We have a winner from Jim Manuel:
“The thing sells itself! Hell, with your glowing testimonies, it’s inconceivable anyone who’s read your reviews and is at least partly in touch with their Freudian psychoanalysis of relating to or denoting a stage of infantile psychosexual development supposedly preoccupied with the anus and defecation, could go without one!
“Ream away the bad and suck in the good. (???)”
“I use my PerfecDraw cigar poker tool to ream its innards.”
“Out comes my PerfecDraw cigar poker and ream the shit out of the cigar. Now it’s open and ready to go. ”
“…and ream the cigar like it’s getting a colonoscopy”
“…and ream the shit out of it. Nothing worse that sucking on a cigar that is no different than a flattened straw”
And my personal favorite:
“I ream the sucker til you can drive a 1953 Studebaker through it.”
One free PerfecDraw cigar poker tool and one free PerfecRepair Cigar Glue bottle.
Dr. Rod is raising the price on Sept. 1 so if you don’t want to take a chance of not winning, buy your poker right now.
All you need to win is comment. Say something. Anything. Everyone is allowed up to 3 comments.
And I will pick the winner based on absolutely no criteria other than what impresses me as an interesting comment.
(While it is nice hearing pleasant things about myself, complimenting me is not the goal. A comment about your life, a comment about your favorite cigar, a comment about a cigar experience, or a comment about nothing having to do with cigars at all…get creative and surprise me.)
Shipping to Continental U.S. only
Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS
Cigar Reviews by the Katman 
Katman,
Recently shared with you how great PerfecDraw cigar tool is.
Hugh Woodruff
Best cigar review site in existance!
Uncle phil. I have gone through 6 bottles of glue and considering buying another poker. The screwed grooves of my cap broke off in use one day so it doesnt close. All cosmetic of course. And my stash looks like half of ur reviews. Dam u. But i will share that i grabbed my bespoke cotton tails from freiburg deutchland 2 years ago during a family trip and ee had to take a 40 detour just to stop by this shop.
Anyway. I wish u well!
TK
Contact Rod Kurthy about your poker problem.
Oooh. Okay. Thanks for that advice. Stay Well! I’ve still yet to taste some of the flavors and notes and I probably never will. It’s still dang good reading tho. Thank you!
I feel like a 19 year old girl in heat at the front row of a rock concert. Dr.Rod Kurthy personally gave me a call to say he will send me a replacement. You can take me out of the contest and sign me up as fan for life. Thanks Uncle Phil and Dr. Rod.
Ted
Ted, this was HILARIOUS!
Katman, follow you from the nearby Twin Cities of MSP. Enjoy your reviews immensely. Especially enjoy your sidebars about your days with CA. Your palette is whacked; I only aspire to pick up a few of the many nuanced flavors your detect – but I keep trying! Have ordered many sticks based on your reviews and have enjoyed an Isabela promo sampler in the past thanks to you too. Regardless, I will be ordering the Perfect Draw kit through the link on your site since you are how I was first introduced to it. Been following your recent travails and will keep and your family in my thoughts and prayers as well. Keep up the good work!
Curved Air for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
I could have used this yesterday. This is a must have!
Mark Twain bumped his head, and shortly thereafter arrived at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter said, “I don’t have your name on my list, but tell ya what, it’s been a slow day, if you can recite a poem that ends in the word ‘Timbuktu’, I will allow you in.” Twain twisted his mustache, set a wry smile on his face and said, “Tim and I for a walk we went. Spied three maidens in a tent. They were three and we were two. So I bucked one and Tim bucked two.”
It’s just a GROOVY LITTLE THING!
It’s just a GROOVY LITTLE THING, BABY!
Katmandu,
Your site has been nothing short of a revelation to me as a loyal follower in the cigar arts.
Thank you for all of your knowledge, insight and guidance to me the uninitiated.
Doubtless without it I would be buying and smoking some fluffed up marketed dog rockets.
Gary M
I truly enjoy your reviews. I may not always agree with them or care about the cigar you are reviewing, but the stories….man the stories. How the hell are you still alive or how your wife has not killed you in your sleep yet. I like the fact you don’t pull any punches and don’t get caught up in any of the fanboy stuff that is so prevalent like many reviewers do – if it sucks it sucks, not matter the manufacturer. Please keep doing what you do and know that the faithful follows of you like myself, appreciate it and wish nothing but the best for you and your family as we know it isn’t always easy. Sometimes life can just suck @ss but you gotta keep moving forward. Again, keep up the great work BOTL…
Thank you for what you do and bringing light to things I would otherwise would have ignored such as Isabela Cigar Company. Keep it going.
Hey Katman! Every review you post I read….you’re a nut, but entertaining as hell. I recently lost my PerfecDraw, and ran out of PerfecRepair, so this is just right on time, and if I win I PROMISE to get some type of case to put it in, so this doesn’t happen again. Thanks to you and Dr. Rod for the contest. Keep on rocking brother! \,,/
Katman,
Enough of the other comments and ball washing…….instead a haiku
Katman is good guy
Katmans palate is top shelf
Katman send poker
……to me!
King Katman,
I bought a Perfect Draw Poker after the umpteenth time it came up in your reviews, and every time I get a nice smooth pull off a tightly packed cigar I think “Ah, Thanks Phil.” I’ve since turned my dad (an ex cigarette smoker) onto the fine hand rolled stuff and have been putting off snagging him one since I heard the price was increasing.
I love the site, and I get downright giddy when I see a new review show up. I get the lowdown on the most interesting tobacco coming out with a vicarious tour of 1970’s/80’s LA/Europe, served up with so much honesty and grit, that I’d be here reading even if I didn’t partake.
I appreciate the humble reminders that palates differ, but I’ve yet to come across a cigar that had me doubt your wisdom, be it fawning praise or a savage excoriation.
Your reviews and recommendations greatly enrich my smoking experience and this post was the perfect opportunity to share my gratitude.
Presuming disqualification over multiple entries I’m gonna try this again under my real name! I hate Katman, fretless bass and egg creams! I love the Eagles and have never experienced a bad burn on a box press. That being said, I have to credit you with turning me onto the Perfect Draw, Southern Draw Rose of Sharon Lancero (perfectly tanned tobacco leg in pink lingerie) and the Ezra Zion Jamais Vu Gran Robusto (the tasty alternative to buying a fog machine).
Flavors: Barnyard musk, Unripened Brazil Nut, Pussywillow malts and weasel dander.
Great tool and glue.
There’s a joke in here somewhere. Ha!
Great reviews, you have greatly impacted my love of cigars. For the better.
Went though a whole box of the Crownhead le Lancero great cigar
I don’t have much to say that’s interesting, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, well, lots of things. My poor wife…
I also don’t need another PerfecDraw, so if I win it’s going to a good friend of mine. He’s my cigar buddy.
Know why fretless basses are the fastest?
No speed bumps.
(sorry…)
I hope you win and I’m your Cigar Buddy!
Tengo dos camerones.
So hey Uncle Phil — I guess you’re right when you tell me that your readers are under your Rock ‘n Roll, cigar lovin’ jazz mystic spell! LOL! Wow, nice comments, and all of them true! I happen to agree. You are a total breath of fresh air in an industry that seems to be full of brown nosers.
And thanks to everyone for the great comments about the PerfecDraw and PerfecRepair. Much appreciated.
Rod
You make my testicles blush, Dr. Rod. Don’t stop.
Phil
Now Dr. Rod is exactly the same age as me…68. And he calls me Uncle Phil.
Rod is poised to take over the cigar accessory world. He has some unbelievable things on the horizon for his products. You will shit when you read about it. You folks are literally on the ground floor of something that is going to explode all over the world. And you will tell yourselves that you connected with Dr. Rod when he was a normal, average, kind hearted, generous, and rich guy. As soon as his world explodes in the cigar industry, he will refer to us as his little people.
Kidding aside, Rod is my brother in arms. He is my friend. Something I’m proud of…We grew up in Long Beach, CA at the same time in history going to all the same places and hangouts when we were teens. We can stroll down memory lane for hours.
And Dr. Rod is a good man. He is one of the most irreverent, kind, and coo coo for cocoa puffs kind of guy I’ve ever known.
Reminder, on Sept.1, the price of the poker goes up. So if you don’t want to wait for a free one, snag one now. And tell Rod that his Uncle Phil sent you. He sends me used bags of sputum and dried blood to play with.
Ream it and win!
Me too.
A puff of smoke on curved air.
Somewhere near Guaimaro I bespoke a pair or two.
A punch grand puro a little white lie but, who cares?
Could alsways use a good poke.
I already have the glue. I use it mainly for rolling blunts. I take a blunt wrap and coat one corner of the sheet with the glue. Then I roll the wrap up from the corner diagonally, thus making a pre-rolled cone (or kohn). After the glue dries completely, I just fill the pre roll with weed out of my grinder and fold the ends afterwards.
I could never roll blunts the normal traditional way. I also have no idea how to stick the wrap together with just saliva. I’d rather use the glue anyway.
As for the poker, I can see that’s a nice tool to have. I don’t really need it though. I have a mini screwdriver that probably works equally as well. I bet I’d just end up losing it anyway if I owned one but if you feel a raging desire to send one to me anyway, I won’t argue or complain. Not very much anyway….
Equally as well? The only raging desire I have is to give you a double Fleet enema using beach sand as a lubricant.
Ladies and Germs, may I introduce to you Calvin Kush. My man in NorCal.
P.S.
I’m sure that Rod can’t wait to add the additional use of his cigar glue for fabricating blunts. There is a fortune to be made.
Is this a multitasker? Can I rotoroute my urethra to take care of my gonorrhea scabs with it?! All lodgin kidding aside… best reviews I’ve read.
Thanks for doing the contest. I read your reviews every day, you do have a very unique style of writing !
Thanks for the opportunity. Love reading your reviews. You’re definitely one of kind. Long ashes my friend.
I never win anything. But I love your reviews. Keep it up buddy.
So with all the love here for Katman, I’ve just got to tell you this story.
So one day I get this email from some joker going by the name Katman. He tells me that he’s nutso over what he called my “glue”. Of course he meant the PerfecRepair. He said how much he loves it and asked my permission to do a review. As if I’m going to say “no”???? Duh!
So I asked him if he’s also tried the PerfecDraw, and he tells me no, he has no interest in it. He said he already had two pokers, and he even emailed me a photo of them. He said that pokers are pretty much fulla shit, but that these two would work just as well as my poker (PerfecDraw).
So I asked him if he’d like me to send him one to check out, and he begrudgingly said OK.
Then he tried the PerfecDraw. And of course the rest is history. He went apeshit. LOL!!
So then I see him using the PerfecDraw on the majority of cigars he reviews, and I asked him about that. I said, “Ya know, with you using the PerfecDraw on so many cigars, people are gonna think you’re just bullshitting.” So, in typical Katman style, he gave me a tongue lashing about how he doesn’t give a crap if people think he’s bullshitting, because his trademark is that he never bullshits – and by not bullshitting, it gets him in trouble with most cigar manufactures – because he calls ‘em as he see’s ‘em.
Then he said that he’s always been super-sensitive to the draw of a cigar, and if the cigar didn’t have a good draw, and if the previous BS pokers he had didn’t work, he just tossed them. He said he used to toss cigars all the time.
Everyone knows what a “card” the Katman is. And I’m here to tell ya, he’s NO DIFFERENT one-on-one. LOL!!!
We love ya Uncle Phil.
Rod
Exposed. Damn.
Card? The only card is the same one that cigar manufacturers send me anonymously all the time:
Tales of the Strange and Smokey
It was warm fall evening in September 2015 and I had no plans and nothing much to do. An open schedule is a rare and joyful thing, and to many of us, provides a welcome opportunity to unwind and meander through the moment.
The shitty green pine wood I had purchased two years earlier was finally showing promise of combustion so I thought pairing it with some tasty sticks seemed like the appropriate thing to do as the threat of winter was creeping ever so close. I listened intently – my ear perked up like the Grinch’s on Christmas Eve as I heard the whispers and delights of white ashes and flavor bombs beckoning to me from my coolidor in the basement.
I selected a cigar at random, grabbed a cold beverage, and made my way to the now auburn backyard to prepare my fire.
Midway through my cigar I decided to lay on the grass and look at the stars. The previous month I experienced the misfortune of being rear-ended in my car not once, but twice. Unsurprisingly, I had some soft tissue damage so laying on ground was a relief to my aching back.
Looking up I saw something. It was very quick. It appeared to be triangular, and believe it or not, slightly opaque. Whatever I was seeing traveled in the sky from 2 o’clock to 10 o’clock in about 3 seconds – essentially clearing the entire city. I almost snorked the cigar down my windpipe in surprise. You might be thinking, “Damn, there must be some killer ‘Space Weed’ where he’s from.” Well, yes we do and no I did not have any ‘hyperspace hoots’ during or before this incident.
I consider myself an open-minded skeptic; who are we to fully comprehend the mysteries of the Universe? I quickly made a mental list of possibilities but nothing stuck. The only thing I could imagine being that fast would be missile. Since I don’t live in North Korea or Russia I could safely assume this was not what I saw.
I can’t explain it but I feel privileged to witness a glimpse of the unknown.
A Light from the Aether
The end of my shift was nearing and my excitement was palpable as the twisty mountain roads called me westward. It was midnight and I was one evening behind my friends, whom were camping in British Columbia’s beautiful White Swan Provincial Park in the Kootenay Ranges of the Rocky Mountains.
My car was already loaded and my plan was to blast out of the city right after work, take advantage of the non-existent traffic, and leverage the fact that I was working nights at that time. I was also excited to push my car a bit, do some Nuremberg-style turns, and exploit the shit out of my manual transmission with a lessened risk of encountering other vehicles or animals.
An hour-and-a-half later I was somewhat near the town of Banff. It was pitch black out and not a soul was on the highway with me. Suddenly, a magenta light appeared on the road directly in front of my car and kept pace with me. The best way I can describe what it looked like is when you are on a boat and you are looking into the lake water and you can see the sunlight refracting and creating these ‘needle’ type patterns. Does that make sense? It undulated and shifted almost like the Northern Lights. I rubbed my eyes and blinked and moments later it was gone.
To this day I can’t wrap my head around what I saw. Was it the result of some imbalanced neurotransmitters in my brain? Was it Venus’ light – reflected off a weather balloon – attenuated by swamp gas? I haven’t been able to find any answers on the Google or from other sources and I don’t think I’ll ever really know what I saw.
After seeing on EVERY review that you NEEDED to use the poker for a perfect draw you wore me down. I bought one. I would like to win one to send it to a friend who got me into cigars. Of course I’ll take the glue.
Just stumbled upon your review site. Loved the reviews I read. Especially the AJ Fernandez comments regarding the sticks made for other sellers. Just haven’t found one of of these sticks that rises above the so-so to good level but never approaching very good to great.
Thought I might be alone in thinking the AJ was spread too thin.
Any way, thanks for interesting reviews. I’ll be back for more. And I do love and use the Oerfect Draw and glue.
I want one
I’m riding a rolling chair in New Jersey. Yow!
Much like most of us, I can’t afford to just toss a premium cigar that might have a plug (or two), this tool seems like a lifesaver.
I love your reviews…..in fact I get most of my cigars from reading your recommendations (and stay away from some I might have tried).
Who can entertain with cigar reviews and tales of Butch Patrick…..no one, I say. Keep it up Uncle Phil and thanks for the hours of entertainment.
Sounds like the PerfectDraw plows through a plug faster than Rod Jeremy – and cleaner, too!
I thinlk I need one.
With a PerfectDraw, I’d no longer need a moil to cut the cigar ends, either.
There once was a Katman from Wisconsin
A herfing Jew-hippie Charles Bronson
His palate and wit
Could sure stir the shit
Cause his balls are as big as his Johnson! (reportedly)
Psst… hey… I actually just bought the poker last week and it works great and everything, but how about I flip the prize, and we split the takings 50/50?
You can delete this comment. I’ll post another one right below this that’ll look like a 100% legit entry. Heh.
I can’t believe I thought to do that. I was raised better than this, damn it. I’ve let everyone down.
The thing sells itself! Hell, with your glowing testimonies, it’s inconceivable anyone who’s read your reviews and is at least partly in touch with their Freudian psychoanalysis of relating to or denoting a stage of infantile psychosexual development supposedly preoccupied with the anus and defecation, could go without one!
“Ream away the bad and suck in the good. (???)”
“I use my PerfecDraw cigar poker tool to ream its innards.”
“Out comes my PerfecDraw cigar poker and ream the shit out of the cigar. Now it’s open and ready to go. ”
“…and ream the cigar like it’s getting a colonoscopy”
“…and ream the shit out of it. Nothing worse that sucking on a cigar that is no different than a flattened straw”
And my personal favorite:
“I ream the sucker til you can drive a 1953 Studebaker through it.”
I can’t help it, Jim. I’m married 33 years to a German national with advanced degrees in psychology from Goethe University in Frankfurt. And her discipline was Freud. I was fucked from the courting stage.
HAHHAHAHAHHAahahha…
That explains a lot! Thanks for the great reviews! I don’t buy anything new without checking your reviews first.
Struggling through one of my favorites right now. Horrible draw. Had me thinking about this poker you always plug. And what is the first thing I see on your page. So what the heck I’m in.
anything
THE CONTEST IS OVER.
The winner is Jim Manuel.
Thanks to everyone that participated. I enjoyed all of your comments.
All the best and look forward to another giveaway very soon.
Phil