About 15 months ago I joined Club Stogie and met a lot of BOTL’s that I now call friends. When Club Stogie was sold to Jon Caputo and turned from a friendly jungle into a commercial website with posh mentality most of my friends moved to Cigar Asylum, a new forum started by the 11 moderators from Club Stogie. Cigar Asylum has been my virtual home since and the friendships that started on Club Stogie grew stronger, so strong that I decided to go on a US trip and meet as many inmates as possible. One of my new friends is Andrew Wood, owner of Guillen cigars, and he came to Las Vegas for E.L.V.I.S. (Epic Las Vegas International Smokefest) with a huge surprise, a gift that left me speechless, overwhelmed and not worthy. Andy had a small batch of cigars made in honor of our friendship, Don Fernando’s. They come, individually packed in cello, in a 20 count gray box with the Dutch flag and the band shows a picture of a man smoking a cigar while wearing a Panama hat, like I often do. Only 24 boxes were made, 6 boxes toro, 6 boxes corona, 6 boxes robusto and 6 boxes belicoso.
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The Don Fernando is a Nicaraguan puro, made with tobacco from Jalapa and Estelí. The Belicoso I smoked had a 6 x 52 size and as soon as I remove the cello I smell a full barnyard aroma with some straw. The smooth oily wrapper is quite dark and has only one vein running over it. The predraw gives me the right amount of resistance and I taste some raisin in the predraw.
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I can taste lots of coffee and some toast, roasted flavors and after about half an inch some cedar shows up, soon to be followed by a light chocolate flavor. The coffee, wood and chocolate flavor sticks with me for quite a while, at least for the first third of the cigar, and then the coffee and chocolate slowly fade away. They are replaced by a bit of pepper that sticks to the top of my tongue. It’s a mild pepper, not overpowering like some Oliva V, Don Pepin Garcia or El Cobre’s tend to do sometimes. The final third starts with creamy chocolate, the pepper is gone and the wood is on the background, providing a nice base for the creamy chocolate.
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This full flavored, full bodied cigar produces a lot of smoke. The ash is gray and firm, the pictures clearly show that and the burn is phenomenal. Straight as a razorblade and the cigar doesn’t die if you don’t puff often. Because of that slow burn, the temperature stays low and makes the cigar fantastic nub material.
Would I buy this cigar again? Hell yeah, I bought 2 boxes and some singles but I want more now they are still available. If you want a taste of Don Fernando, contact Guillen cigars
gdwcigars@gmail.com or on their soon to be launched website
www.guillencigars.com
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Appearance: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Burn: 9 / 10
Aroma (first part) 8 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10
Name: 10
Packing: 10
Band: 10
Disclaimer: I might be a little bias about this cigar
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