halfwheel

Redux: Liga Privada Único Serie Papas Fritas

The Papas Fritas was one of the largest releases last year for the cigar market: a cheaper Liga Privada, a more accessible Liga Privada and an expensive mixed filler cigar. There are few cigars that I think we at halfwheel were asked about more last year, and I think with reason. There’s also, to this [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie UF-13 Dark (Prerelease)

It’s been a long wait, but Drew Estate is finally ready for the national release of perhaps its most anticipated Liga Privada ever, the UF-13 Dark. Way back in early 2011, I smoked the first of what would end up being quite a few reiterations of a blend that Liga Privada was working on, dubbed [...]

Review: Drew Estate BOTL.org 2012

In July of 2010, Pinar Del Río released 4,000 cigars for the  BOTL.org (Brothers of the Leaf) forum. Dubbed the Pinar Del Río BOTL.org Small Batch 2010, the cigar was sold at Burning Leaf Cigars in Illinois, a store forum user Tim Podwika worked at. In 2011, Podwika left the store to start Podman Cigars. He had [...]

Review: Herrera Esteli Toro Especial (Prerelease)

At IPCPR 2012 in Orlando, Florida in August, Drew Estate introduced a new brand made by Willy Herrera, formally of El Titan de Bronze fame. Herrera joined the Drew Estate team in June of 2011 and has been working on the blend bearing his name ever since. The press release about his arrival gives all of the [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie Papas Fritas (Prerelease)

If I were to do a Top 10 list simply based off of the amount of a particular cigar I smoked in the past year, finding number one would be easy. Over the course of the last 15 months, I have smoked through bundles of the newest Liga Privada, the Único Serie Papas Fritas. A [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie Velvet Rat

On October 19, 2012 Drew Estate held a special event at TESA Cigar Co. to sell Drew Estate’s newest Liga Privada for the first time, the Velvet Rat. Just 40 bundles of 10 cigars were offered as part of the “soft launch” with a full release expected mid-2013.  We covered the news a few weeks [...]

Redux: Undercrown Corona ¡Viva!

In May of this year, Drew Estate shipped its first extension to the Undercrown line, Corona ¡Viva! The idea was simple, slightly tweak the Undercrown blend to fit the Corona Gorda vitola. While the project was formally announced in December of 2011 and limited samples were available earlier in this year. Here’s what I said [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie UF4 (2012)

Having gone through a few iterations of names, this recent Drew Estate release was named the UF4. Back in 2010, Brooks reviewed the preproduction sample which was called the JD4. That preproduction cigar went on to be named the MF4, which was the official name for quite awhile. Towards the end of 2011 however, the [...]

Review: Undercrown Flying Pig

Back in March we were tipped off via one of our Dutch readers about a new Undercrown, a Flying Pig. While in Holland visiting accounts, Jonathan Drew of Drew Estate agreed to make the unique size in Drew Estate’s newest blend for the region. The Flying Pig was introduced in 2009 as a limited edition [...]

Review: Liga Privada Único Serie Ratzilla (Prerelease)

Liga Privada is forever working on new blends, and new vitolas of old blends, and that is how the Ratzilla came to be. While looking to make a (somewhat) larger version of the insanely popular Dirty Rat, quite a few different sizes were tested before they settled on a final size of 6 1/4 x [...]