Just back from Cuba...

[Cohiba Stevie]

Ok, to put you all in the picture I have just returned from a weeks trip in Cuba, it was the typical package deal with two nights in Havana and 5 nights in Varadero. Straight off the bat this is not going to be a lengthy holiday review, I will merely be giving short anecdotes of the different cigars I tried with the good the bad and the ugly. I apologise for the lack of pictures, they are on my girlfriends digital camera and I will be getting them on a memory stick tomorrow so I will amend the post with pics included as soon as I can.

Also, most of the cigars I smoked were singles or from small 3 and 5 packs. I didn't buy as many boxes as I would have liked to but sure that's usually the case.

So upon arriving at the Parque Central hotel in Havana went to the in house cigar shop to buy my favourite cigar as my first smoke. I bought a 3 pack of Cohiba siglo II tubos and headed to the rooftop terrace and pool to enjoy it, as usual it was a superb smoke and remains my personal favourite, grass and lemon all in there with a hints of tea. Magnificent.

Bolivar petit corona enjoyed while walking through the city on tour, my second favourite cigar of all time, so good a box was swiftly purchased.

HDM Epicure 2: just out of this world, enjoyed man of these on the trip and was blown away by the complexity and depth of the flavours, one of the most enjoyable cigars I've ever had, no boxes left at any of the varadero Casas so ended up buying a few single tubos.

Cohiba behike 52: I had a few on these on the trip and again these things deserve their acclaim, no boxes of 52s available anywhere, just a few singles here and there. Plenty of boxes of the 54 and 56 available in Havana and Varadero.

Paratagas shorts: must have smoked about 10 of these and they were incredible, so much from a small cigar and they deliver 10 times out of 10. I ended up buying a box as well.

Ramon allows small club corona: a distinctly flavoured but enjoyable wee cigar and absolutley lived the singles I had, I bought a box on the last day because I know they can be hard to come by.

Bolivar coronas junior: again fantastic, had a few of these while waiting on the girl getting ready, wish I had bought a box.

Trinidad Reyes: so good I bought a box, enough said.

RASS: Youll be glad to know that these are still smoking superbly well, I'm amazed at their consistency.

Cohiba siglo 6: had a few tubos, first third on these very unimaginative but def begin to open and finish quite well.

Partagas 898: first I've ever tried, as you may have noticed i am not really in to longer sticks, but it was very enjoyable, still wouldn't say I'm a convert but will def try more.

Partagas serie d no.4: these were so so, expected more as these are one of my go to robustos, not saying they were terrible but the 3 I had only one blew me away. The other just scraped the ok mark.

Monte 4: smoked 2 of these with the first being completely plugged and the second being a dog ****, very disappointed.

H. Upmann petit corona: I don't know what the **** was in it but it was the most bitter and horrible thing I've ever smoked. Suprised as these normally aren't too bad.

Cohiba robusto: I am really starting to get fed up with these, either they have taken a nose dive in the last 4 months or I am the most unluckiest man in the world, because I haven't had a good one in 4 months. The 3 I had were particularly low on flavour and one had an unsmokablely tight draw.

So that's basically it, pretty happy with my box purchases and all the smoking that I got in, but in all honesty all the good and great smokes were completely overshadowed by the trip, Havana is easily the best city I have ever experienced and I left Cuba feeling very humbled by the people and the atmosphere. I would recommend visiting in a heartbeat and we are already condisering booking it for next year again. My only disappointment was that I didn't stay longer Havana.

I hope this was informative read.

Thanks for your time and it's great to be back.

Stevie.

[beamer]

Thanks for sharing.

[compitaveggie]

Cant wait to see the pictures. Thanks for sharing

[cottierm]

Very nice account indeed! I am waiting for your pictures now. Enjoy your cigars!

Best,

Michel

Ok, to put you all in the picture I have just returned from a weeks trip in Cuba, it was the typical package deal with two nights in Havana and 5 nights in Varadero. Straight off the bat this is not going to be a lengthy holiday review, I will merely be giving short anecdotes of the different cigars I tried with the good the bad and the ugly. I apologise for the lack of pictures, they are on my girlfriends digital camera and I will be getting them on a memory stick tomorrow so I will amend the post with pics included as soon as I can.

Also, most of the cigars I smoked were singles or from small 3 and 5 packs. I didn't buy as many boxes as I would have liked to but sure that's usually the case.

So upon arriving at the Parque Central hotel in Havana went to the in house cigar shop to buy my favourite cigar as my first smoke. I bought a 3 pack of Cohiba siglo II tubos and headed to the rooftop terrace and pool to enjoy it, as usual it was a superb smoke and remains my personal favourite, grass and lemon all in there with a hints of tea. Magnificent.

Bolivar petit corona enjoyed while walking through the city on tour, my second favourite cigar of all time, so good a box was swiftly purchased.

HDM Epicure 2: just out of this world, enjoyed man of these on the trip and was blown away by the complexity and depth of the flavours, one of the most enjoyable cigars I've ever had, no boxes left at both varadero Casas so ended up buying a few single tubos.

Cohiba behike 52: I had a few on these on the trip and again these things deserve their acclaim, no boxes of 52s available anywhere, just a few singles here and there. Plenty of boxes of the 54 and 56 available in Havana and Varadero.

Paratagas shorts: must have smoked about 10 of these and they were incredible, so much from a small cigar and they deliver 10 times out of 10. I ended up buying a box as well.

Ramon allows small club corona: a distinctly flavoured but enjoyable wee cigar and absolutley lived the singles I had, I bought a box on the last day because I know they can be hard to come by.

Bolivar coronas junior: again fantastic, had a few of these while waiting on the girl getting ready, wish I had bought a box.

Trinidad Reyes: so good I bought a box, enough said.

RASS: Youll be glad to know that these are still smoking superbly well, I'm amazed at their consistency.

Cohiba siglo 6: had a few tubos, first third on these very unimaginative but def begin to open and finish quite well.

Partagas 898: first I've ever tried, as you may have noticed i am not really in to longer sticks, but it was very enjoyable, still wouldn't say I'm a convert but will def try more.

Partagas serie d no.4: these were so so, expected more as these are one of my go to robustos, not saying they were terrible but the 3 I had only one blew me away. The other just scraped the ok mark.

Monte 4: smoked 2 of these with the first being completely plugged and the second being a dog ****, very disappointed.

H. Upmann petit corona: I don't know what the **** was in it but it was the most bitter and horrible thing I've ever smoked. Suprised as these normally aren't too bad.

Cohiba robusto: I am really starting to get fed up with these, either they have taken a nose dive in the last 4 months or I am the most unluckiest man in the world, because I haven't had a good one in 4 months. The 3 I had were particularly low on flavour and one had an unsmokablely tight draw.

So that's basically it, pretty happy with my box purchases and all the smoking that I got in, but in all honesty all the good and great smokes were completely overshadowed by the trip, Havana is easily the best city I have ever experienced and I left Cuba feeling very humbled by the people and the atmosphere. I would recommend visiting in a heartbeat and we are already condisering booking it for next year again. My only disappointment was that I didn't stay longer Havana.

I hope this was informative read.

Thanks for your time and it's great to be back.

Stevie.

[Van55]

Folks I know who are seasoned Cuba travelers insist that buying singles in Cuba -- especially in hotel shops -- runs a huge risk of acquiring counterfeits. Does anyone here know differently?

If so, that might explain your disappointing CoRos and SD4s as well as HUp PC's.

Thanks for your trip report as seen through the eyes of your cigar experiences. Nicely done!

[compitaveggie]

Folks I know who are seasoned Cuba travelers insist that buying singles in Cuba -- especially in hotel shops -- runs a huge risk of acquiring counterfeits. Does anyone here know differently?

If so, that might explain your disappointing CoRos and SD4s as well as HUp PC's.

Thanks for your trip report as seen through the eyes of your cigar experiences. Nicely done!

Have to agree with this. At the Parque Central shop I saw a few different Cohiba cigars with the usual fake band that had too many squares and the wrong type font. I actually saw fakes at every store i went but the Parque Central has a small selection and and they mainly had Cohiba so the majority of the cigars there were either fake or Habanos changed the bands to copy the counterfiters.

Like Van said this might explain the problem you had with the Robustos if you bought them at the Parque Central. By the way not all the Cohiba at the Parque Central looked fake but quite a few did.

[compitaveggie]

Nice report. Lots of good cigars smoked. Just cuz a cigar is bad, doesn't mean it is fake. It could just be a lousy cigar. It happens. And yes Hovy, Cuba runs out of stuff fast. Especially around festivals and big events. EVERYBODY wants the same things, so those things get harder to find.

Very true. Don't want to say that your cigars are fake...they could have just sucked..it happens. Just that at the Parque Central there was many fakes around so if you got many cigars there it raises your chances.

[scinmyheart]

sounds as though you had a wonderful time!

[CUBANO]

Stevie,

Thanks for the report of your trip. It makes me want to go back to Cuba. (for a visit).LOL

[ohioldd]

Sounds like you had your fill of smokes! I can not wait to visit myself...someday?

[thechenman]

Thanks for sharing with us the cigars from your trip. Looking forward to the pics.

[Colt45]

Thanks for the report. I know you mentioned keeping it about what you smoked, but I'd be interested to hear if you ate anywhere interesting,

music, etc.

[J-ROD]

Very nice run down, would be great to visit sometime.

[mazolaman]

Interesting stuff Stevie.

Pleased you picked up a few boxes of good stuff.

I think you're right, better to avoid the all inclusives, and either head to Havana or out into the sticks....

Be interesting to see your piccies.

Are they actually rebuilding the old town yet, now that it it a unesco site, or is still crumbling?

[Cohiba Stevie]

Thanks for the comments folks.

I will touch very quickly on the subject of fakes, the only cigars I bought at the parque central were the 3 siglo IIs which like i said were tubos, I am 100% that these were not fake and did the usual checking of number of squares, gold embossing and typeface. Plus they were in a sealed Habanos box with barcode like all 3 packs. As for fakes being sold in parque central I was fairly confident that all the selection was real, I think it would be unlikely that the most expensive and revered hotel in Havana would risk its reputation by selling fakes. Just my opinion and of course I could be wrong.

All other cigars including singles were bought at a casa del Habano.

Just some advice advice for folks who may be visiting varadero, not many people actually know but there are a total of 3 casa del Habanos in varadero, not just the main two in the town centre, there is also one in the commercial shopping mall called las Americas, about a mile and a half from varadero town. When going to any of these Casas, go to the first one in varadero town and not the second, the reason I say first its the first one is because as soon as you enter the main road of varadero town and you can't miss it, the second is on down the road.

The first has a selection of cigars that rivalled many of the Casas in Havana itself, thats were i bought all my boxes including the RASCC, it also has a rum bar and cafe upstairs so its great to sit and have a smoke in an air conditioned room with nice surroundings. I had rented a scooter and drove 15 mins every day from my hotel to buy few singles for the day just to give me something to do while the girl sunbathed, I got to know the staff and at they end of the week I was givien a free Habanos ashtray just because I had been friendly with them, a few tips here and there helped but I thought it was very sweet.

The other two Casas in varadero aren't that great, like most casas there was too much Cohiba and montecristo and not enough of anything else, althogh no word of a lie the girl in at the second casa in varadero said she had never heard of the behikes, but maybe she was new, plus it's also filled with the usual tourist things like wooden ashtrays and poorly made humidors.

The casa at the las americas mall is decent enough

Any questions please feel free to ask

Thanks again for the comments

[LLC]

Thanks for the great post and info Stevie. I am heading to Havana next weekend and can't wait to soak it all in.

[Ghabanos]

Thanks for the report. I know you mentioned keeping it about what you smoked, but I'd be interested to hear if you ate anywhere interesting,

music, etc.

Me too. I'm a huge foodie. Waiting for pic update. Thanks for sharing.

[Cohiba Stevie]

Steve which one is the "first one"? Is it the one on the busy road at the corner of one of the streets 39th maybe? or is it the one with a long walkway and a giant Short Churchill tubo there to greet you at the doors?

If you are entering varadero via the main highway then it's practically the first shop after the Adidas store, it's a two story house-like building on its own, I never seen a short Churchill tubo at any of the Casas there but they may have taken it down as it was for promotional purposes, it's also right next door to a rum shop and bar. A distinct difference I noticed between the two stores s that the custom roller sat inside in the first store, but outside in the second store.

**to all commenters asking about food reviews**

I'm really sorry folks but it would be a great injustice to Cuba as a country for me to comment on local and regional cuisine, i posted a topic about this before I left, the thing is that I am a very plain eater, I have a number of severe food allergies especially in regards to nuts and seeds and naturally it makes me extremely apprehensive about trying new things, having said that the only bad meals I had were at the all inclusive hotels in varadero, I ate at a few paladares which were very catering which I enjoyed very much, but an in depth review is something I cannot provide as my palate for this sort of thing isn't as attuned as most peoples. I don't normally make excuses but I love this forum and it's community so I do apologise.

What I will do is ask my girlfriend to sign up to the forum and have her write a proper review. She had the inclination to try most things when we were away and could probably do it more justice tan myself.

Thanks again

[CanuckSARTech]

....Just some advice advice for folks who may be visiting varadero, not many people actually know but there are a total of 3 casa del Habanos in varadero, not just the main two in the town centre, there is also one in the commercial shopping mall called las Americas, about a mile and a half from varadero town. When going to any of these Casas, go to the first one in varadero town and not the second, the reason I say first its the first one is because as soon as you enter the main road of varadero town and you can't miss it, the second is on down the road.

Steve which one is the "first one"? Is it the one on the busy road at the corner of one of the streets 39th maybe? or is it the one with a long walkway and a giant Short Churchill tubo there to greet you at the doors?

Yes, it's the one at Calle 63 (63rd Street), right as you get into Varadero "proper", just about right across from the Cuatro Palmas hotel. The Havana Club store (La Casa del Ron) is on the block corner right beside it....

[compitaveggie]

As for fakes being sold in parque central I was fairly confident that all the selection was real, I think it would be unlikely that the most expensive and revered hotel in Havana would risk its reputation by selling fakes. Just my opinion and of course I could be wrong.

Not trying to argue in any way but I stayed at the Parque Central and know 100% that they had a few fake Cohibas at the Parque Central Cigar shop. I kept a band from a fellow that bought a Cohiba from there and it is the classic fake band with the wrong font. Not all cigars or Cohiba looked fake but a few were. Not saying thats what happened to you but it does happen there. I spent a good amount of time in that store because my wife purchased a lot of coffee from there. Its a great hotel, but I think that there is just too much profit to be made by everyone and it is so easy to make it.

respectfully

Jose