When the wife takes one of those shopping trips south of the border and you end up as the chauffeur, make sure you take advantage of the situation and make a detour to a local cigar shop. In my case, being from Vancouver, I’m talking about the Fairhaven Smoke Shop. Set in the quaint tourist village of Fairhaven, near Bellingham, you can expect turn-of-the-century buildings and good restaurants – just the recipe to distract the lady from the true nature of the visit. On my most recent trip, Michael pointed …

Making cigars for 5 generations, the Fuego family were pioneers in the Cuban cigar business.  Now Jesus Fuego has partnered with Honduras’ Nestor Placencia to develop a series of cigars with sun grown Corojo wrappers and full-bodied flavour.  After spending some time as Rocky Patel’s go-to guy, Jesus Fuego went out on his own a few years back, and the cigars he is producing have met very positive reviews.  Like all of his offerings, the Gran Reserva Corojo #1 is made with aged leaf; if that’s not enough, after construction …

The Luis Martinez factory in Esteli, Nicaragua holds its roots in Cuba.  According to the manufacturer’s website, Don Luis Martinez started making cigars in Cuba in the late 19th century before fleeing from the revolution in 1892.  Rather than regurgitate the company line on these cigars, let me reproduce it here: “The brand new Luis Martinez Nicaraguan Silver Selection is a cigar born from the jet black, mineral rich soil of Central America. It is the careful blending of tobaccos from this region that give this cigar its medium body …