Matt’s Top 5 Cigars Wednesday, Aug 27 2008

I have gone and done it.  I have added one of the most cliched cigar website pages there is.  I have created a Top 5 list.  To the left you will see a link for Matt’s Top 5. Click it and it will take you to a page where I detail my 5 favorite cigars.  That is my 5 favorite cigars at the time I was typing up the page.  It is a list that is always changing so it seems silly to even write it down but I did it anyway.  It is a conversation that we all as cigar smokers love to discuss.  What are our favorite cigars and why?  I’ll update it occasionally, meaning when it changes enough to justify the effort, and assuming I remember to do it.  Go ahead and check it out, and if you want to share your comments about my list, or share your own list just use the comment box on that page to leave your feedback.

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A New Welcome Page Friday, Aug 15 2008

Today I posted a brand new Welcome page. The old Welcome page was the very first post on the blog and being over three years old it is a bit dated. A new edition was in order. You can access the page be either clicking the cigar painting to the left or the word “Welcome” underneath it. This Welcome page is serving double duty. I am treating it as my “About Me” page as well.

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August Hiatus Friday, Aug 1 2008

Well August has rolled around again.  For the few who are regular readers of my blog (thanks mom and dad… haha), you know that around August each year I take a little break from smoking cigars.  I attempted to explain why last year.  This year I actually have a pretty good reason, not that I was looking for one.

I am training to run a 10K at the end of August and a 5k in September.  The 10K is a run I am going to do on my own as part of the Nike+ Human Race 10k that takes place globally on August 31st.  This 10k is a real event in 25 cities around the world, but if you are a runner and have a Nike+ armband or iPod kit you can run a 10k on the 31st where ever you’d like and just upload your Nike+ data after your run.  Seemed like a cool idea to me so I figured I’d take part. The 5k is an actual event I plan to attend and participate in.  There are a couple 5k races in the Raleigh area in September.  I just need to decide which one I want to run in.  I am doing this just as a personal competition to push myself and get some exercise.

Anyway, I will still be posting in August, just not cigar reviews.  I will take this time to rework my Welcome page, create an About Me page and possibly some other pages like my Top 10 Smokes or some other kind of feature page.  We’ll see what I come up with…

I post about my progress with my running on my running blog. I keep that blog solely as a focus and motivation tool so it isn’t terribly interesting, but if you’re interested to see how I’m doing, click the Nike+ picture above.

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3 Year Anniversary - Like a Well Aged Stogie Monday, Jun 23 2008

Today marks the three year anniversary of my little blog here. I started back in 2005. At that time I had it hosted on Blogger and moved it to WordPress a little over a year ago. This milestone had me clicking through a lot of my old posts. It is kind of funny looking back. It illustrates just how much my taste in cigars have changed over the years. Besides my tastes maturing and changing, so has my philosophy on cigars. The things that are important to me in terms of cigars has changed a great deal as well. I am also able to see how my writing has improved over the years. My reviews have gotten a lot better in terms of content and style and I have also gotten better at describing my experiences and the flavors I detect. That said, I still think I am a bit of an amateur in that department, but a better amateur than before (LOL). Given how much I have changed over the years, it has me thinking it is time to write a new “Welcome” page as well as a new “About Me” page with more current information. Look for those in the near future. So to wrap this entry up…

Happy 3rd Anniversary Matt’s Cigar Journal!

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The Keepers of the Flame Padron Roundup Friday, May 30 2008

Lucky7 and Cigarfan over at The Keepers of the Flame have recently honored me with an invitation to participate is a great project that they are undertaking, and it is a huge undertaking. They are putting together a vertical tasting of the entire Padron Series of cigars. They are calling it the Padron Series Roundup and together with a collection of reviewers from the cigar blogging community, they will be compiling tasting notes on every size offered in the Padron Series line in both the natural and maduro wrappers. I have been called upon to cover the #3000 natural and maduro in this line and I will also be contributing to the tasting notes on the Ambassador as well. This project will span the next 2+ months so be sure to check out The Keepers of the Flame periodically for the full reviews, and I’ll be posting some updates about the project along the way as well.

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Sneak Peek: Upcoming Reviews Friday, May 16 2008

I just wanted to give everyone a sneak peek into what the upcoming reviews will be in the next several months…

(Click to Enlarge)

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One Year Anniversary at WordPress!!! Monday, Feb 18 2008

It was one year ago today that I moved my humble little blog over to WordPress. I have to say I have been extremely satisfied with the decision. WordPress is an excellent content management system and I think my blog is much better now than it ever could have been before the move. Thank you very much WordPress, for the wonderful home you provide for my little blog.

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I won!! Friday, Jan 18 2008

It’s a good start to the day when you get an email informing you that you’ve just won a very nice, very expensive cigar lighter. I entered my review of the the Perdomo Edición de Silvio in a cigar review contest over at Cigar Inspector. There were several really great reviews submitted in to the contest and I was honored by having my review selected as the winner. I want to send my thanks once again to Cigar Inspector and his panel of judges for selecting my review as the winner. I also want to thank my fellow BOTL who I competed against in the contest. The reviews that were entered into the competition were very good so the competition was tough.

My Prize is an ST Dupont X-Tend torch lighter. I’ll post some pictures once I receive it.

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The Unplanned Break Thursday, Dec 20 2007

I, being a man of questionable judgment, take a voluntary break from smoking cigars at least once a year.  I usually do this around July or August and the break lasts about 30 days.  I have talked about this break before here.  This year, I have had an unplanned and involuntary break thrust upon me by an almost comical and unbelievable series of maladies that have befallen me.  I owe a big thanks to my children and the daycare they attend for this unwelcome hiatus.  It started in mid November and has stretched up to this day and I am still not well enough to have a smoke.  First I was hit with a small cold that developed into one of the worst and most painful sinus infections I have ever had.  No sooner did I start to get over that before my son brought home a lovely little GI bug that had me dry heaving for hours after my stomach finally emptied.  The effect of that bug lingered in the form of an annoying but seemingly harmless cough.  Harmless that is until it turned into a case of bronchitis that has been having me coughing up a lung for the past two weeks.  I feel like I am finally on the up swing, but am still coughing pretty regularly.  Thanks to some cough syrup with Vicodin that the doc gave me, I am at least getting some good sleep.

Anyway, this month long battle with illness has gotten me way behind on cigar reviews.  Both the reviews I’ve committed to for CigarsDirect.com and the cigars I wanted to review from my own collection.  On the bright side of all this, once I am able to smoke again, I have a line up of what should be some stellar cigars to smoke.

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Review Index Thursday, Oct 4 2007

I decided I had enough reviews up now that it was worth putting together an index of them.  There is a link for the Cigar Review Index on the sidebar to the left.

On a side note it was interesting to see how my writing has evolved and how I go about reviewing the cigars has changed.  When I started I was just writing fairly general impressions much like I did in my pen and paper journal that this blog replaced.  As time went on I started to get more detailed and my entires started to look more like actual reviews.  I’m still just a regular Joe giving a regular Joe’s take on cigars, and I am by no means a great (or even good) writer but I have really enjoyed keeping up this blog.  I hope I can continue to improve my writing and my reviews to hopefully make them even more useful to those looking to try something new.  Another aspect of putting together this index is seeing how my tastes and opinions have changed as my palate developed and I became a more experienced cigar smoker.  Some of my earlier entries are difficult for me to read now.  Some of them make me cringe as I read them.

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Announcing My New Featured Retailer! Monday, Oct 1 2007

I want to announce a new relationship here at Matt’s Cigar Journal. I now have a Featured Retailer whom I will be working with to bring you reviews of some really great, and sometimes hard to find Top Shelf Cigars. Over in the side bar to the left you will now see the logo for CigarsDirect.com. Each month I will do two cigar reviews that will be brought to you by CigarsDirect.com. Below their logo you will see what the upcoming reviews will be for the next two months. These reviews will be in addition to any other reviews I may choose to do on my own. The Upcoming Reviews section on the sidebar will link you to CigarsDirect.com’s page for that specific cigar and there will be a similar link in each review when it is posted. CigarsDirect.com is run by Billy Ferriolo. Billy and the crew at CigarsDirect put a great deal of importance on customer service and make sure everyone of their customers is well taken care of. They have an excellent selection of top shelf and often hard to find cigars so I encourage everyone to click on over to their site and take a look. You just might discover a good source for one of your elusive favorites over there. I am excited about this new relationship and hope that it can benefit all parties including my readers.

We are going to kick things off in a stellar way this October with a review of the Ashton VSG Sorcerer so be sure to check back soon.

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And the Winner is… Sunday, Sep 30 2007

…Aaron Campbell!!!!!

Sorry for the late post but life kind of got in the way today. Aaron is the lucky winner of the Tatuaje Sampler. Congratulations Aaron and thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you all enjoyed playing as much as I enjoyed holding the contest. I also hope that I was able to point some of you to some interesting blogs that were new to you. I enjoyed doing this contest a lot so I’ll have to cook up another good idea for a second contest in the not so distant future.

Thanks again everyone and congratulations Aaron.

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Drawing for the Tatuaje Prize this Weekend Thursday, Sep 27 2007

The entry deadline came and went at midnight last night so that means it is time to draw names for the 3 Cigar Tatuaje Sampler. I have already notified everyone who will be in the drawing. As it turns out everyone who entered got the questions right and will be in the drawing. For those who missed out but are curious here are the answers…

1. My buddy Andy is an amazing cook. If you like food you’ll love his blog Andy’s Diner. Browse around his blog, there’s a lot of good stuff on there. Besides being an excellent cook, Andy is also a 1st class BOTL and he posts pictures of his cigars so browse through the photo gallery called Andy’s Humidor to see his impressive collection. He has also taken some tours of a few cigar operations in Miami. Find his pictures of these tours and look through them. They are pretty cool. What I want you to tell me is what three things did Andy purchase on his tour of Tabacalera Perdomo?
   7 cigar sampler of the La Tradicion Perdomo Reserve cigars, a beautiful black ashtray, and an Edicion de Silvio No. 2 Torpedo
2. Now it’s time to check out Brian’s Random Thoughts. Brian’s blog is a good read and like Andy’s blog, it’s not just cigars. Browse around and read a little and I think you’ll like the place and find it an entertaining read. While you are browsing around answer this. Brian has a bunch of cigar reviews on his site and one of the cigars he reviewed is another one of Pete Johnson’s cigars (also made by Pepin Garicia) and a favorite of mine, but it isn’t a Tatuaje . Find the review I speak of. There are two parts to this question. A. What is the name of the cigar in the review I am referring to? B. In that review Brian states that he was hoping the cigar in question would be a cheaper alternative to another cigar that he likes. What cigar was he hoping it would be an alternative to?
   A.) The cigar is a cabaiguan belicoso finos
   B.) Hoping it would be a cheaper alternative to a Diamond Crown Maximus

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Last Day To Get Contest Entries In Wednesday, Sep 26 2007

Today is the last day to email in your contest entries.  It isn’t that hard to find the answers to the questions so there is plenty of time to get on on this.  I need to recieve all entries by midnight tonight to be eligible for the drawing.

 Click here for contest details.

Good Luck!

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Only a few Days left… Friday, Sep 21 2007

Only a few days left to complete the scavenger hunt and getin on a chance to win three stellar Tatuaje cigars. Click the link below to see the details on how you can enter. It easy and doesn’t take that long to complete. Have your entries in by the 26th.

Win My Favorite Cigars!

After you finish up with my contest pop on over to The Stogie Guys and check out a contest they are running over there. They are asking you to do a little work as well, if you want to call writing a quick review of a tasty cigar work.

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