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RASS in the morning, MUR JUN13. Now enjoying a Palmas Extra with a beer that I recently have fallen in love with. Life could be worse. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Long and lean every young man's dream, lol. Nicer weather so I enjoyed a '14 Monte Esp#1. Tasty and so elegant. Smoked it nice and slow. Beautiful cigar.

Few boxes, gorgeous Hope they taste like they look[emoji851] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

5 year old PLPC

Only seven left after this one tonight. Can't decide whether to hunt down another box or not. I guess I'll come to that bridge when it's time to cross it.

15 y/o HU2....if you’ve never tried an aged HU2, you’re truly missing out. A staple in my rotation. I buy them specifically to age them. 10+ year mark and they are absolutely amazing.

Quai d'Orsay Coronas Claro ETP Oct 2015 (Thanks @Luca) . Mainly citrus and shortbread, but not like the shortbread (or toasted bread) you'd get in a H.Upmann. It stayed much the same consistency and flavour throughout. Perhaps a little white pepper through the nose. Sancho Panza Non Plus BMP Jun 2013 (thanks @baragh) What an interesting combination of flavours this was! I would best describe it as a mix of leather, salt and floral notes combined with a creamy texture. This marca is certainly unique amongst Habanos brands for its flavour profile.

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PLBE!

QdO Corona this arvo with a 2013 Willow Creek Chardonnay.

A tale of two boxes of Cuaba Distinguidos. Both from LGR JUN 17. One is HQ and the other PSP. Both lovely but I am drawn to the darker PSP. Both smell great.

Gorgeous day calls for a Lusi. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

I thanked my patient for this very kind gift from his Mexico trip...... Regards. PS. Will save it for the Houston herf next week.

PLPC on my way home last night. Sweet and toasty. And Stone temple pilots on the radio.

C&C Time - Trini Vigia [sUE MAR 15] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Anathore great haul[emoji851] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Started the evening with a Picadores that showed so much promise, only to go downhill quickly due to being severely underfilled. Chased it with an admirable HdM petit robusto.

Warped La Colmena Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

Siglo VI PTR MAY 17

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RASCC this evening

John Kenneth Galbraith was a leading Canadian economist. A couple of his quotes (I recently came across) indicates he also had a good sense of humour: Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. and: Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

Nice box of HUPC from our hosts. These are 2017. It appears they are still in production. At least up to this date. And a lovely vintage Omega Memomatic, which was the first automatic wrist alarm. Interesting watch.

A Magnum 50 that was pretty good. This was a fantastic Petite Edmundo! Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

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To assume people are ignorant and elitist because they are different is... ?

AF Chateau Fuente Sungrown robusto:

If I did everything I should do, and didn't do anything I shouldn't do I'd be one miserable s.o.b....

PSD4s, like Monte 2s, can vary greatly simply because they're so popular and made in such quantity.

A Mystery cigar today for burns night paired with a Glenfiddich 15yr this lunch. www.themysterywhisky.co.uk

Cohiba Robusto 17. Tasty stick.

....we knew it, didn't we?

Just when I thought the Anejados program couldn't get any more suspicious...

This would drive me crazy.... I am completely non obsessive compulsive about storage.

More love for the humidor...

not at all like the QdO’s I remember , but nice Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

How Whiskey Geeks Are Recreating Rare Four Roses Bourbons Turns out, all it takes is a little detective work to blend your own $900 limited edition bourbon. January 18, 2018 story: Aaron Goldfarb photo: Lizzie Munro Travis Hill really wanted a bottle of Four Roses 2012 Limited Edition Small Batch. Unfortunately, only around 4,000 were released, and by 2014 they were selling for a good $900 on bourbon’s black market. Way too much for the Georgia man. But, he thought, maybe he could simply blend a version of the limited edition himself. When it comes to most of the rare and highly coveted bourbons on the market, recreating the blend would be, at best, a guessing game, but more likely impossible without access to the brand’s barrel warehouse. This isn’t the case with Four Roses, though, as their wholly unique production methods make jerry-rigging your own limited editions somewhat possible. Four Roses is one of the most transparent companies in the oddly secretive whiskey world, completely forthright about what their grain bills consist of and the ratios of their blends. Secondly, unlike many other distilleries who have a couple grain bills and one yeast strain, Four Roses has two grain bills and five yeast strains. That means—does the math on fingers—every barrel of Four Roses could be any one of ten different recipes, each with unique flavor profiles identified by a four-letter naming structure that appears on a small sticker panel to the left of the front label. An OESQ Barrel, for example, would be a high-rye bourbon (“E”) with floral yeast notes (“Q”). The “O” and “S” are immutable and stand for “Four Roses” and “straight whiskey,” respectively. The second and forth letters correspond to the grain bill and yeast type, and they change from bottling to bottling. The final thing you need to know about Four Roses is that, while their standard single-barrel release in all retail stores is the OBSV recipe, the other nine recipes can be obtained with a little hustle courtesy of what are known as private-barrel picks. These are special single barrels sold by certain liquor stores like Binny’s and Julio’s (which are usually, but not always, released in the nine- to 11-year age range). Thus, to make that 2012 Limited Edition Small Batch, Hill simply had to acquire a 17-year OBSV, an 11-year OBSV, a 13-year OBSK and a 12-year OESK. “I could buy all those single-barrel [bottles] and mix them together at the right ratios and do that for about $300,” Hill explains. “I thought it’d be fun to make it. Plus, I’d have leftovers to drink.” Four Roses is more than aware of this emerging phenomenon and doesn’t just not mind—they gladly encourage it. And why not? You’re still buying plenty of Four Roses in the process. “I get emails every other week: ‘What are the recipes?’” Brent Elliott, Four Roses’ master distiller, tells me. He gladly answers all the emails—and any other questions you may have—with the accurate information. (“Brent is eager to chat with bourbon fans far and wide,” it is noted on the Four Roses online contact form.) I met Elliott in his lab down in Lawrenceburg, KY, just outside of Lexington, where he’s currently in the midst of putting together 2018’s Limited Edition blend. I’m surprised to learn he’s actually tasted some of these ersatz blends. “The first [amateur] sample I tried was out of the trunk of some guy’s car,” he tells me. That “some guy” was indeed Hill, who had stopped Elliott in the parking lot of a St. Simons Island liquor store before a scheduled Four Roses event. (“How can I pass over this opportunity? I gotta have you try this!” Hill remembers thinking.) Elliott chuckles when he admits Hill’s blend wasn’t just good, it was close enough to the original release that it would be hard for many folks to tell them apart. “I’ve since talked to a lot of these other guys who have done it,” Elliott notes. “And I just think it’s really cool.” Blake Riber—who popularized the “Poor Man’s Pappy” blend—has also tried to simulate a few Four Roses blends, with his main focus being on recreating 2013’s terrific 125th Anniversary Small Batch Limited Edition (currently $450 or so on the secondary market). To make it, the Jacksonville man used a 55/33/12 blend of an OBSK single barrel he had actually picked himself (for his blog, Bourbonr), as well as an OESK and OBSV from two in-state retailers. His blend cost? Around $50. In this case, however, the real 125th Anniversary uses an 18-year-old OBSV that is virtually impossible to find as a single-barrel bottling, and Riber was stuck with a mere 12-year-old OBSV. Riber played with his percentages for a month, adding more oak notes to truly nail the correct flavor profile. Even so, he found his blend just wasn’t tasting quite right. Then he got a great tip for how to improve it. “I was talking to a Four Roses rep about it and told him I was having trouble getting close,” he tells me. “He said that’s because their mixer ‘spews’ the barrel when blending them,” he says, meaning it violently shoots the liquid around, aerating it. “I started throwing my blends into a Vitamix, and it’s greatly improved the results.” Still, it’s easy to think something tastes close the original when you already know what it is—not to mention when you also know you just hacked it for a deep discount. But what about blind? Riber decided to do a tasting of five “real” Four Roses releases alongside three of his amateur blends, enlisting a few unsuspecting tasters (which just so happened to include Hill). While some of the legitimate limited editions, like 2015’s Small Batch (around $300 on the black market), scored poorly among the blind tasters, the three amateur blends performed admirably. Riber’s “Poor Man’s 125th Anniversary” blend easily won it all. Riber joked during the live Google Hangout that maybe he should “put in a resumé for Four Roses master blender.” Of course, what Four Roses fans like Riber and Hill have learned is that it’s easy to make a great “limited edition” when a master distiller like Elliott has already set the basic template for you. The real struggle is making the great blend in the first place. “They don’t always work,” Elliott notes. “You try to make it too unique and it’ll go outside the realm of mellow and smooth. It’s all about balance.”

Someone on the German forum also got one of these boxes with a 2017 BD. Cuba being Cuba and all but now I trust this whole Anejados program even less - and I thought it was BS to begin with.

To you - and that's perfectly fine with me.

The boxcode GLA stands for "Good Luck, Asshole".

I enjoy all ring gauges from the cigarillo to 60 depending upon the quality of the tabacco and my flavor preferences period. The RG of the cigar means very little to me and you are missing fantastic experiences if you only smoke RGs above or below a certain arbitrary RG.

Ah yes, that night...

It is not the time aspect I have an issue with, I just don't like the way a PC/Minuto/Perla/Panatela/Etc feel in the hand and on the lips. For whatever reason, I just don't get the visceral enjoyment of the smoking experience with a short and skinny cigar. I can't tell you precisely why, but a larger cigar just 'feels' better to me and I enjoy the flavors. I don't see a reason to swap that for a cigar that tastes good but just 'feels' off to me. A PLPC tastes great but feels as if I'm smoking a toothpick... (Note: This was hard to verbalize and not make every sentence sound like I enjoy big things in my mouth)

Washington State Mourvedre - I like it.

Had a brilliant Boli tubos 1 on my drive last night. I wish they were all this good.

Nice cool night here. Having a Party Mille Fleur (TOR MAR 17) paired with a 2016 Tamburlaine Malbec.

BBF

The box came with a glass top, so i figured it would be safe.