A long time ago, a man purchased a piece of bayfront property that he called The Shack. One day that man got together with a dozen of his pals from a cigar web forum and had a Herf. For those that do not know what a HERF is, it is simply a get together for cigar lovers, where cigars are smoked, beverages are drunk and food is consumed. Well after 5 years, it was time for Shack Herf VI.
I took a few days off from work and headed up to Ohio for the event. But I am not here to tout the virtues of the Shack Herf. I am here to say that I smoked a good many cigars there, and I KNOW that I have not been smoking many cigars for this blog. So I thought maybe I could write a bit here and there about the cigars I smoked. But to be honest, the best cigar I smoked of mine was a 2 dollar tubo from Belinda in a plastic tube. It was a Coronas Claro Tubo. It was bright and fresh and breezy, twangy and totally enjoyable. It was a machine-made cigar, but quite a nice surprise.
Later during the day, I had occasion to join a Puff, Puff, Pass. Several people ring a table and most times contribute a cigar to the circle which travels along at one puff at a time and rotates clockwise or counter. The stars of this PPP were a Cohiba Maduro Genios, kind of a fat toro or corona gorda. It was toasty and chocolatey and was the star for a time. Also featured was a fantastic Partagas Lusitania from 2001 that rolled along with no particular wow moments until about halfway, and it absolutely sparkled with flavor and spice and herbal excitement. Then a gent walked up with a real rarity nowadays, a Ramon Allones 898 from a cabinet, I think from the 2001 vintage. I could be wrong. Everytime it passed around the table, it had gotten just that much better. I have no qualms about saying that it was the best tasting cigar lit at that hour, and there were some real stunners going among the 100-125 people all smoking at once. I threw a Bolivar Belicoso Fino in there at one time and it was good, but did not get anyone all that excited. To kick the whole show off I smoked a 01 Cohiba Lancero that was very well regarded, from the same batch as the original one that began this blog. We also tried a Partagas Serie P No.2 Tubo that was pretty nice, as well as a H. Upmann Magnum 48 EL. Imagine those all going around the table over and over. I think no one got sick, but that is no easy thing to puff at a rate of one every 15-30 seconds. It also ruins cigars, and I think they all expired at abut the 1/3 to 1/4 mark and certainly none were nubbed.
All I can offer you is what I think. What you'll never get here is someone else's opinion, or softened up criticism to protect the feelings of the people who make my cigars, or changing what I write to protect advertisers. Its just me and you. I'll do the story-telling and you do the givin' a crap. It'll be FUN! Come on.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Beautiful Sights in the Smokies
So We had to be out of our Cabin on Saturday morning. Everyone had to leave town, but I had nowhere in particular to be. Once I returned to the intolerable western end of the state, there would be no going back, so i took a solitary drive up to Newfound Gap for a little peace and quiet. Light streamed through the trees in the misty morning all the way up Newfound Gap Road. No one was pushing me up the mountain, and I just cruised up at 30-something miles per hour and drank in the cool morning air through 4 rolled-down windows. I got to the top and walked around like a beggar, asking people if I could take a photo of them. Nothing is as sad as coming home to your photos and someone is always missing from the picture because they had to take the photo. Sometimes the bold will ask outright if you will take their photo, but with camera-snatching always on people's minds, it happens infrequently. So I just ask when I am around photo folks. They never say no, and I like to do it. I take pictures for a living, more or less. So I am qualified.
The view of the Appalachian trail from Newfound Gap that morning.
The view of the Appalachian trail from Newfound Gap that morning.
Man that's CLEAR.
Kind of sad, too, knowing that as soon as I had had my fill, I'd be going home to the place I had run from just a week earlier. And returning home, I found that we will be spending next week at or above 100 for the entire week. Our nightly low temps are 82-85. yay. But speaking of hot, Girls in Gatlinburg certainly know how to beat the heat.
My little earth mother...
I am too old for these little flower child types, but not too old to hang out of a moving car and snap a photo for posterity. Or posterior, something like that. If the girls at Elkmont had been wearing skirts like these, they all would have been burnt at the stake. Moving cars........who knows. She may have STOPPED to get an ice cream cone. Thank goodness I'll never know, because THAT photo would have been more than I could take, I think.
But that's not the real beauty in the Smokies. There is only ONE reason to hike 5 miles up a mountain when you're in the kind of shape I am in. Either girls like the above-mentioned at the top waiting for me, or views like this. The best thing about the Alum Cave trail route to the summit of Mt. LeConte is the ever-increasing height above the surrounding terrain. You can look UP and see that you are nowhere near the top, but you can look OUT and see that you are getting pretty high up there.
Like i said, this hike killed me. But the views (and the breaks to enjoy them) lift you up a bit so you WANT to continue. At this point my clothes are soaked and my nephew has a small circle of sweat under each arm. I wanted to throw him off the mountain. But I guess I am glad he has the guns to get to the top. And in recuperative power, I kicked his butt the next day, when he said I would be ruined. I was not ruined until several days later, when he was not looking.
And I did not trample these two rare flowers, either. These are 'endangered', whatever that really means when you are a flower. I guess it's the same as any other species, but flowers do not seem to be under threat from anything but lack of water and sunlight, so up here, to me, what's the problem? Collection maybe. Being stepped on maybe. I wish the purple flower had been expanded. I wonder what it looks like?
How the Smokies saved smoking
Just returned from a 3 family trip to the Smokies. We do it every year as a reunion of the 3 kids's families from my own family. My sisters all have families, leaving the confirmed bachelor to sort the world out for himself. And left over from the original fab five is my mother, who once again proved this year that she can out-work any man. 73 years old I think? She would be both gratified and mortified that I have no idea. As a young man, she could easily outwork me. Not outlift me. Not outcarry me. But when I was DONE, she merrily worked circles around me everytime. It never did much for my self-esteem, but once I learned to embrace the humiliation, it was OK by me.
MOM ROARING DOWN THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL
ON ANOTHER DAY
So we are off to visit the Walker sisters homeplace above Little Greenbrier, and she looks like some kind of power-walker, leaving the ranger and our group in the dust. She says it was in case she wore down, and by putting so much space between herself and the group, if she faltered and ran out of gas, she would then only be at the same point as we were. To me it sounded like a RECIPE for wearing down, but whatever she says is fine by me. She certainly kicked my own personal a$$. But she didn't climb up to the summit of Mt. Leconte. It's just as well, she would have embarassed me there, too.
THE VIEW NEAR THE SUMMIT of Mt. LeConte
ANYWAY, sometimes cigars can save a bad day. Over the course of this particular week, the SMOKIES saved the smokes. I had a box full of cigars, but with me having a pipe now and again and it being hot, I had occasion to smoke only two cigars. A Cohiba Siglo II was launched while my brother in law created his championship ice-cream in two separate churns. It was good, but not Cohiba good. It's smoothness and refinement were features of it's 3 years of tube age, but the flavors were muted at best. As I began to chain smoke the second half, I got a little cinnamon and spice, but outside of a few regular tobacco tastes, I got none of the characteristic bean notes that I love so much. For my non-smoking follower Leslie, that's Vanilla, Cocoa and some other bean that escapes me. We always find a way to have to describe the "bean flavors" even though by now with the term in common usage in cigar circles, we should be past it. We come up with acronyms to describe drawn out concepts, and end up having to say BOTH the acronym and the long concept to be understood. Ah, Humans. I give the Siglo II about an 80. ehh.
On the morning of our hike up to the Walker Sister's cabin, I spent my lunch at a picnic area, and fired up a 1998 Punch Corona. It was surprisingly strong for it's age, although my personal taster Leslie said it was very smooth and subtle. I enjoyed it while walking around in a stream that ran beside the picnic grounds, skipping stones and waiting for a woman of legal age to walk by in a bikini. Luckily my family had mercy on me and did two things. We MOVED to the Elkmont campground "play in the stream" spot where there was a girl in a tiny bikini to observe subtly through my aviator shades. And 2nd, they let me let my cigar go out in the car on the way over. As we prepared to leave Metcalf Bottoms I had offered the half smoked corona to a few old timers, and got no takers. So even though it took more time than normal to go out with the stimulating breeze from the sunroof, it eventually did go out and didn't smoke up the car too bad. Had I known we were leaving, I would have stopped puffing earlier and been less of a pain to endure. The cigar had lots of slight creamy flavor and a tobacco core. It was not overly complex by any means but continues to be the star of the re-discovered old cigars they found in King tut's tomb a few years back. Box after box, stick after stick, just a great little cigar. I'd score it 88.
And as it turns out, the girl in the tiny bikini was not exactly of age to be ogling, but she was close enough to justify a close inspection to make that determination. She was not hiding her light under a bushel, that's for sure. And I certainly hope for her sake that she befriended the group she was with, since she appeared to be spending the afternoon with a large group of pretty fundamental folks. The other girls were in skirts and barely got wet feet while the menfolk stripped to the waist in their surfer shorts and fully immersed themselves in the cool water and buzzed around the tiny bikini like bees. There is something fundamental about it alright. Fundamentally hypocritical, that is. If the bikini girl was actually part of their group, I am sure they burned her at the stake later that night. LET THE LADIES SWIM, I say. For MY sake, if not your own.
MOM ROARING DOWN THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL
ON ANOTHER DAY
So we are off to visit the Walker sisters homeplace above Little Greenbrier, and she looks like some kind of power-walker, leaving the ranger and our group in the dust. She says it was in case she wore down, and by putting so much space between herself and the group, if she faltered and ran out of gas, she would then only be at the same point as we were. To me it sounded like a RECIPE for wearing down, but whatever she says is fine by me. She certainly kicked my own personal a$$. But she didn't climb up to the summit of Mt. Leconte. It's just as well, she would have embarassed me there, too.
THE VIEW NEAR THE SUMMIT of Mt. LeConte
ANYWAY, sometimes cigars can save a bad day. Over the course of this particular week, the SMOKIES saved the smokes. I had a box full of cigars, but with me having a pipe now and again and it being hot, I had occasion to smoke only two cigars. A Cohiba Siglo II was launched while my brother in law created his championship ice-cream in two separate churns. It was good, but not Cohiba good. It's smoothness and refinement were features of it's 3 years of tube age, but the flavors were muted at best. As I began to chain smoke the second half, I got a little cinnamon and spice, but outside of a few regular tobacco tastes, I got none of the characteristic bean notes that I love so much. For my non-smoking follower Leslie, that's Vanilla, Cocoa and some other bean that escapes me. We always find a way to have to describe the "bean flavors" even though by now with the term in common usage in cigar circles, we should be past it. We come up with acronyms to describe drawn out concepts, and end up having to say BOTH the acronym and the long concept to be understood. Ah, Humans. I give the Siglo II about an 80. ehh.
On the morning of our hike up to the Walker Sister's cabin, I spent my lunch at a picnic area, and fired up a 1998 Punch Corona. It was surprisingly strong for it's age, although my personal taster Leslie said it was very smooth and subtle. I enjoyed it while walking around in a stream that ran beside the picnic grounds, skipping stones and waiting for a woman of legal age to walk by in a bikini. Luckily my family had mercy on me and did two things. We MOVED to the Elkmont campground "play in the stream" spot where there was a girl in a tiny bikini to observe subtly through my aviator shades. And 2nd, they let me let my cigar go out in the car on the way over. As we prepared to leave Metcalf Bottoms I had offered the half smoked corona to a few old timers, and got no takers. So even though it took more time than normal to go out with the stimulating breeze from the sunroof, it eventually did go out and didn't smoke up the car too bad. Had I known we were leaving, I would have stopped puffing earlier and been less of a pain to endure. The cigar had lots of slight creamy flavor and a tobacco core. It was not overly complex by any means but continues to be the star of the re-discovered old cigars they found in King tut's tomb a few years back. Box after box, stick after stick, just a great little cigar. I'd score it 88.
And as it turns out, the girl in the tiny bikini was not exactly of age to be ogling, but she was close enough to justify a close inspection to make that determination. She was not hiding her light under a bushel, that's for sure. And I certainly hope for her sake that she befriended the group she was with, since she appeared to be spending the afternoon with a large group of pretty fundamental folks. The other girls were in skirts and barely got wet feet while the menfolk stripped to the waist in their surfer shorts and fully immersed themselves in the cool water and buzzed around the tiny bikini like bees. There is something fundamental about it alright. Fundamentally hypocritical, that is. If the bikini girl was actually part of their group, I am sure they burned her at the stake later that night. LET THE LADIES SWIM, I say. For MY sake, if not your own.
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