my two small humidors (total capacity about 50-60 sticks). So when I went to Detroit to spend Christmas with my family, I managed to stop by the JR Cigar store the day after Christmas. There I smoked a Partagas toro that they had as the weekly special for $3.00. I know that is above my $2/cigar limit for this blog, but I gotta tell you, it was good and cheap compared to what the typical box price is for these cigars. Anyways I picked up a bundle of 25 Consuegra No. 9 maduro cigars for $27. At just over a $1 per cigar, this is probably the first cigar that most cigar lovers think of when asked for what is considered to be a bargain. A couple of months ago, my neighbor Russ gave me a bag full of cheap "flavored cigars" that he had picked up at a trade show. I was eager to see what was in the bag. Primetime, Blunts, and Dutch Masters Collection or something like that. Oh man, these were awful. I smoked one, and it smelled like a pineapple-scented marker. And it tasted like one too. I tossed it and immediately brought the bag to one of my lab technicians where I work. He smokes Middleton's all the time, and even he couldn't smoke it! Ew! Just say to no to really bad machine made cigars.

Cigar Catalogs

I like reading cigar catalogs. Always filled with good deals but never filled with very useful information. Most of the writing that you find in your average cigar catalog is of the same quality as this blog: amateur, funny only to a select few, and full of exaggerations. One thing that bothers me is the Thompson's cigar catalog. I can get the same cigar that they advertise for the same price or cheaper at my local cigar store, even after all of the taxes. Everybody starts out with Thompson's cigar shop, but if you want to save some cash and enjoy your cigar down to the nub, don't buy from them. They're too expensive!

Quorum Torpedo - Maduro: The one sentence review!

Quorum Torpedo - Maduro: The one sentence review!

Despite having a very dark maduro wrapper, this is probably the blandest medium strength cigar that I've ever had. :(

Happy Birthday Geddy Lee!

Celebrated Geddy Lee's birthday the other day (He's 55!) by listening to a bunch of good tunes from Rush, my all-time favorite rock band. The one song that always moves me is Freewill. As a bass player who has been playing for 17 years now, I still cannot play it note for note. Must practice!

Humidors, Humidity, and Humor

I have three humidors.


I purchased my first new one off the auction site (http://www.cigarauctioneer.com/) that Famous Smoke has back in the holiday period of 2004-2005, which was my crazy time for purchasing cigars. I still have some cigars from that time (mostly Presidente size cigars of Dominique, Tabamex, a few premium oddballs here and there) that are probably really really super smooth now. It started out as a flip top with hinges, but after stripping the screws from too many repair jobs, I decided that it didn't need any hinges and the top fits fine without them. It's actually easier just taking the top cover off when I need to access my cigars. It's a 100-ct. humidor, FSS exclusive made in China. The color of the laminate (my current work involves laminates over wood and plastics) looks like a birdseye maple pattern, nice sheen, still feels like real wood on the outside. I've gotten a large rectangular humidifier that does not one to stay fixed to the top of the cover, so it just sits around the bottom. I probably have only about 50 cigars in there now. They are the lousy Chairman's choice, a few sticks of LVH CC, JR ALT El's, one Ashton Cabinet Tubo, one Phoenix Cigar Company Presidential tubo, and a motley collection of Tabamex, Dominique, FSS Dominican 1000 Torpedoes, and so on. You name it, I got cheap ones in here!

My daughter put a bunch of smiley face stickers on the cover, and it looks really funny. In fact, whenever I would come home from work, my daughter would ask me if I wanted to "play with a cigar or beer". That's my baby!

My 2nd humidor is a small 25 ct. (supposed to be 40 ct. corona sized) that I picked up off of http://www.jrcigars.com/ when they ran a special on Montecristo Peruvians (buy a box, get a free matching humidor!). It's actually a very nice humidor with excellent construction. A nice cedar tray made it a plus! The cigar itself was good but overpriced, so having the humidor made it an easier purchase because for a while I did really want to try other Montecristos.

With that in mind, I had purchased my 3rd humidor as yet another JR deal, this time at their store in Southfield, MI. I saw that they were advertising a similar Montecristo deal to the national website, but with the cigar being any of the Montecristo lines. I asked if there was a minimum purchase size, and the cashier said one box. So guess what I found? Montecristo Afrique cigarillos, way overpriced at $38 for 30 cigarillos (or extremely petite sized coronas as some people like to say). They are actually an excellent cigar/cigarillo, and I do endorse them readily. Now here's the funny part to my story: the advertisement said that I could pick any size humidor. As the cashier was pulling out the corona-sized humidor out, I told her to give me the 40-ct. churchill size humidor. She looked at me, scratched her head, read the ad and gave me my freebie. Then she tried to sell me everything in the store. No thanks! For the last couple of months, I've been seeing a similar/the same humidor on special at Mike's Cigar (a very nice website retailer) for about $70. It's bundled with 10 cigars. Not a great deal, but these really are nice humidors.

Woohoo I'm cheap!

I will put photos up soon for these.

Punica Pomegranate Liquer

I bought this bottle around the holidays in 2007. This French-made liquor is made with pomegranate extract and comes in a beautiful glass bottle. The low-octane strength (about 34 proof) and sweet, fruity yet unobtrusive pomegranate flavour make this an excellent choice as a mixer (great with vodka) or on the rocks after dinner. I've seen this brand on sale at the store for $18. for 750 ml. When I purchased a bottle during the Christmas season they packaged it with a very nice martini glass. Impressive!