Picked up a fiver of these from Andrew (BlkDrew) who has started rolling his own cigars. Tried one ROTT and it was pretty good, but tonight I had a 2nd one after some rest in my cabinet humi. Worthy of a full review, and I felt like telling a story anyway; sometimes it's all about the setting
:-)
After a year of living in Seattle, we moved to a new home on the east side in September. Beautiful home, up on a hill overlooking Lake Washington, but we really missed having a hot tub here. Finally pulled the trigger this week, and had our tub moved to the new home. Not a simple job due to the big hill, as it required a crane to get it onto our backyard deck:
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So after a day of being snowed in (it only takes a couple of inches of snow around here), I grabbed a Roxy Robusto to smoke in the tub while the snow continued to fall.
Paired it with a glass of Beaulieu Vinyard Rutherford Cabernet and settled in to relax. The construction of the Roxy was really outstanding; very impressive as I think he'd only been rolling for a couple of months (or less) when he made this fiver. After a thin cut with my palio, the prelight draw was spot on; I could tell this was going to be a good burn. That proved to be true, as the burn was within 1/2 mm of razor straight all the way to the nub. Good amount of smoke, but not overpowering.
Andrew described the cigar as "dominican blended filler, Havana binder, and havana Prime wrapper 52x5." I would describe it as medium strength and body. First third was really smooth, with a slight nutty flavor. The flavors really blossomed in the 2nd third. Strength picked up a bit, and I tasted hints of cocoa and caramel. This was definitely the best part of the cigar.
The final third started to get a bit strong, but a couple of purges brought it back to my liking. I smoked it down to about 1/2 inch nub, and enjoyed every minute of it. It held the ash for a solid inch or so, and the construction really shined all the way to the end.
I had originally bought the fiver just as a novelty, and to support a BOTL who's learning to roll, but this cigar definitely surprised me with both quality and flavor. I'm usually a bit of a CC snob, but this was one enjoyable cigar. I really look forward to the remaining three in my humidor!
:-)
Great work Andrew! You have really produced a winner!
:-)
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