| Print





Sign In
What's New
Forums
Cigar Ratings
Cigar Videos
Cigar Ratings
Cigar Insider
Retailers
People
Restaurants
Cigar Stars
Library
Travel
Drinks
Events
Cuba
Moments to Remember
Golf
Subscribe
Advanced Search
Back Issues
Help

Advertising Information

Home > Blogs > James Suckling

James Suckling

James Suckling
>About Me
>My Blog Archives
Most Recent Comments:
> Maurice Antonius Koks: hi James, a short update, we will see ...
March 17, 08:22 PM
> Maurice Antonius Koks: Saludos James, thank you for writing ...
March 09, 11:13 AM
>James Suckling: Maurice. I was in Pinar and you are e ...
March 08, 04:08 PM
See Also:
>Cigar Aficionado Blog Index
>Cigar Aficionado Blog Home
>Jack Bettridge's Blog
>Gordon Mott's Blog
>Marvin Shanken's Blog
>David Savona's Blog

A Heartfelt Rumba

Posted: 10:07 AM ET, March 11, 2010
A Cuban musician friend of mine named Ernan Lopez-Nuzza, one of the island’s best jazz pianists, and his wife, Wendy, reminded me the other day during lunch of a rumba called “La Muerte Me Llama Que Es Esto?”  The song, loosely translated, means Death Calls Me But What Is That?

I was thinking of that last week when I was hanging with the great tobacco man Alejandro Robaina at his farm in Pinar del Río. The 91-year-old is like a grandfather to me. I spent many days over the last 15 years or so with he and his family, talking and smoking, and comparing notes about tobacco, love and life. He hasn’t been well lately, and apparently he has cancer in his kidneys, which could be spreading. But he says he is feeling okay for the moment.

“Many people say I am already dead. What are they talking about? I am fine,” Alejandro joked. “It’s really cold this year. It’s the coldest in 20 years. So I have been staying indoors more than usual. This is not normal weather and it’s very hard on me. I am not dead yet!”

It was sort of macabre sitting in the living room of Alejandro’s small house and talking about his death. I really didn’t know what to say other than just treat him with the same respect and love that I always have. We spoke for about 10 minutes about his health and his grandson’s new tobacco growing venture in Ecuador.

You can listen to the video that is posted with this blog. I will loosely translate the conversation. I was light and fun—I didn’t want it to be too serious. Alejandro has a great sense of humor. Cuban humor is very dry, like mine.
yesterday’s blog for a video on Cuba’s biggest) spend most of their time making normal smokes.

I was thinking about this last night when I was out with some friends in one of Havana’s small private restaurants called La Cocina de Lilliam. We had a nice dinner outside on the restaurant's (cold) patio. Food wise, Lilliam is now the best restaurant in Havana, although the cuisine is just good home cooking. The best was La Guarida, but it closed for good late last year.

For example, we shared starters of grilled octopus and fresh tuna with sautéed peppers, and main courses of broiled red snapper with a Cuban dish resembling polenta, and salad. It was good, simple, fresh food. I really enjoyed the 2005 Torres Catalunya Gran Sangre de Toro Reserva. It was made with Grenache, Cariñena and Syrah. I am not sure it sells in the states, but it’s cheap and very cheerful.

I brought along some simple coronas from a cedar box of 25 cigars, called Punch Royal Selection No. 11. The box was from June 2003. And they smoked wonderfully. They are mellow, yet flavorful, delivering beautiful chocolate, coffee and spicy character. I think they cost about $125 a box. I would score them 90 or 91 points, non blind.

Everyone at the table enjoyed the cigars as we sat together and talked in the brisk Cuban evening.   Read more

  • Read More
  • Submit your comments >

    • Cuba's Largest Cigar Factory

    Posted: 12:49 PM ET, March 04, 2010
    I dig going to the cigar factories in Havana. I don’t go as often as I would like because they don’t open them to the public all that much. The one exception is Partagas, which has regular visits each week for tourists.

    It was coolio to visit the La Corona factory last week during the 12 Festival Habano. The workers were obviously on their best behavior. This is now the biggest factory in Cuba, according to one worker from La Corona. More than 900 people work there. Just over 250 are rollers, and they can produce between 40,000 and 50,000 cigars a day. Annual production at La Corona is about 10 million sticks.

    The factory is the mother factory for San Cristobal de La Habana, among others. But they make just about everything—all the key brands as well as various sizes, or vitolas. Check out my blog from two days ago that explains Cuba’s top brands and sizes.

    Fernando Peraza is now the manager of the factory, after working some time abroad, mostly in Cypress. I met him years ago when he was manager of the Romeo y Julieta factory. He is a real pro. He doesn’t talk much, but he is conscientious and very serious.

    It was early in the morning when I arrived, so the lector was reading the daily news to the rollers as they worked. This is a centuries old scene, and traditionally the rollers would give a tiny amount of money each day to the lector to render this service. I love such traditions in Cuba.




    Do you smoke Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, José L. Piedra, Partagas, or Cohiba? Or all of the above?

    You probably smoke one or two of the brands on a regular basis if you are into Cuban cigars, considering those brands account for about three-fourths of the total number of Cuban cigars sold in 2009. Brand figures released during a seminar at the 12th Habanos Festival shows that the above five brands account for the lion’s share of Cuban cigar shipments: Montecristo, 21 percent; Romeo y Julieta, 17 percent; José L. Piedra, 14 percent; Cohiba, 11 percent, and Partagas, 11 percent.

    The top five brands were followed by Hoyo de Monterrey, 6 percent; Quintero, 5 percent; and H. Upmann, 3 percent. The remaining two dozen brands or so account for the rest.

    If you love the ubiquitous Montecristo No. 4, then your petit corona-sized cigar accounted for about 8 percent of the market, followed by Romeo y Julieta Cazadores with 5 percent, Romeo y Julieta No. 2 with 4 percent, Partagas Serie D No. 4 with 4 percent, and Montecristo No. 5 with 3 percent.

    A number of the next five best selling cigars are machine finished, or use short filler, including Partagas Millefleur, 3 percent; Quintero Breva, 3 percent; and José L. Piedra Cremas, 3 percent. The next favorite sizes include Romeo y Julieta No. 3, 2 percent; Cohiba Siglo II, 2 percent; José L. Piedra Petit Cazadores, 2 percent; Romeo y Julieta Romeo No. 1, 2 percent; Montecristo No. 2, 2 percent, Montecristo Edmundo, 2 percent and Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2, 2 percent.   Read more

  • Read More
  • Submit your comments >

    • The End of a Great Event

    Posted: 06:00 PM ET, March 01, 2010
    The president of Habanos S.A., the global distribution and marketing company in Cuba for cigars, came up to me during last Friday’s gala dinner and asked me how I liked the Cohiba Behikes that were being debuted to the world that night.

    “So, Suckling, what do you think of Behike?” said Oscar Basulto Torres, the Cuban president of Habanos. I had just finished the BHK 52, which was in a black lacquered box with two other examples of the new Cohiba range. Participants of the fancy dinner were supposed to take them home as a memento of the evening. I couldn’t wait! Besides, it was my journalist duty to smoke them.

    I already smoked a Behike 56 that fell into my hands a few days before the debut dinner of the blockbuster range. As I explained in former blogs, the robust BHK Cohibas use a full leaf in the blend of medio tiempo, which is stronger than seco but not as strong as ligero. In any case, the full leaf of medio tiempo delivers loads of richness and flavor in all the Behike range.

    “I will give you my Behike 56, if you score it 100 points like you did the Cohiba Siglo VI Gran Reserva last year,” he joked. I wouldn’t be drawn on the score. He gave me his cigar anyway.

    “You don’t have to give it 100 points,” he added as he walked backed through the smoke to the head table. “Just 99.8 would be fine.” I am not sure he was joking completely.
    I am not allowed to score young cigars in my columns or blogs, because the magazine does that in blind tastings. However, I don’t think that Basulto’s evaluation of the BHK 56 is that far off. I smoked another one during the dinner and it was even better than the one I smoked at lunch a few days before.   Read more

  • Read More
  • (2 comments) Submit your comments >

    • The Mysteries of Cuban Cigars

    Posted: 02:27 PM ET, February 26, 2010
    I unraveled more of the mystery of the great new Cohiba Behikes that will be launched tonight at the gala dinner in Havana during the 12th Festival Habano. The attendees of the dinner will receive all three cigars. I can’t wait to try one of the smaller ones.

    I smoked the BHK 56—the largest of the three—the other day and I couldn’t believe how rich and powerful it was. It just about blew my head off, but then came into its own at the end of smoking These three Cohiba Behikes seem like ones to age and enjoy for years ahead, like the great cigars of the early 1990s from the island.

    I went to the Cohiba factory yesterday—El Laguito—and I spoke to a number of rollers who were making the various Behikes. They said that they were using a whole leaf of the medio tiempo, which is the hallmark of the three cigars. There is no super powerful ligero, or the strongest leaf, in the blend. Instead, the medio tiempo is used. Most cigars have half a leaf of ligero, or less, in their blend. No other cigars in Cuba are blended this way.

    I had an interesting conversation with the sub-director of the La Corona factory yesterday about medio tiempo. He said that the leaf is right in between the seco and ligero strength of filler, sun-grown tobacco used for Cuban cigars. “It’s neither seco or ligero,” he said as we were standing in the color sorting room of his factory. If you remember, seco is medium strength, medium flavor and aroma for a blend. Meanwhile, the ligero is for the strength.

    I confirmed with him that the medio tiempo is usually classified as the lightest ligero.   Read more

  • Read More
  • (8 comments) Submit your comments >

    • The Renaissance of the Blockbuster Cuban Cigar

    Posted: 01:24 PM ET, February 25, 2010
    I finally got my lips around a Behike. And it almost blew my head off. A couple of bad-boy-chocolately BHK 56 cigars (6 1/2 inches by 56 ring gauge) came my way, and I tried one following a heavy lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in La Havana, the awesome chicken shop El Aljibe. Usually a powerful smoke is just the right thing after a mega-dose of juicy roasted chicken, black beans and rice. Maybe I should have had more black beans before? Or next time I will order a whole juice-dripping chicken for myself?

    But I must admit that I felt a little stoned about one-quarter of the way into the BHK 56. I was lightheaded at first. I also must say that I like the big gauge of the smoke. It’s got to be one of the biggest Habanos going. It’s bigger than the Cohiba Siglo VI, which is one of my all-time favorites coming out of Havana. In fact, I lit a VI up against the new bad-boy BHK, and at the end of the two smokes, it was the BHK 56 that won.

    “This is a smoke for the professional,” said someone from Habanos S.A., who took part in developing the amazing smoke. Apparently, a panel of professionals in the tobacco sector on the island worked for months developing the blend of the new line extension of Cuba’s most prestigious brand.

    The three Behikes underline how Cohiba is the super brand for Cuba. No smoker can say that the yellow, black and white colored band is just a status symbol now. It truly is “the selection of the selection” as the late Avelino Lara, a former manager of the Cohiba factory, told me in the early 1990s.

    Hostal Conde de Villanueva, and I could barely find my way through the tiny shop! It was like someone had been running a smoke machine in the place.

    I said hello to a Canadian couple that was at last night’s Chuco Valdés gig, which was extraordinary.  I didn’t catch their name but they were from Calgary and were totally digging the experience. “I have been smoking about eight cigars a day while I have been here,” said the husband with a smile. His wife was smiling and happy that her husband had been puffing on so many great Habanos. (Where do you get one of those?)

    Ran into some Germans I knew who showed me one of the new Cohiba Behikes: BHK 56 (6 1/2 inches long by 56 ring gauge). The cigar looked amazing, with a darker and oily wrapper. It smelled like honey and chocolate. It’s obviously made with fabulous tobacco. I was hoping he would let me smoke it. “I would have to kill you if I told you were I got the cigar,” the German said. I decided not to ask him if I could have the smoke as a regalo, or present.

    I keep on thinking back a few years ago when Habanos was considering Behike as a stand-alone brand. Now it is the rock star line extension for Cohiba. Funny world!

    I am now hearing that the new Behikes (check out my blog from Monday for the skinny on them) are going to be 40 percent more than in price than the normal high end Cohibas.   Read more

  • Read More
  • (1 comment) Submit your comments >

    • - Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 -

         Advertisement

     
    Sign in | What's New | Forums | Cigar Ratings | Retailers | Restaurants | People | Cigar Stars
    The Library | Travel | Drinks | The Good Life | Events | Subscribe | Back Issues


     Cigar Aficionado RSS Feed
    Copyright ©2010 CigarAficionado.com

    All Rights Reserved.
    If you're concerned about privacy, click here.