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Burning Man

Well, some of those are unknown entities to me, and others have had several samplers of their lines. I like Graycliff, although not at anything close to MSRP (Double E, White, Purple, Green, in that order). Still haven't tried some of their newer lines. The only Diamond Crown I ever had that I liked were the Maximus and JC lines, and the Max #1 is still on my personal Top Ten list. Love that cigar. IIRC, the Centro Fino sungrown line is part of the DC family. That and the maduro Centro are both overlooked gems, IMO.

La Gloria and Diesel would depend on what's in them, but there are good lines in both. Just about anything made by Oliva that doesn't have "Flor de" in the title is reliable to me (love the Melanio, the V, and the V maddie--especially the 2008 original of that line). Don't know if you can still get them, but the El Cobre was a good, full smoke. The old "toilet seat" maduro is fantastic if you can ever find them (the box literally looks like a toilet seat). Loved the MB II, but that's long gone. Never understood the fuss over the MB III, but I'm pretty clearly in the minority there, as I am on Graycliff.

AB, Perdomo, LA, all depends on which blend. Tempus and Prensado? I'm there. Have not tried several of the new ones. Might be a good way to get in on that. If it's a Perdomo with a maduro wrapper, I'm also there. LA lines are hit or miss with me, but there are a few I like...Barrel Aged, some of the Preferidos, etc. Come to think of it, I may have a fiver of the Black Label. Will give them a try when I get my taste buds back.

Thanks for the info., sounds like you have some good smokes there. And #2, damn, dude, warn us next time. Yikes.

Used to be able to get the Kristoff sampler of 8 cheap...........if you can get it for close to 20......that’s a good sampler.

Some good Tat samplers out there........not cheap though.
The other place has a cheaper Tat sampler, but has all the mediocre Tats in it....

I've only had one Kristoff and I suspect it may be their best. (At least for my flavor profile) It was the Pistoff Kristoff. Love it. I've been eyeballing the 8 count Kristoff sampler you mention. Waiting for a good deal on it. Last time I looked it was going for around $40.
Also know the cheaper Tat sampler you mention. Funny they call it their "Best Of" sampler lol. I got these Tat samplers in line waiting:
http://www.cigarbid.com/...aking-the-Tat-tour-soon-

#8 I don't know why the folks at CA don't give Kristoff much love, and taste is always subjective, but the Criollo ligero has long been a favored cigar of mine (say maybe top 40-50), and the Corojo is the real gem in that line, IMO. If you can get hold of a Tatuaje little monsters, skinny monsters, or some variation thereof at a decent price, there are some fine sets to smoke. To step up a bit in price but for some good cigars, the Tatuaje cojonu 2012 series came in 3 wrappers. Sumatra is the best of the bunch, but all three are good.

How was it?

can't forget the ambient humidity when you smoke a cigar....luckily it is rarely an issue where I live...

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Ambient humidity is a huge issue that is usually overlooked by most cigar guys.

You may at first think "how much of the air's humidity can really permeate through the wrapper during an hour smoke time?"

Then though, you realize, "wait, with every puff I'm drawing that moist air through the cigar's entire length!"

Yep, that's the problem. Better to wait for a dry day.

Maduro-wrapped cigars are the most affected, I've found (for example, Chief Cool Arrow, but also many others).

This sometimes leads to one guy saying, "such-and-such cigar is great!" and another guy replying, "are you crazy? It sucks!" One guy smoked it on a dry day, one on a humid or rainy day.
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I have a good deal of experience with smoking cigars in Florida, in fact a total worst-case scenario.

I used to vacation (and really should again, it's been too long) in a direct-oceanfront house where the foundation was around 10 feet from the sand.

Result? Constant stiff ocean breeze 24x7 plus super-high humidity all the time (I mean, it's Florida, plus there's the ocean RIGHT THERE!), both of which wreak havoc on cigars while you're smoking them.

Solution? Found a cardboard box, opened the top flaps vertically, duct-taped three of them together in the vertical position, left the fouth flap bent downward. Result: a really tall box, open on the top, and with 3 sides full-height and one side half-height. I put an ashtray inside, and aimed the half-height side of the box away from the ocean, leaving the 3 tall sides to deflect and reduce the ocean breeze. I also kept the cigar in the ashtray whenever I wasn't actually puffing (no holding it in my hand in the direct breeze). Also, no maduros. Mostly Connecticuts, as they were least affected by the humidity.

If any of you lads are beachside in Florida sometime, try that. It's not hard to scrounge up a cardboard box, and if you have a weighty (e.g. big and ceramic) ashtray, it'll keep the box from blowing away. If not, add rocks or other weights at the corners inside the box, all around the ashtray.

An alternate solution I've used is to simply drive the convertible onto the beach, park it, drop the top but raise the windows. Excellent breeze-killer so (non-maduro) cigars smoke great, but you still have panoramic vision (the only window frame is the windshield, nothing else) and all the sounds and scents of the beach, plus you can get a tan at the same time! Downside - requires a convertible, which is a problem for most people, and a driving/parking-approved beach, of which there are not many.
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#11 Nice. Then again, if I'd known you got that, I'd be in borderline stalker territory.

#16 I noticed that. My wife and I have been to Key West three times. Been a few years since our last trip there, but the first time I lit a cigar out by the pool (back when you could do such a thing without getting pilloried and/or a fire hose), I kept trying to figure out where the hell all the flavor of my cigar had gone to. Up in the PNW, summer humidity is usually below 20%. When we get higher humidity, it's usually cold enough to warrant smoking somewhere indoors, preferably with heat on, so that dries out the air as well. Took me a couple days getting used to smoking in the humid weather. Noticed the same thing last time I was in Hawaii. Only had that problem at lower elevations in Costa Rica. Up in the hills or in the Guanacaste region, no problem.

Glad to know it's not just my imagination.

Well, that's the norm there. So firing one up that is already at ambient temp and humi may not be such a shock as pulling one out of 65/65 and taking it outside into the 85/85. I don't know the answer to that.

But, I'm watching now, and if I find a correlation I'll share it for sure. Albeit anecdotal at best.

I've smoked a bunch of cigars on the beach here in TX and there is random challenges that seem more wind related. I remember specifically smoking a Diamond Crown Maximus and I had to smoke it a bit faster than normal but it never went out on me. Maybe a burn touch up or 2.


How bout them samplers??

It means putting the cigar in a dry (non-humidified) box for a day, or two, or three.

A non-humidified, empty, well-made Spanish cedar cigar box works well for this (for example, the Chief boxes work great and also look great on your end table or whatever).

The optimal amount of time to leave it in there before smoking depends on many variables, so experiment!

As for plugs, dryboxing won't fix them, but the PerfecDraw tool will. However, it will NOT fix stick-wide, end-to-end rolling that's too tight, as you have to basically gut the cigar so much to open up the draw that it'll cause bad burn issues. But for a single localized plug, it works great if you can find the plug and abrade-away and remove enough of the plug's tobacco.

Problem is, I hear it's best for CCs which have plugs aplenty. I only do NCs and I find it very rare to get a plug. Usually it's "too tight end-to-end" and the tool doesn't help. Supposedly it was designed by a dentist (as they already use similar sharp, picky metal tools) who smokes a lot of CCs.
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Add the Cavalier Geneve Brand Sampler to favorites

Oddly enough, I ended up with a non-vegan batch of sauerkraut that very same way a few years ago.

I found it in the cabbage, but I could never eat pork and beans after that. Go figure.

#30 LOL. Note to self: BYOF to dinner at Gunner's.

I had a new mandolin, some low starch Yukon Gold potatoes to make my wife Spanish tortilla. Five ingredients, and I got injured on the first one, looking up at deer outside the kitchen. We only see deer outside here about 350 days a year (actually had about 7-8 playing around a big garden we share with a neighbor just last night, chasing each other in circles). Total cranial flatulence on my part. I only went to the ER after going through 3 paper towels and starting to worry if I'd lose enough blood to still be able to drive the 17 miles. The ER doc used a clotting bandage. Then another. Third one finally did it. Took me over 2 years to stop hurting myself every damned time I banged the fingertip into a door, table, etc. Must have clipped it right to the nerve endings.

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Yeah I got the Graycliff Mega Sampler off here and they were all pretty damn good. I actually have a higher dollar sampler from Graycliff and I have their Professionale blend in there and in the one from cbid. Since u mention this I'm a smoke them b2b and see if I notice a difference.

pacman is gone

You don't mean.... GONE gone, do you?
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Pac man was all over this board when I originally joined in 2009. I missed him and it was good to see him back. I hope he's not gone for good.

David

My fav Kristoff so far is the Pistoff Kristoff.

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I actually have a Fratello 5 cigar sampler and Padron 8 cigar samplers in both Maduro and Natural chilling that I need to burn through.

Delta if you have had particular sampler from those mentioned post them and I can add to list.with you name next to it.

And anyone for that matter if you would like to add any particular brand samplers you have had to the list I will add them with your name next to it. Just let me know which list they would best fit under.

Mine did not but crab hammers in Dallas is genius! Everyone will ask "where's the crab??"

Are you sure that hammer wasn't actually a cigar box opener? I had similar confusion when I received a small hammer in the mail as a holiday gift from CoH. I actually did not know that even existed lol. Took me like 10min of interwebz research to figure it out.