Digital Fugue - Random Thots

Cigar Blind Date Test

My friend Aizuddin have rubbed shoulders with some cigar maestros during the Habanos Royal Charity Dinner a couple of days back. All that glorious food and rare cigars, not to mention cute chicks, dont just end there. Apparently a mysterious cigar maker have approached him and offered some cigar samples, sort of to test out the market kinda thing.

If you are interested, there will be a dinner cum cigar testing session sometime next week. You just have to pay for the dinner, cigars will be given out later. Head over to his cigar blog for details.
Hope to see you there!

Montecristo Tubo

I traded one of my Zino Mouton Cadet No. 6 with the Montecristo Tubo from Fahroe. It came in a nice cream colored tube with red cap. The 3rd Cigar Meet was the best occassion to smoke this cigar. The cigar was wrapped in a nice maduro dark natural wrapper and it is smooth and oily.

Lighting the cigar was easy, a RM1 lighter would do the job. It burns evenly. The first few draws were OK. A little effort needed as the smoke was not volumnous. As usual, the monte cook up a medium taste in the beginning. The ash was dark gray and almost solid.

After about 50%, the monte's full bodied taste start to kick in. However, there was an uneven burn and drawing the cigar took more effort. I tried easing up the cigar, firmly rolling its length in between my fingers.
That didn't quite work. I continued smoking with some heavy drawing.

At 2/3, it was very hard to get a decent draw. Slight tar deposit was also noticed. I had to stop here. However, the full monte taste was excellent. I was already tipsy and I had no qualms parting with the cigar.
Till the next monte, here's my rating;

Appearance: 18/20
Lighting and Burning: 8/15
Construction: 24/30
Taste: 34/35
Final Score: 84/100

Remarks: Perhaps it was a badly rolled monte. Well, we get lemons once in a while.

Absolute Chillout

The 3rd Cigar Meet was a smash! The meet was held at Bon Ton last Friday, where we managed to get a private room. Sharizal was there first, followed by me and then Aiz, Tone and Fahroe.

Background music was a mix of jazz, classical and chillout lounge, provided by moi, le musical thinker :)
We started off with the jazzy tunes of John Scofield - Works For Me. Dinner was accompanied by tunes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the Amadeus Sountrack and finally, the cigar chillout session hit the spot with Zero7 - Simple Things. For the finale, there were two bonus tracks from Hotel Costes: Quatre; Sous le Soleil (Cuba Acoustic Mix) by The Major Boys, and Café de Flore (Charles Webster's Latin Lovers Mix)

The food was marvellous... sinfully marvellous! I stuffed myself to the max i felt like a python. Let's save that for the next post shall we?

Good company, good music, good food, good cigar.... the only thing missing is the company of the opposite sex. :)
Other than that, what else could you ask for? Life is beautiful.

More pics available at Aiz's Visuals.

3rd Cigar Meet

The third cigar meet will be held this Friday, October 3rd 2003, at Bon Ton. Details can be obtained at Aiz's Cigar Blog. give him a tinkle and let us puff away.

Talking about cigars, I manage to get myself a trio Zino Mouton Cadet No. 6. Traded one with Fahroe's Montecristo, and I also traded my Private Stock Robusto with a Te Amo (Corona?).

Now which one shall I smoke for the cigar meet up? The Monte, the Zino No. 6 or the Griffin No. 300?

Details, reviews and pictures will be posted by the end this weekend

Counterfeit Cohiba Red Dot

The Cohiba Red Dot I got from a friend was actually a counterfeit. Well, its not really noticable upon visual inspection, unless you really look. On visual inspection, the cigar came in a cello wrapper, a little veiny and it spot the box effect. It somehow reminds me of the cheap european cigars available at supermarkets (Villiger, Willhem etc.). That's one suspicion.

Another was the band. It was fixed rather shoddily and a check with cigar aficionado confirms it was a fake.

The original band would look like this:

My counterfeit:

Here's a link from Cigar Aficionado on another counterfeit red dot.

However, i tried the cigar out of curiosity. Upon lighting the taste was bland. The draw was not without effort in fact it was rather difficult to draw a suffient volume of smoke. After about one-third, tar deposit start to build up and the taste by now was rather acidy and harsh. It was at this point i decided to part with the poser and threw it into the BBQ pit.

Don Diego Coronas Major

I was keeping this cigar for quite sometime, finding the right occation to go with it. Alas came the 2nd Cigar Blog Meet, just the right time and environment to indulge a cigar. The cigar was a dominican, made by Consolidated Cigar Co.
The Coronas Major comes in a polished aluminum tube, exactly like the Punch Coronas Major. Out of the tube, the tobacco smell was subsided by a cedarry scent, very pleasing indeed. The color was of coffee and cream.

2nd Cigar Blog Meet

The second cigar blog meet was held last Friday night at Havana Club Concorde hotel. It was a smash as Aizuddin had organized a PS2 party to go with the meet as well. A funny concoction, but yes, cigars and games can somehow find a meeting point somewhere... I guess the nicotine makes the adrenaline flow more fluidly and improve the thumb and eye coordination ;)

I traded two cigars with Aiz, my Private Stock Robusto and Avo Uvezian Puritos Classico with his Private Stock Long Filler and Macanudo Miniatures. I smoked a Don Diego Coronas Major at Havana Club and then the Macanudo Miniatures at Hard Rock Cafe later that night.

Sharizal, on the other hand was happy with his romeo y julliet. According to him, it was the first time he smoked a cigar to the stub. We hope to see him again in our next meet :)

Head on to the extended entry for pictures

Private Stock Robusto

I finally got the chance to smoke the Medium Filler Private Stock Robusto caigar i bought a couple of weeks back. No special occassion or anything like that, just a normal chillout session at Hard Rock Cafe.

Physically, the cigar is well built. I could not find any flaws in the construction. The wrapper was perfect, not oily and not dry. If there was a flaw in physical appearence, it would be the cheap looking thick, fat and ugly cigar band that comes with it. Not that it matters, but it is just plain ugly.

Mo' Cigars

On sunday, i managed to pop by at Davidoff's KLCC. My intention was to replenish my Avo Puritos stash (I have only one left). However, the lady informed me that they have ran out of the Puritos, only the Avo Domaine is available. I have tried the Avo Domaine. Foa a small cigar it is a bit too stong, considering that you could finish it in less than 30 minutes. I prefer the milder Puritos.
I decided to checkout other smokes in the walk in humidor. My first choice would certainly be one of the tubos.

Cigar Blogmeet Pictures

Cigar Blogmeet Pictures

I have uploaded the CigarBlogmeet pics at the CigarBlogMeet Gallery. Aizuddin, in his cigar blog have annouced that the CigarBlogmeet will be a monthly event, the first friday of the month will be cigar day (followed by partying all night long.. teeheeheee...). Yes, I am definitely looking forward to that.
Next month's smoke will be Don Diego Coronas Major. For the sake of review, I have prepared a simple Cigar Rating Sheet, based on a sheet i found in one of the cigar guide books i have. A cool review sheet you can bring along to your favourite divan and rate your smoke there and then. Of course you can then go back, review the rating sheet, elaborate and write a two pager report for Cigar Aficionado while reminiscing the aftertaste of your smoke.
The sample can be seen at the CigarBlogMeet Gallery. Feel free to use it to rate your own smoke.

Okay, before someone sue me, here's a reminder:

Plug: Talk about being medieval!