An Afternoon with Pete Johnson (Part Four)

Part Four, the final chapter. Lots of great discussion here about tasting cigars off the bench and envisioning how they will taste as they age, too many 90 plus ratings? Joya de Nicaragua in the 1970′s, more advice for bloggers and the benefits for manufacturers. Cigar technology, dying of cigars, consumer education, sorting tobacco, seed variety, the decline of Cuban cigars, aging cigars and props to Rolando Reyes Sr. and Dion Giolito.

I hope you all have enjoyed the interview. …

An Afternoon with Pete Johnson (Part Three)

This is Part Three focusing on questions from the audience. Is Pete still having fun? Times of crisis? Experience working with The Garcia Family. Second guessing blends, more info on Little Monsters, and blogger’s responsibility in the industry? Note to self, gotta invest in a third microphone for audience use.

Same format as an An Evening with Benji Menendez and An Afternoon with Ernesto Perez Carrillo. This weekend Pete Johnson of Tatuaje Cigars was in Washington DC and Bethesda …

An Afternoon with Pete Johnson (Part Two)

This is Part Two of Four and has a lot of great content. The story of La Verite, the “romance” in the cigar business, a Tatuaje farm, who is to blame for current pricing, could the cigar industry self regulate itself, the golden age of cigars and an explanation on fermentation.

Same format as an An Evening with Benji Menendez and An Afternoon with Ernesto Perez Carrillo. This weekend Pete Johnson of Tatuaje Cigars was in Washington DC and …

An Afternoon with Pete Johnson (Part One)

Same format as an An Evening with Benji Menendez and An Afternoon with Ernesto Perez Carrillo. This weekend Pete Johnson of Tatuaje Cigars was in Washington DC and Bethesda MD celebrating the start of W.Curtis Draper 125th Anniversary year with the release of the Cabaiguan WCD 120 Redux. Towards the end of the afternoon, Pete and George Brightman (W.Curtis Draper-Bethesda) sat down and talked about Tatuaje Cigars and the cigar industry in general.

The discussion between Pete and …

WCD 120 Redux Event Pictorial

My home shop W.Curtis Draper is celebrating their 125th Anniversary this year. To celebrate this milestone W.Curtis Draper will be releasing four limited edition cigars made by Pete Johnson (Tatuaje), Guiellermo Leon (La Aurora), Jorge Padron (Padron) and Carlito Fuente (Arturo Fuente). Kicking off this year’s festivities is Pete Johnson with a redux of a cigar he did to celebrate the 120th Anniversary of W.Curtis Draper. That cigar was called the Cabaiguan WCD 120; this time around its called Cabaiguan …

23 Minutes with Pete Johnson

It’s pretty interesting to note that this celebrates five years of the 20 Minutes with Pete Johnson series of videos here on Stogie Review. So first I want to thank Pete for always being giving with his time. Secondly I want to thank W.Curtis Draper for giving me a home to record for the past five years. This series of videos has turned into a tradition that I hope continues for many more years to come.

In this interview Pete …

The Art of the Raffle

Cigar event raffles is a topic that seems to keep coming up in conversation. Jerry, Walt, Mike and I shared our favorite and least favorite prizes in a YQMA episode a month or two ago, and I used the opportunity to complain about winning baseball caps. I’m sure it was good for a few chuckles, but it probably wasn’t useful to anyone really thinking about organizing a raffle. I started thinking more seriously on the subject when a cigar rep …

An Afternoon with Ernesto Perez Carrillo

When I think back to what I was smoking when I first started enjoying cigars there are a handful of cigars that come to mind. One of them was the El Rico Habano and another was the La Gloria Cubana Serie R. I’m pretty sure at the time, I had no idea who actually made these cigars. Of course now I know that Ernesto Perez Carrillo was the man behind La Gloria Cubana. I didn’t know his family …

1143 Seconds with Pete Johnson

Last week, the night before I left for an overseas business trip, I sat down with Pete Johnson at a Tatuaje Cigars event hosted by Holt’s Cigar Company in Northeast Philadelphia. We talked about a lot of things going on in the Tatuaje universe, including the upcoming Cojonu 2012s, future installments of the Monster series, Pete’s plans for the Saints & Sinners club, and the possibility of expanding the Tatuaje brand to include adult beverages. I had a great time …

An Evening with Benji Menendez

Last week Benji Menendez was in town visiting both locations of W.Curtis Draper. Since I had to cancel my participation in the blogger trip with General Cigar down to the Dominican Republic I made plans with the folks at General to get time with Benji while he was visiting. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure what to say to this icon in the industry. Seriously, I’ve only been smoking since the end of the boom in the late 90′s. …