Indholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2015 i Cigar Aficionado

This was the issue of 92 point scores. A 92 from CIGAR AFICIONADO is a fine score indeed, one that typically makes a cigar eligible for our annual Top 25 Cigars of the Year contest. This issue saw a dozen 92-point scores—a very high number—and they went to cigars from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and the United States. Some are age-old brands, but many are new releases making their CIGAR AFICIONADO debut, including the Ashton Symmetry Robusto, which is made by the Fuentes, and the Cuban Cohiba Robusto Supremo Edición Limitada 2014, which tied with a smaller Padrón 1964 Anniversary Series cigar for best in the robusto category. TOP CHURCHILL H. UPMANN SIR WINSTON The big Cuban cigar named for history’s most famous cigar lover tied with the…

Life is stressful enough without having to think about the things you cannot see: dust, allergens, bacteria and nameless particles that fill the air. The Rabbit Air BioGS 2.0 air purifier provides an elegant—and automatic—solution for your peace of mind, with its many sensors and systems at work even without active input from you. Consider the device’s intelligent air-monitoring system: Set the BioGS 2.0 to Auto Mode and relax in your favorite chair; the powerhouse purifier uses air-quality monitors to diagnose your surroundings. While it works to clean the air around you, the purifier also intelligently reacts to new stimuli like an increase in pollen or pet dander. Light up a cigar and the machine will purr a bit louder, automatically adjusting fan speeds to increase clean air output. But…

Recently, I was digging through my closet and found my scorecard from a game at Shea Stadium on Oct. 11th, 1986. As soon as I opened it, I heard the ball cracking off Lenny Dykstra’s bat as he hit a walk-off bottom-of-the-ninth home run to win Game 3 of a legendary NLCS. That simple card, marked up in my youthful scrawl, was a more valuable memento than any pennant or bobblehead figure I might have come away with. Unlike any other sport, baseball is a game of statistics. Inside tomes like the Baseball Encyclopedia such numbers as RBI, ERA and AVG tell the stories of whole seasons and entire careers. Scorecards are the building blocks for keeping those statistics. For years each at bat was recorded to be passed along…

The news is exciting, but the reality is somewhat limited. The changing relations between the United States and Cuba means that travelers to Cuba will be able to return to the United States with Cuban cigars—but only up to $100 worth. Furthermore, the opportunity only applies to those traveling on approved trips to Cuba from the United States. It won’t apply for third-party countries (no bringing back Cubans if you’re on a trip to London, Geneva or Cancún) and it won’t apply to ordering via the Internet or a catalog. To take advantage you must make an authorized trip between Cuba and the United States, which precludes entering and exiting through a third country with cigars. But say you follow all the rules: What can and should you buy? Havana…

Churchills are designed for relaxation, to light up when time is anything but short and you can give the cigar the attention it deserves. The H. Upmann Sir Winston, which tied for best in this category, is named for a cigar smoker who always made time for his smokes, Winston Churchill himself. The rich smoke had a complex array of flavors. Another 92 went to the Oliva Serie V Melanio Maduro Churchill, a brand that’s familiar to all—the Figurado size (in natural wrapper) was named Cigar of the Year for 2014. Four other cigars scored 90 points or better, including an Alec Bradley that is named after a Honduran farm, and boutique brands Surrogates and Viaje. CUBA RING GAUGE: 47 LENGTH: 7" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA BOX DATE:…

Slim cigars have faded in popularity in recent years, especially inside American humidors where ever-fatter cigars are growing increasingly popular. It’s a shame, as cigars that have slim ring gauges are beautiful smokes that typically showcase more of the flavor of the wrapper, giving aficionados a chance to experience the nuances of one leaf. At the very top is a cigar from (and named after) a master, the Don Pepin Garcia Original Lancero. This skinny smoke is rolled in Miami, one of few premium cigars still made in the United States. A newcomer to our pages, the Falto Dos Banderas, made an impressive debut, and cigars from Illusione and Montecristo scored 91 points. U.S.A. RING GAUGE: 38 LENGTH: 7 1/2" FILLER: NICARAGUA BINDER: NICARAGUA WRAPPER: NICARAGUA DON PEPIN GARCIA ORIGINAL…

The year 1991 was a fine one for Cuban cigars. Cigars were still being wrapped in tobacco leaves grown from rich Corojo seed, and the pre-boom industry was still in a calmer, unhurried state. Cigars from this year are wonderful smokes, as was the case with this splendid Cohiba Robusto (which sports an old Cohiba band, decorated with dots instead of squares). Despite its age of 24 years, it was full of life and vibrant flavor. Putting it down was nearly impossible. It was a classic, and quite nearly perfect. A second classic was a much younger smoke, a special cigar made exclusively for La Casa del Habano franchises when it was first released. We also took a look at three very different vitolas from the exceptionally large Romeo y…

Warmer weather, blooming flowers and singing birds signal that spring has returned. But for the baseball junkie, the true sign that winter is in the rearview is the unmistakable crack of a wood bat connecting flush with a cowhide-covered ball. Since the 1970s, though, that familiar crack has been slowly drowned out by the resonant pings of metal bats as amateur baseball and softball hitters have eagerly replaced their classic twigs with bats crafted out of a material—aluminum—which has some advantages over what’s traditional. Hitting a round ball with a round bat, after all, is arguably the hardest thing to do in sports, so why not opt for a little advantage? Compared with wood, an aluminum bat is more durable even while offering a fatter barrel (2 5/8" as opposed…

The top hat? It’s just a little too much—even when the model is Hugh Jackman. • Jackman’s tuxedo appears as if he were born to wear it for this photo shoot. But the hat is more accessory than this scene will accommodate. The photographer’s team has provided a selection of back-drops, chairs and props, so Jackman reaches for a fedora instead to match the impeccably cut tux that is fitted to his lean, not-quite-lanky frame. The iTunes playlist jumps to life with blues and jazz, and Jackman moves to the beat, as though dancing his way through this session. It’s a sunny late-November morning in Manhattan’s Soho, in a bare loft that cuts a top-floor swath between Mercer and Broadway. It’s an event space—all raw brick, unfinished wood and stamped-tin…

Jack Nicklaus is here again. On a fairway carved out of a mountainside at the tip of the Baja peninsula of Mexico, Nicklaus stands in the rapturously warm air above the Pacific Ocean as he makes a final site visit to his sixth golf course in the Los Cabos region, a place where his name and his artistry have transformed the tourist landscape going back nearly 30 years. Here at the Quivira Golf Club, at the center of a new residential and hotel development at Cabo San Lucas, the most decorated and heralded golfer of all time is again making his mark, as he has done at nearly 380 golf courses around the world. The Golden Bear is leaving another set of paw prints along a prodigious journey that will…

LAST November, the mood was tense at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva as five bidders competed for Patek Philippe’s famous 1932 Henry Graves Supercomplication pocket watch. The masterpiece with 24 complications produced for the American banker held the title of the world’s most complicated watch until Patek itself surpassed it in 1989. When the Graves last sold in 1999 for $11 million, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a watch at auction, it slipped through the fingers of Patek Philippe’s owner Philippe Stern. Observers speculated that the Stern family would not allow that to happen again. The death of the watch’s 48-year-old owner, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar, just days before the sale, added another twist. After a suspenseful 15 minutes, the piece earned…

Corona gordas, which are also known as toros, have become increasingly popular in recent years. The fattish smokes (the name, after all, means fat corona) are among the most popular cigars in America, a close second to the mighty robusto. Five of the cigars we’ve assembled here scored 90 points or higher. Taking the top spot of 92 points is a newer smoke from Honduras named Raices Cubanas. For those who read Cigar Insider, our twice-a-month newsletter about the cigar industry, the name should be familiar, as it’s the factory where many fine cigars have been made over the years, including several to take spots on our past Top 25 lists. This brand, distributed by Alec Bradley cigars, is named after the factory, and features a mix of Central American…

When time is short, call on the petit corona. These diminutive cigars are the ideal quick smokes, with a thick enough ring gauge to allow for a relatively complex blend but a short enough length to let them be smoked before a meal, on a short drive or perhaps when one is out walking the family pet. Two Cubans, the Montecristo No. 5 and the Ramon Allones Small Club Corona, scored 92 points, leading the category. The Monte was balanced and meaty, while the Ramon Allones had a distinctive sweet spiciness. The aptly named Dog Walker from 7-20-4 scored 91 points, tying with the short but distinctive Cohiba Siglo I. CUBA RING GAUGE: 40 LENGTH: 4" FILLER: CUBA BINDER: CUBA WRAPPER: CUBA BOX DATE: FEBRUARY 2013 MONTECRISTO NO. 5 Big,…

Dear Marvin, Your February issue was a reminder to never judge CIGAR AFICIONADO by its cover. With the acting pedigree and accomplishments of Liam Neeson already accounted for in my personal Hollywood ledger, I approached the “thinking man’s movie star” with a thinking woman’s readiness to augment my knowledge about Neeson’s stogie preferences. Instead, my clock was reset by Neeson’s cigar rumination: “When a character in a film smokes a cigar, I always think of them as being someone who is at peace in their world.” How relevant to the many occasions I have enjoyed the Johnson Room at the Nat Sherman Townhouse [“Resetting The Clock,” February 2015]. It is in no small measure due to the refinement and class of the Sherman family that I so reliably find peace…

Swiss watchmaker Hublot and Dominican cigar producer Arturo Fuente celebrated their ongoing partnership last December with an Old Havana–themed party at Dubai’s One&Only The Palm hotel, where they paid tribute to the Fuente family’s Cuban heritage and launched the Hublot Arturo Fuente ForbiddenX watch collection. But this iteration came with a new wrinkle: actual tobacco leaf. Following up the King Power Arturo Fuente collection, which debuted in 2012, this year’s ForbiddenX watches (pictured at top) inventively blend the specialties of watchmaking and cigarmaking with dials covered with the same leaf used in the rare Fuente Fuente OpusX ForbiddenX cigar. The tobacco inside the watch is grown on the lush and gorgeous Chateau de la Fuente, a farm in the Dominican Republic where the Fuente family harvests its finest leaves. Hublot’s…

If you’re a wealthy businessman, secure enough to acknowledge where you stand among the world’s top professional poker players, what do you say to Phil Ivey before squaring off against him for some $1.1 million in first-place tournament prize money? Maybe: Prepare to get crushed, sucker! Maybe not. When New York-based commodities trader Dan Shak confronted Ivey at the $100,000 Challenge during the Aussie Million poker tournament, in Melbourne, Australia, he looked at the icon and admitted, “We’re going heads-up and I am fine with you being first and me being second.” Surely, Ivey was okay with that as well. But things failed to go as expected. After catching bottom pair with a lucky flop, 55-year-old Shak emerged victorious, received a handshake and a hug from tight-smiling Ivey, and provided…

Buying vintage has basic rules of thumb, such as do your research, work with an established, reputable dealer and evaluate a watch in person whenever possible. Here, the experts offer a few more tips of the trade: “THE market is much more finicky in terms of condition, and I don’t see that going away. Whatever price bracket you’re in, buy the best you can in that range. If you have $20,000, buy something really nice for $20,000 [rather than multiple lesser quality watches]. That’s more likely to hold its value, depending on the piece, obviously.” –Katharine Thomas, Sotheby’s “YOU want to work with a dealer who provides a warranty and will guarantee the product. I would be very concerned about a dealer who will not take a watch back. Choose…

Figurados are often beautiful cigars. Difficult to roll, they tend to be crafted by the most talented cigarmakers in a factory, often resulting in phenomenal smokes. To that point, this category resulted in eight cigars that rated 90 points or higher, the best of any category in the issue. Three cigars led the way with 92 points. The H. Upmann No. 2 from Cuba is a doppelganger of the Montecristo No. 2. The pirámide always seems to score well in our tests, in this case showing off Cuban-style flavors of leather and wood. The Camacho Criollo Figurado is leathery as well, with a bold character, while the boutique Regius from the Dominican Republic showed notes of orange and truffle. HONDURAS RING GAUGE: 54 LENGTH: 6 1/8" FILLER: HONDURAS, DOM. REP.…

Ashton, Cohiba and Padrón are three of the most famous brand names in the cigar world today. Each has been around for decades and each has a reputation for excellence. The trio led our ever popular robusto category. Two are new versions making their first appearance in these pages, while the third has been superb since its debut years ago. The new Cohiba Robusto Supremo Edición Limitada 2014 is not only delicious and complex, it’s an historic smoke, the first parejo (straight sided) cigar from Cuba with a 58 ring gauge. Cuba is beginning to join the fat cigar trend. The Ashton Symmetry Robusto, made by Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia. for Ashton Distributors Inc., is the first new Ashton in years. It has a bit of Nicaraguan tobacco in…