Day 2 and after a not so relaxing night in an affordable roadside motel 10 hours from home I thought I’d continue on and drive the rest of the way to Lethbridge, Alberta.  Problem is, I shouldn’t have waged war on the red-neck party animals who were up all night a few motel room doors down from me at 3:00 AM.  A part of me knew that maybe all I needed to do was to put in some ear-plugs, roll over and go back to sleep when they started a late night football game in the parking lot below my room.  Another part of me knew that it would have been better to stay in my room and keep to myself rather than go down to the group of yahoos and tell them that they were acting like idiots, keeping all kinds of people from sleeping and that if they didn’t shut up immediately they’d regret ever being born.  You’d think I’d have known better after seeing the majority of them walking around holding on to bottles of every kind of hard liquor imaginable mixed with the sounds of country and western music blaring from one of their pick-up trucks idling in the parking lot.

You’d think I’d have had a bit of common sense…………………. You’d think……………….

Nope!!!!!!!

I told them if they touched or harmed my car( Pointing to my Car) in any way, I’d have the lot of them thrown in jail.  I marched back to my room, slammed the door and thought that I had made my point in a crystal clear manner.  Things quietened down after that and I felt victorious but got a bit nervous when I heard voices whispering and quietly laughing now and then just outside my door.  I somehow got back to sleep….

Next morning the parking lot looked like a ghost town and the only vehicle left was my car but it looked very very different from the last time I saw it.  The tires were removed and the vehicle had been jacked up and put on blocks…. Big blocks…… High blocks……. The car was about 7 feet off the ground sitting on, what appeared to be, 2 foot length pieces of railroad ties all stacked up like Leggo blocks.. It almost looked like a crane would have been needed to lift my car that high….. Plus……. My tires and rims were tied to the handles of the car’s doors and hanging by 4 feet of rope.

These were very smart practical jokers I ran into and I have no idea how the police and tow truck people were able to get my car off of the stilts without hurting it but all was in order after I walked 2 blocks back to the motel after breakfast. The police said that they had actually heard of this very same problem 2 days before at one of the neighboring towns.  Seems like there was a group of engineer students terrorizing the country after a “Big and Rich” concert was cancelled in Calgary and some very strange pranks had been pulled.

I gassed up, had 6 hours to go and lit up a Cohiba Magicos on my way out of town.  Something told me that not just any cigar would do so I lit up something very special.  The 5 year aged maduro wrapper had a calming effect on me as I held this cigar during the first third.  I think it was the rich chocolate flavors this cigar has to offer had me pacified and allowed the next hour and a half to smoothly pass by. These are a real victory of cigar blending and rolling and I felt that this little Magicos saved my morning.

The Vancouver Cigar Company has produced a straight forward (and more importantly free) e-book called Cohiba 101 (Cohiba 101 Download).  I downloaded it tonight and gave it a bit of a look over and was surprised about two things: #1) It was relatively pitch free (just good information) #2) I learned a couple of things about the Cohiba.  Also it seems that they actually used some of my reviews that I sent them (Bonus!).

This 101 e-book thing would have been great when I first started smoking cigars.

Cohiba Cigar Blog Entry By Shane

Another great stogie.  The Cohiba Maduro Piramides are similar in taste to the Genios.  The smaller ring gauge makes it a little more of a tight draw.  With that said the Piramide also seemed to be a bit smoother, some of the more subtle flavors in the cigar seemed to have been more evident than in the larger Cohiba Maduro.

I got them from a shop other than my regular hang-out and they were a little less humidified than I prefer.  I have laid down a couple in my humidor for a couple of weeks and will let you know how those smoke at that time.  Overall this is a great 35-40 minute smoke.  It is smooth, subtly spicy yet a bit stronger than some of the other Cohiba’s.

As a side note I noticed that there are some great deals on boxes of Cohiba Robustos and Cohiba Esplendidos ($450.00) online at Vancouver Cigar… I have verified the authenticity with a visit to their storehouse last week.

The Siglo VI truly is one of the big favorites of the Cohiba brand. Cohiba’s tobacco of course goes through a third fermentation process in barrels, and this makes it rich, complex and smooth nature. I savored this one for almost an hour paring it with a couple glasses of MacCallan 18 year old scotch. The ash was almost difficult to knock off the end of the cigar when it was nearing one inch in length. Apparently the tobacco grows in the  Vuelta Abajo district, a distinctively rich farming district with nutrient rich soils.

The most noticeable thing is the quality of construction and its large ring gauge which seems to accentuate a lot of the Cohiba tobacco flavors.

This is pulled from a cuban cigar blog post I found a while back but I think it illustrates how fanatical your average Cohiba lover can become. (Original Post from Vancouver Cigar Cuban Cigar Blog):

“I was sitting in the Vancouver Cigar Company watching a customer pore over the hundreds of Cuban cigars carried. It was a daunting task. He was looking for the perfect smoke for his boss.

The guy on the counter that day had reviewed about 30 cigars with our guest when one of our regular Cigar Club guys Gregg stood up (Gregs a big guy) and asked the customer:

‘Do you want a cigar or a memory? You can buy any of these Cuban cigars here and your boss will have a good smoke. But… how would you like to create a memory? Buy a couple Cohiba Sublimes and enjoy them with him, it will be a meeting he won’t forget.’

And that was it. The guy left with arguably one of the best cigars (or memories as Gregg calls them) available. Always a rich deep oily wrapper these cigars have a deep, full bodied flavor, on the stronger side but absolutely one of the smoothest most flavorful cigars you will ever experience.

I attended a cigar club reception recently hosted by the Vancouver Cigar Company.  They had a few of these in stock and I have ordered them online from elsewhere but these were fresh out of the humidor.  The Piramide also referred to as a torpedo  is something new to Cohiba (last 3 years)

This is another great addition to the Cohiba family.  This was a complex smoke.  Rich and spicy, and noticeably consistent right until the end.  These are a classic smoke, and meet up to the Cohiba brand.  Like the Maduro 5 they are also great value per dollar overall.

I like an easy draw so that would have to be the only thing that I didn’t find totally satisfying about this one.

A month ago I arrived back from Cuba with a fresh box of Cohiba Maduros 5 – Genios. I swore I would lay the box down for another year or so put the box sort of taunted me each time I opened up my humidor locker.

I picked them up at the Partagas Factory. On my tour of the factory I watched one of the rollers make a Genios. The leaf looked extra dark. I assumed because it was from higher up in the plant. I was then corrected, the leaf is from further up the plant but that’s just the start.

This Cohiba leaf has also been aged 5 years minimum before it is made into a cigar. In addition to this unlike many other maduros the wrapper isn’t the only part of the cigar that is aged. Cohiba has elected to use several aged leaves along with the standard Cohiba tobacco.

A lot of these boxes have already been laid down for a couple years so the thought of leaving my box any longer didn’t seem to make any sense. I GLAD I BROKE THE SEAL. Needless to say this is now favorite Cohiba (next to the Sublime of course). I do of course reserve the right to change my mind at a later date.

The construction is amazing (I know because I have now smoked 8 this month). The draw is perfect, not too tight but wrapped well enough to control the burn. The flavor is surprisingly smooth yet the cigar is strong like a vintage 1980’s era Cuban cigar I once smoked.