Glen Case and Kristoff get all the sparkles!

The other day, when a certain someone* should have been home grading papers, she wasn't because she'd been whisked off** to a new place.***

Another new favorite place!
Hanging out in all these awesome places doesn't leave any time for work! 
Hold on while I go play the lottery!! We have lots more places to visit!

Our friend Brenda, who started working at Havana Cigar Club in West Warwick, RI not too long ago, had been enticing us with promises of a place filled with unicorns and rainbows.**** Yeah, yeah, yeah we said, since the lounge is maybe 30-40 minutes away from Casa Awesome.

But her wily ways took a stronghold the other day when she announced a Kristoff event at the lounge. We'd heard nothing but amazing things about his eminency***** Glen Case and we needed to bow to him, shake his hand, and offer to wash his car. At least that was my intention. Valentino said we could just make him laugh and smoke his cigars. Whatevs, dude.

Turns out his plan really was the best one, although I'll never admit that publicly.****** (It was really cold that night so washing the car was out of the question anyway.) And we certainly made him laugh. In fact, he and Valentino may share a funny gene.*******  OMG! It was like they were separated at birth! For realz!

And while all the jocularity occurred, he showed us his wares (heh heh), asking what Valentino likes to smoke and then made recommendations from favorites. That makes me happy, when a cigar rep or
owner or shopkeeper wants to match you with the perfect cigar for you, rather than pointing you in the popular direction.

These are just two of our purchases. The others disappeared magically somehow, swallowed up by the Humidor Monster perhaps?

We know what happened to this one though:

Up in flames, baby! Up! In! Flames!
And it made me have the glad, because man, oh man, was that fabuloso!!

The Kristoff GC Signature Series hit the flame first and released "rich notes of espresso, dried apricot, chocolate and a sweet-spicy finish." [source]  The delicious Brazilian Maduro wrapper reminded us a teeny bit of our old friend, the CAO Amazon Basin. The binder is Cuban Seed Honduran and the filler, the filler is all the delicious things! Cuban Seed Dominican! Cuban Seed Honduran! AND Cuban Seed Nicaraguan!

Our friend Brenda, she who enticed us there in the first place, had this and raaaaaved about it. I can't possibly share a second-hand smoke story with you because she's a fast little devil, moving a zillion miles an hour:

"The maduro ligero washes your palate with notes of espresso bean,
dark chocolate, a hint of mix berry and a sweet cocoa finish."
(I'd tell you the source, but I closed the dang window and moved on with my day and then...d'oh!)

The Kristoff website says, "The Kristoff Ligero has twice the amount of Ligero leaf in the filler than the original Kristoff. It embodies incredible notes of toasted nut, caramel, undertones of cedar, spice and a sweet finish. Made with 100% Cuban Seed tobacco, this cigar leaves a clean, fresh finish on your palate."

Anyway, Glen? Glen is awesomely awesome and he would never lead you astray--unless you asked him to, but that's something else again. Want to know why he's in the cigar business? "It was one of those mid-life crisis’.  I’ve always enjoyed a good cigar and decided to pursue, what was an interest at the time; but it quickly turned into a passion."  Yeah, that happens to a lot of us. Oh, wait. Midlife crisis? Nope. Don't know anything about that!

"I spent nineteen years in the corporate world; all in the financial services industry.  The last nine years of my career, I spent as an executive at one of the top five banks in the country. I actually started in this industry as an independent sales rep.  However, it was only about six months later that I decided I wanted to come out with my own cigar line.  That was over 8 years ago." [source]

Havana Cigar Club Owner Todd LaScola, our hero Valentino, and Glen Case!

So! Now we 1. Have a couple of new friends; 2. Found another cool place to hang out; 3. Have another new favorite cigar. Not a bad evening of fun, although when we finally returned home, the elves hadn't even started grading papers. It's so hard to get good help these days.  Sheesh.


*Me, in case you haven't caught on to our patterns of mystery here.

**Actual conversation went something like this... Him: Ready to go? Me: Yep.

***New to me; Valentino had cased the joint previously.

****Metaphorical, I was sad to find out.

*****Not Eminem, you jokers. The head honcho.

******Oh.

*******Not this funny Gene: