Got some unfortunate life stuff happening (my health is fine, others in my life not so much) and it has prevented me from being as available for things like this new website as I'd like to be.
My excess available time and energy is currently focused on the Lounge Lizards podcast.
Once the proverbial smoke clears I will return here. Please do check back often.
New LL is out today - the fourth and final episode recapping our Cuba trip in March. We discuss our favorite cigar shops and lounges in Havana and our experiences at the Habanos Festival '23 and Amigos de Partagás '22.
“With payrolls made and everything, the bank does not accept payment through the cards because they don’t have money; the railroad is not an isolated situation,” he says referring to the unusual spontaneous strike organized on Tuesday by Artemis railway workers, in protest against the non-payment of their salaries in the last two months.
Has the financial picture reached a breaking point? On top of no food, there is no liquid money and savings accounts have become inaccessible. Powerful look into the looming chaos from Havana Times.
New LL is out today featuring one of our longest episodes yet, focused on the Davidoff Millennium Lancero Limited Edition 2023 (click for prior blog post/details) and paired with twelve year aged Caol Ila single malt scotch.
We discuss the history of Caol Ila, we reveal how we all met, a listener email takes Rooster to task, and Senator gives me an all-time gift (see below).
We continue our packaging discussion with this absolute lunacy. This $4,000 humidor from Atabey holds 60 cigars - five from each vitola they produce - pricing each cigar at roughly $67. We reviewed one of them, the Brujos, on LL Episode 49 and it scored a 5.8. I haven't reached for an Atabey since and don't plan to until we review another one. Cigar was worth $10 at most.
I'm not usually wooed by packaging, but this series of Spanish releases is excellent.
According to CA, this is the fifth release in limited-edition series that pays tribute to famous bullfighters throughout history. This year’s edition honors José Luis Mazzantini y Eguía, a bullfighter from the 1800s.
They're regular production M2s, so I'll be paying an additional 40% for the fun box.
New LL episode is out today, featuring the third part of our Cuba trip recap - focused on our visit to La Corona Factory in Havana, the manufacturing powerhouse of Cuban cigar production. We reveal what we learned during our private factory tour and we discuss the famous origin story of the Cohiba Lancero.
The final episode of this series will be out in two weeks.
On Wednesday, a hail storm destroyed the entirety of the spring Florida Sun Grown tobacco crop. This crop was the first of two plantings this year.
We knew this was coming, but the increases were completely rolled out in the last few days. I changed the title of CA's article, as it is really an increase across almost all marcas and vitolas in the Habanos catalog. Most increases were between 5-10%, with the standout unicorns like Behike rising another 45-50% depending on the region. HSA should be ashamed of themselves, but instead will probably raise them another one or two times this year.
You've got to love Carlito's imagination - straight out of Willy Wonka. Hope to visit it once construction is complete.
