Weekly Email – May 27th, 2015

HEAD-TO-HEAD! BACK-TOBAC! RoMa Craft meets the Western PA Cigar Crawl! Who will win? YOU!!This Saturday, May 30th, ASW will be hosting not one but TWO events: The annual Cigar Crawl, hosted by Rob Heming (of Blowin’ Smoke Podcast fame), and an exclusive RoMa Craft Tobac event with our good friend Michael Rosales (the “Ro” in “RoMa”) in attendance! Our event-day specials will be available to ALL our customers, so join us for some fantastic cigars andamazing discounts…and some rare treats in the form of hard-to-find cigars like the elusive Cro-Magnon Fomorian and the new Neanderthal (see below), which is a real powerhouse!

Mike Rosales will be arriving tentatively around 12 noon; the Crawl is an all-day affair, but we’re last on their list of stops, so get here early and grab a seat while you can!

It’s finally here: the long-awaited maduro entry in the wildly popular new Small Batch series from Perdomo! Available in the same four sizes (half-corona, Rothschild, belicoso, and toro) as its sun-grown and Connecticut-wrapped kin, this line features an incredible maduro wrapper aged for over 10 years, adding a new dimension of rich flavor to an already outstanding blend. Grab a handful while you can: like the 12-Year Aged series, they’re strictly limited in quantity, and when they’re gone…they’re gone.

It’s here too…the fabled Neanderthal, a new cigar from RoMa Craft that will knock your socks off (perhaps literally)! The blend is truly mind-blowing: a hearty Mexican San Andrés wrapper; a Connecticut broadleaf binder; and within, a stunning filler combination of Nicaraguan (including leaves from Condega, Estelí, Jalapa, and Pueblo Nuevo), Dominican olor, and the secret ingredient…a super-potent Pennsylvania double ligero known as Green River Sucker One. According to RoMa co-founder Skip Martin, “It wasn’t until I found the Pennsylvania double ligero, a regrowth leaf* with two to three times the nicotine levels of our other tobaccos, that I had the components I needed to produce what I was looking for.”Whatever Skip was looking for, he found it…the Neanderthal – a 5″ x 52/56 figurado with a flat cap (hence the name) which resembles a club (also apropos) – is incredibly flavorful and powerful to boot.

Quantities are extremely limited, so there is a 2-per-customer-per-visit limit. Get over here and get your sticky paws on a Neanderthal while we’ve got ’em!

* A regrowth leaf is a secondary set of leaves produced by a plant after its initial growth has been pruned. Tobacco plants tend to up the ante when they are forced to produce secondary leaves. Get it? Got it? Good!

Courtesy of Drew Estate (in the person of our pal Sam Smerkol), ASW is offering an exclusive chance to win a new Churchill-style pipe by Tsuge! In case you were unaware, Tsuge – one of the world’s leading pipe crafters – has entered into an arrangement with Drew Estate to offer modern pipes featuring Tsuge’s distinctive styling to the American public. In conjunction with this, Drew has released eight new tobacco blends under the Tsuge imprimatur: The Four Seasons series (a blend for every season) and the God Series (named after traditional Japanese deities). Any purchase of a tin of Drew or Tsuge tobacco (and this includes Drew Estate’s six recent New York themed blends) will be eligible to win a brand-new Tsuge pipe! Ask any one of our cheerful staff for more details…this is an opportunity you can’t afford to miss!

This week we are going to celebrate the arrival of warmer weather and sunny skies with a new and original ASW house blended pipe mixture appropriately labeled “Summertime!”

Summertime was cooked up one Saturday morning when Mike suggested we concoct something aromatic that smelled and tasted like a Dreamsicle…a tall order for a pipe tobacco!

Luckily (I’d rather be lucky than good any day), we had the right blending components to actually pull it off. Summertime is comprised of fine Red and Golden Virginias as well as premium black and brown Cavendish infused with vanilla, spice, and citrus that just overwhelms the nose as you take a whiff from the jar.

Unlike many aromatic blends, this one is not goopy or overly moist which allows for a cool, dry smoke that immediately delivers the orange peel citrusy note from first light; then the high-end Virginias come forward and bring in just enough sweetness to complement the cased Cavendish. It actually reminded me of the days when you’d get a Dreamsicle from the ice cream truck.

Summertime is a tobacco lover’s aromatic: There’s enough quality leaf in the blend to satisfy the smoker while providing a heavenly room note for anyone who might pass by. Summertime has earned a 4-1/2 pipe rating from a reviewer who generally does NOT prefer aromatic blends. Stop in and give our new ASW house blend a test drive and don’t forget to bring your pipe! Until next time, Puff On.