Happy New Year 2012

I wish you and your families a Happy New Year 2012!

2011 in pictures

It's time to sum up another year with some nice pictures of the past 12 months... many good memories are connected to those. It's really hard to reduce all the pix of one month down to one....

• January

First big Herf of 2011 in Dusseldorf

• February

Pharmacy smoke - have some fun

• March

One of three special smokes

• April

Relaxin in the Sunshine State - Seaworld, Shamu show

• May

10th wedding anniversary

• June

My first Bacon Explosion

• July

Smoky summit conference, altitude: 2502 m / 8209 ft

• August

Sonnenbraeu Brewery Festival

• September

2 weeks in paradise

• October

Noche Cubana in Gottlieben

• November

Whiskytasting "In the year 1973"

• December

Sixday Nights, Zurich

Winter impressions

Winter arrived with some snow... I´m not sure how long it´ll stay like this, so I took some pix.

Merry X-mas

Another year's comin to its end...

I wish you and your families a Merry X-mas...

Planksmoked bacon

A friend of mine posted some pix on FB of tons of smoked bacon that he did this summer. I have a recipe for planksmoked bacon in one of my cooking books and so I tried it out.

This first try was done with a small piece... just a test to see how it comes out. I prepared it with Bone Dust Seasoning and let it rest for about two days in the cooler before I put it on a cedar wood plank to smoke it on the grill.

The smell during the smoking process was really awesome and I´m looking forward to try the first slices of it...

Bacon on the cedar wood plank

After it cooled down I made the first cut and it really came out delicious. Positive result, I´ll do it again with bigger pieces for sure.

The first cut - fantastic taste

12/14 - Swiss Musketeer Herf

One year ago we made our smoke at the end of the year as a threesome smoke... this time D'Artagnan aka Ralf joined the Swiss Musketeers... so it's a foursome smoke.

Due to the fact that the Runway was totally booked out, we´d to find another place for our smoke. We met at the QN lounge where we spent a great evening app. 2 years ago with two friends from the States... it´s one of the first reports here on my blog.

QN World

We took our seats in the lounge and fired up the sticks. For me the first cigar of this evening was a Vegas Robaina Maestros ER Spain 2008. A great cigar, they developed well and they´re very promising for the future... we´ll see...

Starting with a Vegas Robaina Maestros ER Spain 2008

After the first cigar we took a short break and changed the location within the smoking area to have some dinner. The food´s really good there and after we finished we moved back to the convenient seats in the lounge to continue our smoking with an Upmann No. 2 from 1996.

Dinner

Do you really need some words on a 15 yo. Upmann cigar? What can I say about it than: intensive in taste, great aroma, strong. Fan-fucking-tastic! I still have some left of those... luckily... a real highlight! My last cigar of that evening was a Montecristo Edmundo from 2006. Being some kinda tasteless and boring when they came out, it developed into an interesting cigar full of flavor. A really positive surprise.

It was a very nice evening, guys... I´m happy that we met to celebrate our last smoke of 2011 with this constellation.

Upmann No. 2 from 1996

A light in the dark

4 caps of 4 great cigars

Jean Nicot Tabaksbier

At the end of the last month I met with a few friends in Lommel during a business trip which led me to the Netherland and the northern part of Germany.

I heard about this beer before and Frank was kind enough to help me to get a crate of it. It's hard to get also in Belgium, but it's always good to know who to ask.

This beer has been developed with the help of the cigar club "Aroma de Cuba" and the brewery De Graal, with their brew master Dr. W. Saeyens, a small high-quality brewery in Brakel, a village in the Flamish Ardennes. The recipe of this beer contains a mixture of premium tobacco leafes from Java, Brasilia and Havanna.

The name of the beer was inspired by Jean Nicot, who lived from 1530 to 1604, the guy who introduced tobacco in France.

The beer itself is a so called Tripel with an ABV of 8.5 % and as for many Belgian beers there'll be a second fermentation in the bottle... another beer that can be stored for a while, hopefully I can leave my hands of it to do so.

I tried it and here are my impressions...

It´s fruity in the nose with some hints of decent bitterness of hops and tobacco. The foam is very fine and stable. The first sip proof the nose. Fruit and tobacco, hops and yeast... a very nice combination, a good balance. According to the bottle it´s 8.5 % of alcohol, but I heard through the grapevine that it could be a little bit more... A really good beer.. well done, guys...

12/07 - Torcedor in Vaduz

On Wednesday a Torcedor from Davidoff was at Marc´s shop, later in the evening it´s planned to move to the Salon Davidoff in the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz.

I joined Marc in the shop in the late afternoon and got a fresh rolled Puro d´Oro. Honestly: they didn´t convince me last year when I tried one at the official introduction event and they didn´t convince me fresh from the table. Hot air, that´s it.

So I stuck to the stuff I like... a PSD4 and two Custom Rolled Cubans, one from Cueto, one from Mons... the much better choice.

I took some nice shots in the shop...

Montecristo Especial - different colors of the wood

Hoyo de Monterrey Double Epicure

Hoyo de Monterrey Double Epicure

Upmann Noellas

Upmann Half Coronas, a great little smoke

Torcedor at work

Rolling some Puro d´Oros

After the shop closed we took our cars to drive to Bad Ragaz where the Salon Davidoff is located as a part of the Grand Resort.

It´s a really nice place, I enjoy it everytime when I´m there... some really tasty fingerfood was served and we continued smoking... with custum rolled cigars... not from the DR but Cuba... it´s much more my liking.

Great evening... thx to Marc and Davidoff.

Marc, the host of the evening

Let´s smoke

Nice atmosphere in the Salon Davidoff

Tasty fingerfood

Tasty fingerfood

Tasty fingerfood

Tasty fingerfood

12/03 - Sixday Nights Zurich, Final night

It's still named Sixdays.... but in the end it's not 6 but just 4 nights of cycling action...

Anyhow... my first visit to such kinda event after many years of absence... and it's worth to go there...

It's a long evening, starting at 6.30 pm and ended up at 2.30 am on Sunday morning.

I took some pix from the place where we sat...

Welcome the Hallenstadion Zurich

Welcome the Hallenstadion Zurich

Marvulli / Keisse during the introduction

Let´s start

Jörg Peter

Motor-paced racer

Motor-paced racer

Preparing for the sprint

Derny race

Hester / Morkov

Aeschbach / Stucki

 Lamparter / Grasmann

Getting a massage

Hondo / Bartko

Final lap

The winner - Marvulli