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Old 10-09-2021, 10:31 AM   #1
ElkTwin
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1998 LGC Wavell maduro

In the second half of the 90s the cigar boom really took off. And the early days of the Internet saw big changes in how cigar hobbyists interacted. Enter the days of the epic cigar crawl.

On the Usenet group alt.smokers.cigars, large groups began to gather around the country and tour cigar points of interest. I was a regular at several - the Jersey Shore Crawl, the Carolina Cigar Crawl, post turkey day SoCal herf, and a few less formal events.

At the same time, the immediacy of the internet let certain cigars become legendary as their fame spread like wildfire. The La Gloria Cubana Wavell was one of these legends. Originally rolled by Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, Jr. in his Calle Ocho El Credito factory, the LGC was one of a handful of cigars still produced in the Miami area. They were hard to come by; you had to call or fax your order to the shop to get them, and in 97-98 they began to produce the cigar in both Miami and the Dominican Republic. Ernesto claimed the ingredients were the same, but everyone wanted the Miami version and claimed it was better.

In 1997 a ragtag group of cigar miscreants who would later become semi famous for trashing the legendary Sammy Davis Junior suite at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, had gathered in Miami to do a cigar crawl. The group contained several entertaining and active Internet celebrities whose way with words was highly entertaining.

When the event was repeated in 1998, nothing could keep me away. We rolled through Miami in an open air motorized trolley car. We toured several facilities including the Padron shop where they made us Cuban coffee, Moore and Bode, Mike’s Cigars, had an authentic Cuban lunch, we were taught to roll cigars by Nick Perdomo at his shop, and we also visited El Credito.

Just to provide context, when we essentially raided Mike’s cigars, we bought every single box of Perdomo Anniversario they had on hand. Every one.

We were just about salivating when we rolled up to El Credito with visions of Miami made cigars dancing in our heads. We got to see the remaining rollers, meet the legendary Elena who had handled our phone orders for years, but sadly the shelves were bare. Thrilled by the hospitality but disappointed in the lack of cigars, we walked out the front door with our heads hanging low.

When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but Ernesto himself rolling up in a battered pick up truck with the bed covered in a tarp. He had just been to the airport to pick up a fresh shipment of his cigars from the Dominican republic.

There was a joyous celebration with much handshaking, back slapping, hugs, and selfies with Ernesto way before selfies were a thing.

Now I’m not going to say that we cleaned out the bed of the truck, but we did make a serious dent in that shipment. And one of the Wavell maduro cigars that a very happy Roger glommed unto on Calle Ocho in Miami over 20 years ago made its way to Sean for his review.

https://forums.cigarweekly.com/showthread.php?t=183936
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