Hoja de Flore(s/z) Authentico Maduro Review

Killing time waiting for my shift replacement to arrive, I decided to spark up a cigar that's new to the industry. One which I actually like despite their sales rep being an annoying S.O.B.

This shiny motherfucker is the Hoja de Flores Authentico Maduro. Some refer to it as their "brown label", but I don't suffer memory problems. It's part of an industry movement to distance certain brands from artificially dyed, steamed, pressed, or otherwise unnatural maduro wrappers. I discussed late last year another cigar, the Azan, which also has a natural maduro in their lineup. Call it the "organic" movement of the cigar world, or whatever, but these cigars are actually fairly good.

The reason for this post's crazy title is a pending name-change from "Hoja de Flores" to "Hoja de Florez", in response to a lawsuit the company is undergoing. Their newest offering, some kind of bundle, is actually a real powerhouse in the 6-7 dollar range, but this natural maduro weighs in higher, around 10-12 dollars per stick. Is it worth it? Yes, I really think so.

I must be a gringo, I keep trying to spell "Hoja", as "Hoya".

The cigar is a Dominican Puro. Many people think of Dominican cigars as being milder in flavor (except for perhaps La Flor Dominicana), but the Authentico Maduro is actually fairly robust. Many people look at the cigar and question whether it's actually even a Maduro, but I can assert based on flavor that the cigar is named correctly. It's full of a dry cocoa note, and subtle earthiness. It doesn't hit you over the head like many other blends currently on the market. It's sort of a sleeper.

Draw and construction are solid. The wrapper is a little less oily than some may like, but I find that to be a common occurrence among cigars distributed without cellophane wrappers. It feels a little dry, but it certainly smokes well, and that may be intentional, since the body feels very firm, almost as though it was packed a little tightly. It's box pressed, but not overly so. It's almost as though the original blend was intended to be round, but they box pressed it as an afterthought. Normally this would be a fatal mistake, but the Hoja de Flore(s/z) smokes fine.

Body is about medium. As aforementioned, it can have a habit of creeping up on you.

I'd definitely smoke it again.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: Hoja de Flores Authentico Maduro

MasterCard Regulations and so called MOTO transactions.

Fellow B/SotL, I apologize for my inactivity as I venture into a new business ownership opportunity and sell my own cigars. Today, I want to discuss a very important issue for small businesses in the Cigar trade. I will attempt to be as factual as possible, as a single violation of the rules can result in a ban from accepting credit cards in professional business.

As you probably already know, businesses wishing to handle financial information such as credit card numbers of their customers must conform to PCI Compliance standards. This is mandatory, and not following their standards places your customers financial information in a potential state of risk. One standard, for example, is not storing any credit card data in an un-encrypted format. If a business were to take credit card transactions by carbon copy ream, the copies would have to be destroyed immediately after clearing.

PCI compliance was established by the five major crediting agencies: Discover, Visa, American Express, MasterCard, and JCB Financial, and it was supposed to standardize the requirements for merchants to do safe business with consumer credit information. Remember that word, "Standardize", for a moment. We're coming back to it.

The idea is simple, no matter what agency holds your cards, no matter what financial institution credits them, the standard by which they are protected should be the same, right? This makes it, among other things, so that a Merchant doesn't need different equipment for different standards of card? Imagine if you had to put your card in the correct reader every time you pumped gas. It's stupid.

MasterCard has decided that, for certain industries, PCI Compliance isn't good enough. Yes, you heard me right. The standards that they developed, they now render insufficient in certain markets.

"Well Ephram, how fucked, exactly, is the situation?"

At this time, I can still take a MasterCard in a face to face transaction where the card is read via magnetic stripe or chip. If I can prove I have a record of the card being present, and the transaction is PCI compliant, I'm still safe. However, if I take that transaction online, or over the phone, in what's referred to as a MOTO (Mail Order/Telephone Order) transaction, MasterCard demands an additional compliance fee of $500 dollars annually, as well as an annual write up from an independent attorney, showing my business complies with all regulations in my state, as well as the states I ship to.

Don't want to play ball? That's fine. If MasterCard catches you in the act, they fine your Merchant Services provider $10,000, and guess what, they won't pay it. Why should they? It's your "mistake". They pass that fine on to you. They may also close your account. They may also blacklist your business from getting another merchant services account, effectively denying your ability to take credit cards in your business. It's a Death Sentence for small businesses.

Even if you decide to play ball and register every year, get your attorney, cough up the money, etc. should you ever decide not to re-register, they might blacklist you anyways to "protect" the integrity of the electronic marketplace for other consumers. Is this starting to sound like the mafia yet?

"So, what can I do about it? I'm just a consumer."

To protect your favorite retailers of cigars, the best thing you can do is not use a MasterCard - any MasterCard. This may not be good enough soon, if Visa jumps on the bandwagon as they have discussed recently.

If you're dedicated to the cause, close your MasterCard, show them their Mafioso practices are unappreciated. I don't honestly expect anyone to do this, but I know I would if I had one. Stay appraised of these issues as the world tries to shut down our beloved hobby and lifestyle. My merchant services provider, or MasterCard, would not have informed me of these practices until it was too late. Keep knowledgeable to protect yourself and others.

Please Read for more info: http://www.ipcpr.org/?page=PCICompliance

-Ephram Rafael
Current Smoke: My Father Cedros Deluxe

Cigar Mold

I earlier posted, then quickly removed, a rant about Plume versus Mold. Thankfully, my rant received the proper attention, which is to say my bullshit was called, and what I was presenting as Plume was actually revealed to be Mold.

Totally not Plume

As an apology to the /r/cigars community I so love, I went out and purchased a potato-quality microscope with a VGA sensor eyepiece attachment to discern what I was looking at. Sadly, quality is about what you'd expect from the camera, so you're going to have to trust me as I present my findings, which I will back up with observations from the regular optical eyepiece, which obviously had a much clearer picture.

Here we go:

Between 40-80x magnification

Between 40-80x magnification

So these first two picture you're looking at are regular, healthy, leaf taken from an unaffected part of the cigar in question, a Romeo 1875 Numero Dos Tubo. Can't apologize enough for the tough-to-work with quality, and I may back these up with my friend's stereoscope in the near-future, but what I was looking at wasn't far from Butcher's Paper (or Brown Craft Paper), it looked coarse, light shone easily through it, very sort of "fuzzy" in it's quality.

Between 40-80x magnification

This next image is taken from an affected part of the leaf, and pretty clearly shows a sort of "sea" of white fluffy mold. Almost spiderweb like in appearance. So that clears it up, it was definitely mold.

Finally, I took a picture of a piece of mold I removed from the leaf to attempt to get the maximum quality out of my potatoscope.

Between 150-300x magnification

Although it may look slightly crystalline in this fuzzy image, it's actually got that same spider-web like appearance on the regular ocular. Imagine balling up a larger web, and the appearance wouldn't be far-off.

So, again, though science is never completely infallible in it's observation, and barring the possibility of some small insect civilization on this box of RyJ, we're looking at mold, it's pretty clear.

As a final note, please understand that the reason I cannot list the exact magnification of the images is because the digital ocular doesn't list one. The regular eyepiece spans from 10-20x magnification, making the three subjects 40-80, 150-300, and 300-600 power total. Since the camera lists no magnification, I'm forced to list the potential range achieved by the subject alone.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner

PotatoScope: Fun for the Whole Family!

El Beest by Blue Mountain Cigars

Next in my lineup of Blue Mountain's products is the comically named "El Beest".

That is not a typo.

I'll start with some observations, then we'll read the technical specs together, then I'll smoke it and cough up a review.

This sample given to me by the BMC rep was, like it's predecessor, rolling around in a trunk for a few days before it reached my hands. I treat all hand rolled cigars with respect, so I immediately put it in my humidor for reconditioning. It's been a few weeks since it entered the proverbial hyperbolic chamber, today, it will meet it's end in battle.

The Beest, as I realize calling it "The El Beest" is redundant like "ATM Machine" or "PIN Number", features a relatively dark wrapper. I'm not sure whether they intended for it to be a maduro but it certainly could pass for one. The industry has been blurring the lines on what constitutes a maduro lately, with some maduros being the same shade as an average sun grown. Not really sure what the jam is here, but El Beest is dark. Alright, I give, I looked it up out of curiosity, they call it a Nicaraguan Habano Criollo wrapper. What a mouthful, no pun intended.

So aroma pre-light is full of spice, fairly well expected from it's Nicaraguan origins. I don't smell much else, save for perhaps the barest hint of remaining ammonia.

Cap construction is a little odd. The cap goes over half an inch down the body of the cigar, and is finished with a pig-tail. I guess in theory that's good, since cutting the cap lends to your cigar unrolling, but it wasn't done very artfully.

The label is ridiculous. It reminds me of some failed 3D rendering for a creature that might have appeared in the Avatar movie everyone was raving about a few years back. Somewhat like a Saber-tooth Tiger might look like casted in a Super Mario Brothers game.

If that's El Beest, I'm not scared.

BMC seems to only sell this cigar in one vitola: robusto. While I can't fault them for their choice of a pretty standard size to introduce this cigar, a greater array of sizes will showcase the flavors of the tobacco better than giving up and saying "Guys, we're taking the easy road. Roll 100,000 robustos and box them up."

Disappointingly, many industry newcomers make this mistake. The more intense flavors of this cigar might have fared better in a wider ring-gauge, like a toro gordo. However, the robusto does another thing, it normalizes their price to a modest 6.50 MSRP per stick. That's probably to their benefit.

So I light up, and I'm immediately tasting pretty average Nicaraguan spices. There's a strong earth note early in the cigar, like a metallic earthiness. I also taste a lot of leather, but not like a pleasant "we just walked by a Wilson's" leather, it's more like a "You just put a new saddle on an old horse and tried to sell it to me", leather.

Body is fairly full, note over the top. They got that right. Supposedly their filler/binder blend is a Nicaraguan Ligero, but I can't imagine they've used a Ligero as a binder, because it doesn't burn well. However, looking down at the burn lines of my cigar, maybe they did...

Even though the core ash is solid and holding, I've had to ash this cigar multiple times because the wrapper keeps burning off in big flaky chunks and landing all over my shirt. It's kind of like going on the shark tank with a mustard stain on your khakis. They know you mean well. But that won't stop them from staring at the flaw.

I'm nearing an inch into the cigar and getting an herbal note in the tobacco. It's a pretty standard Oregano/Sage note, kind of muted behind the earth notes.

Draw remains fairly open. I did not dry box this cigar at all, and I used a fairly conservative straight-cut, so their Torcedors are probably fairly skilled. One cigar is hardly a fair judge of the overall consistency offered by their rollers, but my sample appears solid. I guess the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

I'll update this review if anything changes, and I'll certainly be fair about it, but right now, I'm issuing a tentative score of 2.5/5. This cigar is painfully average, but might be worth it or the average smoker due to it's low price point. If you're looking for a budget stick and you like earthy Nicaraguans, pickup El Beest.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: El Beest, Robusto

Jamaica Commodore by Blue Mountain Cigars

Another day, another rep, another company profile lounging all over my screen estate.

This week, I'm delving into Blue Mountain Cigars. They're a newer company out of Miami with some interesting cigars. I had another rep from a well respected industry leader come in immediately after the BMC rep was here and he indicated they're a bit of a joke in the tobacco industry at the moment. Well, that's all well and good, but I've gotta pass judgement on my own.

So today, I'm smoking the Jamaica Commodore in about a Robusto size. When the rep gave me my samples he indicated they had been in his trunk for a few days. This kind of made me wince. So I left them in my humidor at the shop for a couple weeks. Today, I realized they were ready to smoke, and dove in.

So this Jamaica Commodore has a Connecticut wrapper and a Jamacian filler/binder. I've read that there may be a Sumatran-wrapped version as well, but I'm not quite substantiated on that yet.

In the flavor department, it falls a little flat. The Jamacian filler is overpowering my palate with a strong leafy taste that lingers on the roof of my mouth. It's not very strong. Around here, mediums tend to be mild, and full tends to be medium. It takes a Liga Privada, or strong LFD to really light our fires at the shop, but nonetheless I'm fairly confident most people will find this to be a mild.

Summing this cigar up, I'd say it's a pass. I'm not a huge fan of Jamaican tobaccos, so it's not really my cup, but if you're into that sort of thing (think the old, Royal Jamaica), you might give it a shot and pass judgement on this new, growing, company.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: Jamaican Commodore Robusto 1.9/5

The Cost of Free

A wise man, who happened to be a car salesman for a major domestic brand once spoke these words to me:

"Ephram, if anyone ever tells you you're getting something for free, be skeptical. When we tell you you're getting an undercoating for free, you're paying for it. Your free upgrade to the winter package? You're paying for it. Every bullshit sales tactic is at our command in that moment. Trust me, there's no tree behind our lot that grows extra floor mats. If someone offers you something for free, ask what it really costs."

So with that in mind, here's the state of our Pepin Garcia humidor:

I have, maybe 50 cigars left from Pepin's brands. I've got a couple My Fathers, and a couple Black Label Cuban Classics.

I have told this story to our customers, maybe twenty times in the last week, but here goes again...

On our last shipment, Pepin had a promotion going. Due to industry 'rules' I cannot actually explain what this promotion was. However, it basically resulted in us, the retailer, getting a free box of cigars.

There's that word again.

Now, Pepin has a bad shipping department. I say "bad", but what I really mean is "worst in the industry". So when we didn't receive our most recent shipment, we wrote it off for a few days.

"Whatever, the Pepin shipment is late again. Big surprise."

After a few more days, we called. And found out there was a past due amount on our account with them, and that they were holding our order because of it.

"What past due amount? They bill our company card immediately."

Care to guess how much that past due amount was? Well, I'll tell you it was equal to exactly the amount our "free" box of cigars costs, wholesale.

Needless to say, we were not happy. They held our order over a "free" box of cigars. They're currently, at this moment, costing me hundreds of dollars in revenue over a "free" box of cigars.

So we paid the damn invoice. Even though we could have straightened it out and gotten our "free" box, we ended up paying for it just so they would release our order. That's the true cost of "free".

So now, I'm sitting here smoking another brand while I wait for Pepin's order to get here. Hopefully, we'll see it soon before they decide to offer us free shipping, then hold the entire order because we neglected to pay for shipping.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner

Current Smoke: Aging Room Maduro, Robusto size.

Felix Assouline Cigars

It's been over a month since my last update. Readers rejoice, I'm here. You may now recommence the party.

I had a rep come in today from one Felix Assouline Cigars, and I need to get something of my chest, immediately. The brand's namesake has a terrible last name. "Assouline", pronounced like "Gasoline", is not only difficult to phonetically understand, it makes me thing of the unholy mating of "Ass" and "Gasoline", which is a bridge none of us, except those of you coming from 4chan, wants to cross.

So lets push that off the table and onto the ground for the dogs to feast on, because I know what you're interested in: the cigars. My perception so far, is that the cigars are good.

I'm currently smoking a cigarillo they produce, it's actually a tiny ring-gauge version of another cigar they make, the EGO. the EGO line has a few interesting tidbits about it. First, their cigarillo is the only long-fill cigarillo I've ever come across. I unwrapped it to check. Sure enough, it holds an ash and has a great draw. Flavors aren't as pronounced as it's wider cousin, but it's still one of the best cigarillos I've ever smoked. The ego has another interesting facet in it's line. The "Perfect" vitola is the world's first box pressed perfecto, verified at last year's IPCPR.

Most of Assouline's (wow, that gets worse as you say it) other cigars are blends are wrapped in a decent looking Habano 98 wrapper, bound with a leaf of Indonesian tobacco, and filled with a blend of Nicaraguan and Honduran filler.

I've never had Indonesian tobacco before. I have literally no comment on it for better or worse. Someone pointed out to me that Sumatran tobacco should technically be Indonesian, however, most of this tobacco is actually "Ecuadorian Sumatra", which I surmise means it's a Sumatran strain grown in Ecuador.

Our rep mentioned to us that Ass-Gasoli... damn it... Assouline is working on a puro blend from his Honduran stock. Blends are all well and good, and can be accomplished well by a talented blender, but puro cigars have a higher chance of fairly showcasing the flavors of the selected leaves. It is for this reason that I'm excited to smoke what Assouline is blending next.

All in all, the blends that I smoked received mixed reviews. I liked his "Something Special" and the "EGO" both in the perfecto and cigarillo formats. The others that I gave out seemed to have a cold reception.

I'd give his work a 3/5. It's still maturing, and I'm excited to see what he produces next.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: EGO Shot (Cigarillo format)