Dallas Post Turkey Day Crawl (recap)

[Mowee]

Well another Post Turkey Day Crawl is in the books. If I thought last year was rough when we weren’t sure if Matts was going to be in business, this year added to the stress when our banquet facility decided to play games with us….a WEEK out.
We had been planning to go to Bob’s Steak and Chop House in Plano, but on the Friday before the event they gave us a song and dance (saying drinks would be on one check per table and then divided evenly between the people at the table….very convenient for them but I doubt the non drinkers would have bought this concept. They said separate checks were beyond them.) Bottom line, they were not going to dedicate any servers to our group of 45, so we re-grouped and Morton’s of Chicago came through catering our dinner at Tobacco Gallery. Pity Bob’s Steak and Chop House won’t be getting any more of my money. Wanted to be certain to share this publicity for them.

As for the crawl itself….we began at a dive. The Addison Point where one waitress was able to keep track of all of our checks (guess there is better staff in a dive than a higher priced joint). After lots of talk and drinks and smokes ( thanks to Raleigh Parks for bringing a bundle from Cigar Bid of Nicaraguans) we headed out to our first stop….Addison Cigar.

Mark and his staff were offering discounts and had a special on Miami Cigars (20% off) so we loaded up on Preferidos and The Don Lino Africans.. (Actually I think we bough out his whole African supply.) Tom Poehler—the Miami rep—was there to gift us with a Preferido. The weather cooperated and it was a nice sunny 70 degrees so we hung out and smoked and talked more.

The next stop was Two Brothers Cigars in Plano. Rick outdid himself….first he had one of his regular customers pouring Glenlivet and Glenmorangie for us ( along with beer and soft drinks of course). She was dressed in a nice short skirt and tight blouse. We enjoyed the view. (Of course we invited her to join our group.) His specials were buy 2 and get one free (except for Padrons and Gurkhas which were buy 3 get one). Ryan Poehler ( Tom’s brother) had the Gurkha line out for sampling…we each got one. Then Rick had the restaurant next door bring over some food for us—after all it had been a couple of hours since we finished lunch! Everybody enjoyed the hospitality.

Then it was off to Tobacco Gallery for our gala. Morton’s ( and Tammy Smalley) did a terrific job of setting up for our 46 attendees. Nice tables and white linen were ready when we got there. Bob offered specials for us too in addition to opening his bar for us….drinking for free…what a concept. I bought ( cuz the liquor reps stood us up) a bottle of the Dalmore Cigar malt for everyone to taste….went well with our cigars.
Then we all got to try a new cigar…the Monte Carlo. This is a brand new Nicaraguan that the Poehlers are bringing to market. (Tom, Ryan and PJ). It will be initially available in the DFW area, then Texas and then throughout the southwest. It is a limited production smoke, but delivered lots of flavor with a smooth finish. Its profile is like a Padron but with a bit more flavor.

Dinner time came and our 3 dedicated servers ( hmmm Morton’s didn’t have a problem giving us servers—couldn’t resist) took great care of us. Bringing out the appetizers of fresh fruit and cheese and their famous steak sandwiches. Drool. Dinner was great with a lot of choices ( I had the ribeye, some had the crabcakes and most went for the filet.) Dessert was from a bottle of Bushmills Irish Cream. Everyone got some. I had found this at a Bushmills tasting earlier this year and my wife has fallen in love with it. If you have ever tried Baileys’ this blows it away….and it is cheaper too! Made with REAL irish whisky.

After dinner we were given another NEW cigar the Grand Habanos VL (very limited). It will debut in late January or early February. The cigars are young but extremely tasty. 3 of us got to try this one at the RTDA this summer and fell in love with it. It is a double maduro ( wrapper and binder) and has an incredible taste. The gran robusto has a nice maduro sweetness to it. The Churchill keeps all of the maduro flavor without the sweetness. Interesting that two cigars with exactly the same blend produce different profiles based upon the ring gauge. We can’t wait for these to come out.

We also were given an Oliveros Cameroon which was very tasty too. (Sorry I didn’t make notes on all the stuff we smoked and by them my buds were fried anyway.)

Then came our charity raffle. Wow what a bounty this year…and I gotta thank all our sponsors….Torano Cigars gave us 3 boxes…General, Perdomo , Oliva and Ataldis gave a box each…Caribe gave 2 boxes of Camachos…as did Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicana ( including a signed box) …CAO sent a box and hats…Mitchell Rony, Steven and our new friend in Hong Kong all contributed too. Then the Poehlers added even more boxes of Gurkhas, Puros Indios, Oliveros, ….our members donated stuff too…Mavs Tickets, Laphroaig, some 5 packs of Prince of Wales with nice age…a couple of huge baggies with about 50 smokes or more in each.

12 hours after we began the day, we finished…..stuffed….packed with a bunch of free smokes and great deals on the rest….and with lots of prizes we had a bunch of winners. We figure we raised about $1600 for The Salvation Army.

Thanks to everyone who made this year another success! ( I think I am gonna take a nap)

[hogg]

Nice, I heard about these crawl things, they sound like a real party.

[Mowee]

Yeah they are a lot of fun....we're one of the oldest....not sure exactly how old but I have been running it since 1997 and the previous guy ran it 2 or 3 or 4 years before that...so we are either 9, 10 or 11 years old.

[txmatt]

I usually have to spend Turkey day outside of D-Town. This year we made the 1000 mile drive up to our parent's.

Hopefully some year I can do this crawl, it sounds like a blast!

-Matt-

[zemekone]

Partying like a rockstar while raising money for charity, good stuff bro!

[Mowee]

Thanks bro....yeah it was a blast. The other cool thing was we collected about 200 smokes to send to Iraq and Afghanistan....the packages went out monday.