CigarCraig's Blog

October 1, 2026 · 6:32 pm

CigarCraig Special Edition: Cigarfinder.com Reintroduction, a Primer

Two years ago I welcomed CigarFinder to the sidebar in a post that was mostly about a cigar case and a pig roast at the Wooden Indian. Two sentences, easy to miss. Then I mostly left them alone, which is my fault and not theirs. Cigarfinder tracks what 20 US online shops charge for the same cigar and lines the prices up next to each other, ranked by what each one works out to per cigar. It’s a very handy tool!

How Much Do Cigar Prices Vary Between Online Stores?

More than most smokers assume. Across cigars carried by more than one shop, the same line swings about 28 percent between the cheapest store and the dearest. On a box of 20 that works out to a median difference of about $22, and an active sitewide coupon code is worth roughly $31 more on top. The received wisdom in this hobby is that prices are set by the manufacturer and therefore much the same everywhere, and the numbers do not support it.

Those figures come from the cigar price index published by CigarFinder, which joined the sidebar here in September 2024 with a two sentence introduction and has grown enough since to deserve a fuller one. CigarFinder is not a store and does not sell anything. It tracks what 20 US online shops charge for the same cigar and lines the prices up next to each other, ranked by what each listing works out to per cigar. That last part is the useful bit, because a box, a five pack and a single cannot be compared until somebody does the division, and nobody does the division while holding a cigar.

The catalogue now runs past 100,000 live listings across those 20 retailers, next to a directory of more than 3,000 lounges, shops and bars around the country.

The index recomputes every week from the full catalogue, so the gap is measured rather than estimated. For anyone who buys by the box, 28 percent is the difference between a good year and an expensive one.

Individual lines have their own pages. The Montecristo White Series price page ranks every listing it finds by price per cigar, singles and packs and boxes together, so the cheapest option is visible without arithmetic. The Padron 1964 Anniversary price page does the same for a line where the gap between shops tends to be wide, as does the Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 price page.

Each product page also carries a 30 day price history. A drop can be judged against what the cigar has genuinely been selling for rather than against a crossed out number, which is a different question from the one most sale pages answer. A price alert can be set on any listing, so the next move gets reported rather than missed.

The deals feed works on the same principle. A price is published only when it beats every other store on the site, or when it beats that listing’s own 30 day history, and every published price is rechecked daily. There is an AI cigar advisor as well. A plain English description works as the input, something along the lines of a medium bodied Connecticut for the morning under ten dollars, and it answers with cigars and the cheapest place to buy each one. It is free and takes no signup.

A few honest limits. The site covers US online retailers, so there are no Cubans in it. It cannot price the humidor at a local shop, which is where plenty of cigars are better bought anyway. Prices move because the stores move them, so a figure seen on Sunday is not a promise for Monday. And it will not say which cigar is worth smoking, which remains the job of the people who actually smoke them.

What it does is answer a question most cigar smokers carry around unanswered: whether the box in the cart is a fair price, or just the first price. CigarFinder answers that in about the time it takes to type the name of the cigar.

That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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Barn Cured, Jake Wyatt and Saint Luis Rey Cigars

We are entering into my least favorite time of the year…OK, winter is the least favorite, but Autumn is a close second, because we know what’s coming! Summer flew by and I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked. A week from tomorrow Im taking a quick trip to Tampa for the Flyers/Lightning game and hope to connect with some friends down there. I’ve just come to the realization that the Amelie Arena property is strictly tobacco free, so watching the game at their Thunder Alley outside the stadium is off the table. I’ve got people working on finding an appropriate venue! On to this week’s cigars. I had a cigar from the Smoke-onos festival that was new to me, and it appears it’s a Best Cigar Prices exclusive made my A.J. Fernandez. It’s called Barn Cured, and I had the Robusto. This 5″ x 52 cigar has an Ecuadorian Sumatra Maduro wrapper, Corojo binder and all-fillers from the Estelí and Jalapa regions in Nicaragua. It’s reasonably priced at around $7ish. I found it had a Black Walnut sort of flavor, with some leather and earth, flavors that I’m personally not overly fond of. It left me wanting, perhaps the Habano ot San Andrés Heritage series under this brand would suit me better. Next time I visit BCP, otr place an order, I’ll have to add some on.

I took a mental health day from my day job on Friday and after going out to lunch we stopped in to visit Goose at Goose’s Montecristo Lounge and Tobacconist in Limerick, PA. It had been way too long since I stopped in. I picked up a handful of “new to me” cigars, as I generally do when I visit a shop. One of the ones that John mentioned was doing well in the shop was the Jake Wyatt Fourth Dimension. He was showing me the cigar and I just added to to my pile. It’s pretty, with some candela accents, that look connecticut shade in the pictures on the website. The candela offers a striking contrast to the Habano Oscuro wrapper, and the rest of the cigar seems to be Dominican. Ironically, my amigo Kaplowitz wrote about this cigar on my birthday last year, weird, huh? I will not plagiarize Kaps’s review, we have slightly different styles. I found this to be a pleasant cigar, it happened that the cigar Goose handed me was a 6″ x 60, with is no big deal for me. It leaned toward the wood/leather end of the spectrum, with a hint of a spice, but overall it was well aged and processed tobacco. I didn’t really get any of the candela grassiness, there wasn’t enough to taste, but it was a nice visual. I have heard of this brand, but this was my first try, and it will lead me to sample more as the opportunity arises.

Finally, I had to grab a couple of the new 30th Anniversary cigars made by Christian Eiroa. I have a very specific memory of a Saint Luis Rey Serie A (Honduras, not cuban), back in the 90s that just blew me away. I can picture my inlaws deck, and marvelling at the flavor of this cigar, it was savory like a steak with just the right amount of fat. Oddly, I’m probably going to do a better job describing the flavor of a cigar I smoked over 25 years ago than this one! I got a toro and a gordo, and probably should have went with the toro for the purposes of this blog post. This is an interesting blend. The wrapper is Colombian Pinareño, with a Honduran Corojo binder and Honduran Corojo and Pinareño in the filler. This Pinareño tobacco is something Christian has been growing at his farm in Colombia, and it’s n0t a tobacco one sees or hears of much. I found this to be on themedium side, with more wood and earth, with some spice. It burned well, and was pleasing enough, but it didn’t remind me in the least of my memory of that Serie A I smoked so long ago. The original Saint Luis Rey was made in 1996 by Christian and Julio Eiroa at Tobaccos Rancho Jamastran for Hollco-Rohr, who owned the trademark and sold out to Altadis in 1998. I look forward to trying the toro.

That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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CigarCraig Flashback: Celebrity Cigar Chat with Brian Propp

Here’s one from the archives. With hockey season getting ready to get underway, along with the new information that Brian Propp is launching a line of cigars, I figure it makes sense to re-post this from January 25, 2012.

I haven’t done a Celebrity Cigar Chat in a while, and what better way to launch the new and improved CigarCraig.com. Brian Propp has been a fixture on the Smoke Magazine tasting panel for a while and I figured I’d reach out to him with a couple questions. For those of you who don’t know, here’s a bio from his website:

Brian Propp was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round in 1979, and launched an outstanding career in the National Hockey League that spanned three decades. The first round pick joined the Flyers team in 1979 and made an immediate impact on a line with Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach. The Flyer’s recorded a record 35 games without a defeat that season. A complete player in all aspects of the game, Propp put up his best scoring totals during the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons, accumulating 97 points in each season. Propp was elected to the Flyers Hall of Fame in 1999.

He is currently the Vice President of Strategic Account Management at The Judge Group. The Judge Group specializes in technology consulting, enterprise-wide staffing, corporate training and unified communications.

1. When did you start enjoying premium cigars?

“I started smoking cigars after my daughter’s birth in 1996. I usually have them when I am playing golf.”

2. What are some of your favorite cigars?

” My two favorite cigars are Hoyo de Monterrey double coronas and Montecristo # 2’s.”

3. What do you find most interesting or challenging about being on the Smoke Magazine tasting panel?

“I believe that it is interesting to be on a Smoke Magazine tasting panel because of the different tastes and types of cigars. The challenging part is that most countries have improved their product so it is tough to rate the different cigars.”

4. If you blended your own cigar, what traits and flavors would you try to achieve?

“I would like to have a cigar that was consistently well rolled with mild-medium taste with earthy yet chocolate flavor.”

5. How do you like the Flyers Cup chances this year?

“I have seen the Flyer’s this year score a lot of goals. They are very fast and have a nice mix of veterans and young players. If they get great goaltending down the stretch they will have a chance to win the Stanley Cup this year.”

Thanks, Propper, for taking the time to answer my questions. I always enjoyed watching you play, then listening to you on the radio when you did the color commentary for the Flyers games. I hope everyone enjoyed this brief glimpse into the cigar life of a celebrity!

I look forward to catching up with Brian in the near future so I can ask him again what he thinks of the Flyers this year! Until the next time,

CigarCraig

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1 Comment

Filed under Celebrity Cigar Chat, CigarCraig Flashback

Tagged as Brian Propp, celebrity, cigar, cigars, Flyers

September 20, 2026 · 10:53 am

L’Atellier Roxy and Red Meat Lovers Spicy Beef Stick Cigars

I had an atypical week, so I didn’t get the usual three new to me cigars in. I do have a story, hopefully that makes up for things! First off, I smoked a little L’Atelier Roxy (natural, I ASSume). I am 99% sure this was a generous gift from Craig the Breadman. I had a situation where we had tickets to a 7PM jazz concert at the local Penn State campus, so I was in need of a short smoke, and 3½” x 50 is short. I prefer a 6″ cigar or better, but this was going to fit the time I had available. I am also a cheap bastid, so I’m not going to waste a longer cigar. Pairing the size of a cigar with the time available to smoke it properly is very important. Anyway, this is has a Ecuadorian Sancti Spiritus wrapper, over Nicaraguan binder and fillers, and is made in the My Father factory in Esteli. This was a really nice cigar that gets right to the point with some spice and a hint of sourdough. It was perfect for the occasion, and served its purpose well.

Friday evening I desperately needed a great cigar experience to wrap up a trying week. Fortunately I had just come into possession of a Red Meat Lovers Spicy Beef Stick cigars from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust. I really like the original RML cigars, I didn’t think they needed to be improved upon. Saka likes to provide amped up versions, the Fritanga, Triqui Traca and the Umbagog Bronzeback being examples. I generally have liked the originals better. The Spicy Beef Stick is a stronger, spicier version of the 6″ x 48 Beef Stick. This has a flat head, like a CAO Flathead or a RoMaCraft Neanderthal. Fortunately, I have a very good 13mm punch that works very well for these kind of heads. These have a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, San Andrés binder and Nicaraguan and USA fillers (I’m guessing there’s some PA seedleaf in there). This cigar is aptly named, as it is spicy, along with the rich dark chocolate that I love. Since dark and semi-sweet chocolate started giving me migraines, I have to get it in cigars, I guess! $17 isn’t a cheap date, but well worth it for the flavor and quality! While I predict the Sobremesa Tapa Negra tops the Halfwheel Consensus this year, the Spicy Beef Stick will be in the top five.

Quick story. Yesterday we went to my nephew’s wedding. It was a 5 hour drive to eastern Long Island, and it was a lovely affair. I smoke cigars with my brother-in-law, the grooms father, when I get the chance, and both of his (adult) sons are known to partake. They all mentioned to me that the mother of the groom’s special friend was a huge cigar guy, and I was introduced to him. He told that me that he had provided cigars for the after-party. I don’t suffer pretentiousness very well. I brought plenty of cigars, naturally, but I went out of my way to provide some cigars that had some symbolism, even though I had to remind my BIL of it. He had some La Gloria Cubana cigars when his son was born, so I thought it would be nice to have La Gloria Cubana cigars at his wedding. Makes sense, right? So this guy tells me he brought good cigars for the after-party, I could hang on to mine. I don’t take kindly to being dismissed. Of course I asked what he brought, and he said some Don Pepin Blue and Black cigars, perfectly good cigars. My response was “Nice, I’ve been to Jose Garcia’s farm, met him and Jaime several times”, along with “ive been writing about cigars since 2009” which kind of shut him up. I gave my BIL the cigars and he shared them with his sons, I chose to smoke one on the ride home. Don’t brag to me about what a big cigar guy you are. I love cigars, but I don’t get into pissing matches if I don’t have to , but I can shut them down! I’m trying to write this without sounding pretentious myself. We left after dinner when the music got loud, I would have love to have stayed and had cigars with my BIL and nephews, but we had a long drive home. We will do it another time.

Rainy Sunday, might have to smoke cigars on the porch all day! That’s all for today, until the next time,

CigarCraig

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3 Comments

Filed under Review

Tagged as cigar, cigars, L'Atelier, Red Meat Lovers, Roxy, Spicy Beef Stick

September 13, 2026 · 9:52 am

Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut, Tradecraft Vitruvian and a New All Saints Cigar

I had a 3 day work week, having Monday off, of course, then taking Thursday off to go to an afternoon Phillies game. We got to go on the field after the game(with about 10,000 other fans!) and walk the bases, which I did with an unlit cigar in my mouth! I don’t know how they could say anything, I mean the owner of the Phillies is John Middleton, who sold his tobacco company to Altria (Phillip Morris). who can forget the Middletons Cherry Blend pipe tobacco cigars? Anyway, before we left I sat on my deck and smoked a Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut Maduro in the 5” x 50 Robusto size. This is made by A.J. Fernandez and is a Nicaraguan puro. I enjoyed this greatly with a cup of coffee while I absorbed some much needed sunshine. There were no real surprises, it was cocoa and espresso with some spice, just what I expected. It burned right, and was the right size to fit the time I had. I want to sample the toro, and at in the $10-12 range, these are well priced. Not as strong as the 17th Anniversary!

I took a bit of a shade journey yesterday. I started with the Tradecraft Vitruvian. Tradecraft, like Middleton, has it’s roots in the Philadelphia Area. The wrapper is an ASP Grown Ecuadorian Connecticut, with a Sumatra binder. the filler blend reads like something Saka would put in his blend write up: Filler: Tripa de Capa Habano 2000 & CT, Nicaraguan Jalapa, Criollo 98′ Seco (volado priming) and Corojo Seco. this is made by Wiber Ventura in the Dominican Republic. Oddly, this might be my favorite cigar in the Tradecraft line-up. If you know me, you know that the Gladius is right up my alley, but this shade cigar was delicious. It had loads of flavor; smooth, creamy and nutty, with enough spice to make it interesting. This is a cigar I’ll smoke again.

I had smoked a couple of another of a new cigar that I was going to feature here, but I couldn’t find much nice to say about it, so I pivoted and smoked an unbranded sample of something new from Micky Pegg of All Saints Cigars. This shade wrapped toro is going to be called the Saint Anne. I believe Micky told me that the final version of this is going to be pressed, and, like the other All Saints cigars, they are made at Rocky Patel’s factory in Nicaragua. I don’t kbnow what the blend is, but safe to say it’s an Ecuador wrapper over Nicaraguan fillers. This is the second shade cigar I smoked yesterday, and I rarely do that. Like the Vitruvian, this was a really excellent cigar, and it was also a Toro, which I like. It had more of the spice than the Vitruvian, along with the nutty, creaminess. Burn and draw were perfect. I was very impressed with this one.