Cigar Weekly

Monday May 4th, 2009

Tom Chapman

The most miserable Michigan winter in recent memory has finally decided to depart. I’ve been looking forward to getting out on the patio to enjoy a good smoke, and the time has come! The temperature actually reached into the mid-80s for a couple of days this past week. Looks like we’re going to completely bypass spring, and jump from winter right into summer. That’s Michigan for you. Furnace and air conditioner – three days apart!
 

This time around, we’ll take a look at the El Mejor Emerald line of cigars, the Churchill in particular. These surprisingly tasty Honduran-made cigars have Nicaraguan long filler leaves, Nicaraguan binders and nice looking Honduran Corojo wrappers, and are supposedly box aged for six months prior to shipping. They are medium in flavor and body, with hints of spice and cedar – not particularly complex and rather one dimensional, but pleasant and tasty nonetheless. 
 

Four sizes are available:
7.0 x 50 Churchill
5.5 x 50 Robusto
6.0 x 52 Toro
6.5 x 54 Torpedo

All of the size formats come cedar wrapped, and each cigar sports a shaggy foot and pig-tail cap (except for the Torp, of course). Now, about this shaggy foot. Esthetics? Function? I have no idea. A thorough web search didn’t help much either. I haven’t burned many shaggies myself, but I’ve always lit the ‘shag’ as is. Apparently, some folks cut it off. When I buy a cigar NOTHING gets cut off, only burned!
 

I was able to locate a very limited number of online sources. Cigars International and Tinder Box have identical prices for a box of 20 in each size, and their costs range from $49 for the Robusto to $69 for the Torpedo. Some outfit by the name of ‘Executive Gift Shop’ sells the Churchills at $91 a box plus shipping! OK… That one’s a write-off.

This article is based on the Churchill, so let's run with that. At $65 a box, and figuring a typical $6 shipping charge, we're looking at $3.55 a stick. Not bad in the big picture, but this is a thrifty cigar smoking column! $3.55? Unacceptable! Off to the on-line auction scene. I’m pretty much set on CigarBid. Frankly, I haven’t dealt with any of the others, only because I find C-Bid easy and convenient. Plus, CI has always provided me with good customer service. So, I can’t do an auction site comparison.

I’ve eye witnessed a box of 20 EM Churchills going for as low as $25 on C-Bid. With $5.95 shipping, we’re looking at $1.55 a stick. OH YEAH… That’s better! Taking it to the next level, I’ve seen 5ers go for $5! Now, if you’re patient, persistent and lucky (very), it IS possible to win 4 five packs at $5 each in the same lot. With $5.45 shipping ($3.95 for the first, $0.50 each for the other three), the total works out to $1.27 per cigar for 20 sticks. Tough to beat for something that’s worth smoking.

So let’s hit the patio and light some up!

Thanks for checking out this instalment of Cheapskate’s Choice.

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Tom Chapman (tchapchap) is a recently retired mechanical engineer who survived over three decades in the bowels of the domestic car business developing future products. He's been a lover of the leaf for several years, and has been known to go considerably out of his way to make cigar-related visits. In addition to family and cigars, Tom enjoys motorcycles (owning more of them than he needs to!) and, in spite of living, breathing, eating and getting beaten up over cars, still loves them too! He's also an avid fisherman.