Tuesday evening we found ourselves, once again, at Cigar Mojo in King of Prussia PA to meet with our friend Victor Vitale of Legacy Brands. You’ve heard me mention Cigar Mojo on occasion, it’s not the closest cigar store to me, but we’ve come to feel at home there as they have a terrific humidor and lounge, and Trae and Wade, the owners, make us welcome when we visit. Victor now lives in Philadelphia, his home town, and Mojo is conveniently located just about directly between our homes. Victor has become a good friend, and it’s always entertaining and educational to get together with him for some smokes. I have my old friend Mike Perry to thank for introducing us several years ago. As always, I picked up a few cigars that I haven’t tried before (and one I had), this time it was some of the new La Antiguedad from My Father Cigars, and a few of the Surrogates series. I led off with the La Antiguedad Robusto, which was a very nice smoke. I suppose this one could be considered strong, although I found it solidly medium. It’s a nice, box pressed 5¼”x 54 with a Ecuador Habano Rosado Oscuro wrapper.I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly while engaged in conversation with Victor, Trae and my wife, Jenn.
After I finished that tasty treat, Victor turned me on to his newest creation, the Tortuga 215 Reserva El Coyote Negro. This lovely belicoso is a tweaked version of the regular 215 Reserva with a beautiful dark Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper. I instantly regretted no smoking this cigar on a clean palate, a situation I will certainly remedy once these become commercially available. This had many things in common with the rest of Victor’s cigars, it was perfectly constructed, one of my favorite things is when you tap off the ash of a cigar and it’s burning perfectly flat. This speaks volumes to the care that goes into selecting tobaccos which happen to burn at exactly the same rate, no easy feat. This cigar competes favorable with cigars such as the Padrón 1964, it’s well balanced and very refined in flavor. That’s not to say it tastes like a Padrón at all,but was certainly on a par in terms of it’s overall performance. At about the half way point I got a curious exotic spice flavor that made me take notice, and that sensation went as quickly as it came. What a pleasant surprise, although I wasn’t surprised that this was as good as it was. I enjoy the heck out of the Tortuga line, and I was certain this amped up, maduro wrapped version would be right up my alley.
I dragged Victor into the humidor for a quick video for your enjoyment. I was hoping to get a scoop on The Cigar Authortiy, where Victor will be appearing on Saturday. Tune in to the show from 12-2 to watch and listen.
View the Quick Video on YouTube
For tonight’s evening walk, I felt compelled to dig out a Tortuga 215 Reserva Alma which I had picked up last fall when I visited Two Guys Smoke Shop in New Hampshire. The Alma, which is probably not named after my paternal grandmother, is a box pressed 5″x54 robusto which is presented with a red ribbon on the foot. This ribbon must be removed before lighting, buy they way. Burning ribbon doesn’t taste good. As I’ve come to expect from this line, it was perfect in burn and flavor. It’s Nicaraguan, but without any rough edges at all. Just a smooth, well balanced smoke. I’m pretty sure I’d love this line even if I wasn’t friends with the maker, it’s a solid special occasion cigar, an ultra premium cigar that’s really quite special. I keep my meager supply buried in the humidor or I certainly would smoke them up and not have any left!!
