Its been a minute

Well it appears that I havent made any posts/updates/whatever in a while. So here is a little of whats going on in my life currently as well as some cigar related stuff, sorry no pics this time.

I graduate from college with my B.S. on Dec 19 this year, woohoo!!!! I am applying for a nonthesis masters program starting fall 2010, so cross your fingers for that. I am also in the process of writing my first paper that will be submitted for publication, thats a trip I have never had to write something "legitimate" before, just lab reports and college papers.

Cigar related, havent smoked anything knock my socks off wow in awhile, but I was lucky enough to secure a box of Tat Dracs via Mr. Goodfella on aficionado and I was able to piece together a box of Tat Boris with some botl help, also I got 5 extra dracs and 2 extra boris to smoke while the boxes chill for a minute. I have a box of the 2009 Oliva V Maddies coming in as well as a couple other recent purchases. Waiting on a 5er of the Miami FF from Dan at NHC to come in as well maybe by the end of the week.

Got a hell of a secret santa package coming together that is part of the secret santa pass/trade/what have you on aficionado, and my recipient should be more than a little satisfied if I say so myself.

And.....the big thing is I got my shelves and drawers for the wine-a-dor from Chas on asylum in a couple weeks ago. So it seems that I have some photo updates to catch up on soon.

Opus additions

So Im running out of packages to expect, the opus I purchased from mugen910 on asylum showed up today. But not after I made the run home yesterday between class because I thought they would be here...usps tricked me...bastards. Anyway here are the contents;

1 Opus X Perfexcion A

1 Opus X Big Bad Mother Fucker Natural (2005)

1 Opus X 952R

1 Opus X Forbidden Tres (2005)

Thanks again Bao

Numer 2 is in

Today I got my end of a trade with mkirk76. Promised to me was 2 Tat Franks and a Tat Cohete with a couple mystery sticks to be included, well here is what came in;

2 Tat Franks

1 Tat Cohete

1 Tat Black label corona gorda

1 Liga Privada No 9 Belicoso

1 DPG My Father Cedros Deluxe No 1

1 La Aroma de Cuba Edicion Especial No 1 corona

Thanks again for this

Also in the mail today was my air-n-water 28 bottle wine cooler, and I have made the order for drawers and a shelf to be made to turn this into my wine-a-dor.

Package in

The first of my expected packages made it in today, this one is from steve731 off aficianado. This trade was for 2 Tat Franks and 3 T110s...well he decided to throw in a couple extras. So on top of the tats there was a Oliva V Lancero, and a Perdomo Criollo 10th anni robusto. Thanks

Unfortunately the water pillow busted a seam and the T110 on the right got nailed. Not sure how it will smoke but Im gonna let the stick dry a bit and give it a shot.

nothing special

Well since coming back from the ipcpr show and moving into my new apartment I have become a little bored. This is not bad until I end up on cigaraficianado and cigarasylum with no supervision and with Steve encouraging me to pick up some sticks that I probably shouldnt. Anyway yesterday I managed to trade for 2 Tat Franks and 3 Tat T110 from one botl on aficianado as well as 2 Tat Franks a Tat Cohete and some mystery sticks from another botl on aficianado, then on top of that I picked up an Opus 952R and A from a botl on asylum. Then today to top it off I grabbed a BBMF and a Forbidden Tres off the same asylum botl. And to top it off I sent a sampler to Marvin in HI for a 5er of T110s.

So it looks like this upcoming week should be fun as a test of my apts resilience to the bombs that are headed my way, pictures will come as the packages come.

Also I got a package from a different botl on aficianado the other day that included 2 Illusione eccj, an Illusione culebra, a Triunfador, and a Rocky R4 toro...thanks bro.

Rocky Patel Edge Sumatra Toro

Origin: Nicaragua
Length: 6.00", 152.4mm
Ring Guage: 52
Wrapper: Sumatra

Wrapper has a prominence of large veins which seems to be standard on the edge line cigars. There is a small split in the wrapper near the foot of the cigar and is only present for about a 1/4 of an inch, this I would attribute to the large veins in the leaf. The cigar is a dark chocolatey color and uniform throughout, no sun spots or imperfections from contact between the leaves during the fermentation or curing process.
7/10Prelight: Effortless draw, strong presence of a dark fruit sweetness, cherry is what come to mind with some woodiness. Reminds me of my grandpa's wood shop when he is working with a fruitwood or a hardwood.
8/10

1/3
Flavors seem to be subdued at this point, this is something I have come to expect from Rocky Patel's cigars with the exception of the Old World Reserve. However, there is something there maybe come espresso mixed with cedar? Its not really there at first but shows as the flavors sit on my tongue. Pleasantly though the dirty characteristics of the vintage line cigars is not in this one. Fair amount of spice coming through and I am picking up some chocolate in there as well. Slight unevenness in the burn not to bad and certainly acceptable since this is not an ultra premium cigar. At the end of the first third definite cocoa and cedary sweetness.
6/102/3
Much better flavors to start the second third of this cigar, sweetness of honey reminds me of goldenrod, with some acidity. Pairing very nicely with my coffee, cafe du monde, if it wasn't 6:30am and I didn't have to goto work this morning I would like to pair this with a bourbon either Elija Craig 18yr or Woodford Reserve. Finish on the palate is remarkably light for a full bodied cigar. More cedar notes are becomming aparent but unfortunately not a lot of depth. The burn has evened out with only 1 touch up for pure anal retentive reasons. Towards the end of this section of the cigar the flavors are becomming muddled with the sweetness diminishing but with some earthier tones overpowering.
7/103/3
Started harsh unlike the rest of the cigar. Spice has dwindled out to almost nonexistance, as has most of the plesant flavors. Not a nubbing cigar by any means,
took about an hour to reach this point. Increased acidity but not bitter, finish is slightly dirty but this is something I have found to be standard on all of the edge cigars.
5/10
Thoughts
A decent full bodied cigar for a reasonable price, the ash was a very light shade of grey and only slightly flaky. Held an ash for about 1.5inches and when I tapped it off did not leave a clean separation but left some small flakes. To me this cigar should be made in a corona gorda size but that is preference as the cg is my size of preference, however I would like to try this in the missile/belicoso vitola. Would pair well with a medium meal to round out the strength. Better than the natural edge and about on par with the maduro. Lots of smoke throughout another signature of the Rocky Patel cigars, smoked to an inch and a half remaining.
4/5

Overall
36/55

Thanks Steve(cigarguy88) for giving me one of these cigars to try, now you need to smoke one of those old vsgs I gave you in return.

family affair

So I did it, I got em all. Now what do I want to aspire to?

TMC Box Pass 2009

Inventory for the tooomanycolors summer 2009 Box pass on cigar aficianado(starting)

CC Hard to Find
Montecristo A from 1999
Montecristo EL 2001 Double Corona
Trinidad Ingenios EL 2007
Ramon Allones Phoenicio RE Lebanon 2008
Montecristo C EL 2003
Hoyo de Monterrey Regalos EL 2007
Ramon Allones Belicoso RE UK 2005
Partagas Serie D No 5 EL 2008


CC Common
Hoyo de Monterrey Double Corona
Punch Double Corona
Romeo y Juliet Churchill
Hoyo de Monterrey Churchill 2001
Hoyo de Monterrey Churchill 1999
Cuaba Salamone
Cohiba Lancero
Vegas Robaina Unicos
Juan Lopez No 1
San Louis Rey Serie A 2000
Partagas Serie D No 4
Cohiba Maduro 5 Secretos

NC Hard To Find
Romeo y Julieta Museum
Opus X Perfexcion X
Opus X Petite Lancero
Opus X Perfexcion No 2
VSG Wizard
Opus X Fuente Fuente
VSG Belicoso(~2004)
La Aurora 100 Anos Preferido
Partagas 160 Robusto Major
VSG Round Robusto (1999)

NC Hard To Find cont
Hemmingway Untold Story
Opus X Double Corona
Diamond Crown Maximus Stanford's 90th
Ashton ESG 20th
La Aurora 100 Anos Churchill
Padron 1926 No 1
Opus X Reserva d'Chateau
Don Carlos Annivesario Toro
VSG Corona Gorda (~2004)
Rocky Patel Edge Sumatra
Padron Anniversary Natrual 40

NC Common
Rocky Patel Decade Lancero
AVO 787 Toro
Savinelli Special Selection Torpedo
Camach 10th Anniversary Toro
Rocky Patel Signature Perfecto

This the starting inventory for my box pass this summer/fall...I cant wait to see how it ends!!!

Opus wrapper variances

So I was taking an inventory of my humidors and I noticed a strange discrepancy in the wrappers of a couple of my Opus X Petite Lanceros, one has the normal almost rosado shade wrapper and the other has a much darker maduro shade wrapper. I know where both of these came from, so Im not worried about fakes, but is it possible that some maduro wrapped Opus made it out by mistake, or is this just a fluke? Anyway here are the pictures.

What a Week

Ok so wow what a week, this first package I recieved was from Alan and included 8 HdM Churchills, box code: CPV LR00, unfortunately the 2 of these that have been smoked were both plugged. However, once the plug issue was remedied they were wonderful cigars. Also in the package were 12 SLR Serie A, box code: RPO JUN00, none of these have been smoked yet but I look forward to the first one.
SLR Serie A
HdM Churchill
Another group shot
And the heavy hitting package of the week came from Vithoun. The premise for this package was the MAW thread on aficianado. Well he offered to take care of the Phoenicia from my list but said that he couldnt take care of anything else. To me the Phoenicia was more than enough on its own but holt shit did he send some great suprise sticks as well.

Included was:
Cohiba Robusto
Ramon Allones RE Libano Phoenicia
Montecristo EL 2001 Double Corona
Montecristo No 2

What a great guy and in case he didnt notice my MAW list said and EL/RE so he covered the 2 stick rule with the Monte EL. Now unfortunately when am I going to have a moment special enough for that Phoenicia and EL?

Anyway Im off to Alabama next week, so who knows what surprise sticks I might find down there.

upcoming stuff

So I have a package from Alan on aficianado that should be arriving in the next day or two which contains 8 HdM Churchills and 12 SLR serie A which is pretty exciting. They are from '99 and '00 respectively which I understand to be down years for CCs but who knows maybe the 10yo sticks will be phenomenal and in any case Im still excited.

Also coming up is my MAW from Vithoun also on aficianado which contains at the minimum a Ramon Allones Phoenicia, this alone would be amazing and I told him that anything else in the package would be icing. But I think I may have to fortify my apartment for what I anticipate to be a heavy hitting package.

Anyway thats all for now, unless everyone wants to know about my research but thats not cigar related.

(there steve I finally posted again)

Poker

Staight flame grain apple

Puzzle Pipe

This is a former pipe that one of the guys who works at the local owns. I have never seen a pipe this puzzling, a blowfish that isnt at all typical, the lines are true and straight on the top, but the bottom is crazy. The lines on the pipe follow the grain perfect, this could be the greatest pipe Ive ever seen.

Quarter bent Former Brandy

This was a series of pictures of my newest pipe purchase, a former that resembles the one I have made by him already. Hope you like it