This is quite a pricey cigar and not something I could afford to smoke on a regular basis, but it's very highly regarded and so I guess it could be used as a solid benchmark. In the search for an all round quality cigar that is affordable I suppose you need to at some point try the best to understand what quality is and have something to compare it too.
Cigar summary
Origin: Nicaragua
Ring gauge: 43
Length: 7
Manufactured: Hand made
Maturity: 4 Months
Construction: Very good
Draw: Easy draw with mild aniseed dry draw
Strength: Light to medium
Flavour: Mild dry fruit, coffee with spiciness developing later and some oiliness all through
Burn: good
Guy's rating (70-100): 89.5
General comments:
When I first received this cigar the first thing that caught my attention was that it had very little aroma or flavour in the wrapper. It's now been in my humidor for 4 months and it has the aroma of cedar (as expected) but still no flavour in the wrapper so I'm interested to see how this translates into the actual smoke. Lighting her up!
The dry draw is easy, pleasant flavours on the dry draw - mild aniseed.
Oiliness, dried fruit, excellent smoke volume, easy draw - all off the bat, also some bitterness coming through. It also has a good feel in the hand, so it's a good first impression. It's very smooth at this point, light to medium in body, the flavours don't seem to be doing very much, some smooth coffee possibly coming through with the bitterness maintaining. The first third also has the introduction of some fresh grassy tobacco.
The second third introduces some creaminess, very very mild though, and the spiciness develops into something a bit stronger. It's still a pleasant smoke at this stage, fantastic construction and draw but just a little disappointed in the relatively mild/bland flavours - maybe it's a morning smoke?
The last third was still mild but introduced some earthy espresso notes. All in all it was a good smoke but personally I prefer something a bit more dynamic and moves around a bit with the flavours. A score of 89.5 may seem low but it's a solid 89.5. Next time I may give it a go in the morning and it may score higher.
