Posted: 11:51 AM ET, 03/15/10The weekend forecast called for heavy rains and damaging winds. When the storm that has no name had finished pummeling southern Connecticut, more than 80,000 people in my state were without power, and an untold number of trees had fallen, the victim of wind gusts that peaked at near-hurricane speed, 70 miles per hour. Read more
Posted: 03:20 PM ET, 03/12/10What do you get when you carve out 7,000 acres of Caribbean coastline, build a hotel with 265 rooms and 100 private villa rental homes, construct four golf courses, a new marina, private beach and a residential community the size of a small city? Paradise? Pretty darn close. Read more
Posted: 10:07 AM ET, 03/11/10A 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. Read more
Posted: 09:17 AM ET, 03/10/10The rating of golf courses is subjective. Some players like old-style parkland courses, some like the links format, others only get excited over target golf. The debate over modern versus traditional designs can go on forever. There are very few perfect golf courses, although we all know the ones that get touted as such by name: Pine Valley, Augusta, Shinnecock, Cypress Point, Pebble Beach, Winged Foot, Seminole and places like Pinehurst No. Read more
Posted: 03:51 PM ET, 03/08/10Americans might finally get the chance to try Robaina grown tobacco in the not too distance future. Hiroshi Robaina, the grandson of Cuba’s best-known tobacco grower, Alejandro Robaina, is setting up plantations in Ecuador.
"The climate is the same level as Cuba," said the 33-year-old last week, during a visit to his family's plantation in Pinar del Río, Cuba. Read more
Posted: 09:50 AM ET, 03/08/10You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief around the stone coffee table on the outdoor patio, the palm fronds brushing against each other in the light breeze and the stars—especially the Orion constellation—shining in the clear, nighttime sky. Read more
Posted: 10:17 AM ET, 03/05/10I can spend a lot of time writing and speaking about mega-cigars, limited edition smokes and vintage sticks. But I like smoking mainline cigars just as much. In fact, most of the time I prefer them. Besides, cigar factories (see yesterday’s blog for a video on Cuba’s biggest) spend most of their time making normal smokes. Read more
Posted: 12:49 PM ET, 03/04/10I 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. Read more
Posted: 02:15 PM ET, 03/03/10I must admit that I don’t think very often about Tequila when I am looking for something to drink with my cigar. I usually grab a glass of rum or Port or Champagne, or even red wine or beer. But Tequila?
That’s why I found a blind tasting of two cigars—Montecristo No. Read more
Posted: 06:46 PM ET, 03/02/10Do 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. Read more
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