Cigar of the night – Paris Smokeasy
Basically, this is Adult Trick or Treating with cigars! Every month, our private cigar club meets at Rigby’s Cigars & Lounge and tries a new cigar selected by our Humidor Master, Gary Flynn. Most months we have a Cigar Representative present to tell us about their line and the cigars we are all smoking. Sometimes we get lucky, and the owner of the cigar company shows up! At the end of the evening, each member rates the cigar with their opinion of it and here you will find the club’s average.
Espinosa Cigars was our brand of the night with Big Tony Gomez giving us the low down on the line and our stick in hand. Big Tony is the Regional Cigar Rep for Espinosa covering Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. He’s a regular at our events having brought us the Laranja Reserva Escuro Toro in April ’21, the Espinosa Murcielago Robusto in October of ’21, and the Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Habano Toro in April of ’22, which is the line blended with Celebrity Chef Guy Fieri.
Erik Espinosa, the owner of Espinosa Cigars was born in Havana, Cuba and moved with his family to the US when he was 3 months old. He inherited his love of cigars from his father, who worked in the cigar industry. In 1997, starting at a local cigar shop and helping his dad at events, he went on to work with Gurkha, Alec Bradley, Rocky Patel, and Drew Estates cigar companies as an independent tobacco broker. He has worked in almost all aspects of the cigar business. In 2003 he and Eddie Ortega launched the E/O Brands United Tobacco making several lines until the company was taken over by Rocky Patel in 2011. In 2009, their 601Box Press Maduro Toro was the #6 Cigar in the Cigar Aficionado (CA) Top 25. In 2012, Erik launched Espinosa Cigars. Initially, he made his cigars through the AJ Fernandez plant or other manufacturers until he bought his own place in Esteli, Nicaragua, called the La Zona Factory. Now Erik can control everything from the seed to the sale of his brand. Under the Espinosa Brand our several labels, the Las 6 Provincias LHB, Wasabi, Laranja, Murcielago, 601, Espinosa, @Zucar, Comfortably Numb, and the Knuckle Sandwich, to name a few. He received a 94 rating from Cigar Aficionado in Oct of 15 and made their Top-25 Cigars of the Year 2015 with the same cigar we are trying for this event. Eric has hit the CA Top 25 Cigars of the Year with #13 in 2015, #14 in 2017, #11 in 2019, #13 in 2020, and #23 in 2022.
The Espinosa Laranja Reserva Toro in a 6″ x 52-gauge is a medium-bodied, full-flavored cigar, with a Brazilian Ballano Wrapper, Nicaraguan Binder, and a Nicaraguan Filler. From their website, it says “The Laranja Reserva took its name from the Portuguese word for “orange”, because of the orange hue of its Brazilian wrapper. This cigar is aromatic with unique floral and sweet notes with an underlying spiciness throughout.” With 52 people present, it received a Redneck Ratin’ of 87/100. I personally have a box of each of the 2022 601 La Bomba Warhead VIII and the new Knuckle Sandwich LE Prix Fixe in my personal humidor at home!
Our sponsor for the night was Commercial Cleaning Services of NE Texas with owner Shawn Roden. They specialize in small to medium businesses with services from general up through hospital-grade cleaning nights and weekends. They also do post-construction cleaning for new homeowner move-ins. It is a HERO/Veteran Owned Business as Shawn is the Red River County Constable and a former Marine.
Written by JD Marrs
Hosted by Rigby’s
Photo Cred: Rigby’s Humidor