Aleppo Smoker 2009 Recap
For a “Fair Weather Smoker” like myself, the Aleppo Shriners Smoker is the “Opening Day” of cigar season. Coincidentally, this year’s event occurred on the very first day of spring, this past Friday (March 20). The event is held every year at the Shriner’s Auditorium in Wilmington, MA to benefit the Shriners Transportation Fund. This was my second consecutive year and it both exceeded and fell short of my rather high expectations.
Dinner & Drinks
Dinner was absolutely fabulous. The steak was gigantic and enormous. The general consensus was that there is one less herd of cattle in the world right now. The rest of the meal great too, but next to that steak the green beans and baked potato looked rather ordinary.
In addition to the meal, there was a tasting booth set-up near the back of the dining area with a wide variety of single malts, ports, and other forms of alcohol. Throughout the course of the night, I had a few old favorites like Oban and The Balvenie as well as some new ones. The McClelland Islay was probably my favorite, but the Glen Farlach (sp?) was quite good as well.
Auction & Raffle
Not only was I amazed at the items up for auction, but thoroughly blown away by the amount of money people were bidding on them. I’m sure the Stradivarius cigars are a great cigar, but $750 for twenty cigars seems like an awful lot of money to spend on something to be burned. I know it may sound like heresy to some of you, but I can think of a whole lot of things I’d rather spend $750 on. I mean for that price they should cut and light themselves on command. Then again, I’m probably just jealous I don’t have that kind of disposable income. The fact that I didn’t come up a winner in any of the raffles didn’t help either, but I must remind myself that it is for a good cause and I’d rather see the money go to helping kid’s than in the till at
Entertainment
Last year’s entertainment was absolutely brilliant. Sir Jeremy Bell was funny, informative, and just plain entertaining. The Elvis karaoke guy they had this year was none of the above. He was a more than competent Elvis, an even better Johnny Cash, and a slightly less than stellar Neil Diamond, but he just didn’t fit with the theme and/or crowd. To make matters worse, the PA system was absolutely cranked and my ears only stopped ringing a few hours ago. On the bright side, they brought in “Blue Hawaii Elvis” and not “Rhinestone Jumpsuit Elvis”.
Hand Rolled Cigars
Benji Menendez of General Cigar was in attendance for the event and he brought with him one of his master rollers from his Miami factory, Jose Luis. Mr. Luis was hand rolling “La Gloria Cubana” cigars all night for the two hundred or so attendees. Watching Mr. Luis work was truly a sight to behold. The man worked with amazing speed and accuracy and like any great artisan, Mr. Luis made an extremely difficult task look simple. According to his assistant the tobacco is only partially aged and should be stored in a humidor for a couple of weeks at a minimum. I plan on giving mine at least a month or two.
The Loot
I was stunned at the amount of stuff they gave us last year and when I saw my “take” this year I was absolutely blown away. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go. I’ll leave this plenty big enough so you can see the names on the bands(You can see pictures of the take from last year’s event here.)
Hey Dandyman
I never got a chance to thank you and your co-workers for letting me hang out at your table for the event.
Definitely made the event more enjoyable!
Thanks!
No problem. It was good night, but be thankful you left when you did. A coworker of mine (who shall remain nameless) became quite inebriated and I spent the rest of my evening working with another unfortunate coworker to get him out of the building and home safely.