After reading Dan's Black Dragon thread I noticed I never moved this one over here, did the review about a year ago.

Cigar: Free Cuba
Wrapper: Connecticut shade (Dominican?)
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican long filler
Vitola: Toro
Price: $1 if bought by the bundle. They actually make you take two bundles. Bastards.

Setting: Sun room, about 85 degrees out, 2pm, drinking a diet Sunkist that's about to be replaced with a root beer.

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Pre-light. Well, the cigar is definitely shade grown, but with definite veins that are dark and give it a "vericose vein" appearance, and a wrap that you can see and is verging on loose. The cigar is firm and springy to the touch, well, if you find down pillows to be firm and springy. The foot give the appearance of a cigar that is going to draw VERY well. The cigar has a sweet smell to the wrapper, reminicent of my Backwoods days. I was going to smell the foot but didn't want to risk tabacco bits up the nostrils.

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First third: The cigar clipped easily and I was rewarded with some tobacco confetti from the head. I felt so special. The cigar lit up easily with the Ronson, a lighter befitting the grand stature of this smoke. The promise of a free draw dutifly fulfilled, I was rewarded with a copious amount of smoke rich in the taste of.... well, bland tobacco. Not even the sweetness was present. Dry hay with some dry grass and hints of Sahara cause all I'm getting is DRY. It's like the cigar sucked all the moisture out of my mouth. The cigar ash is a nice light gray, maintaining it's integrity up to a full 1/4 inch. The loose draw does allow for a large amount of smoke to taste. I don't think I ever wished for a plugged cigar before.

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Second third: The blessing of a loose draw is that the cigar is burning rather quickly. I must say the burn is even, if a tad wavy. The body has definitely moved up into the mild range. Though I must admit that it is producing a lot of smoke. Thin, dry, smoke. The hay and grass flavors remain, with hints of crab grass and dandelion entering the picture. But you do get some nice bitterness in there too. Did I mention it was dry. As a bonus, each puff is rewarded with a fireworks display of ash off the end. Thoughtful of them to add the extra entertainment. The ash is holding to almost the 1/2 inch mark now, well, whats left after the fireworks.

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Final third: As I enter the final third I thought I was going to pull a Jerry. Seriously. But I kept it together. The body is moving into the medium range actually. Wish it woulda stayed mild. The dryness is lessening but I think it's because my salivary glands have gone into overdrive. The finish is sharp and unpleasant. It leaves a burning feeling in the back of your throat and roof of your mouth. OK, I just dry heaved twice at about the label and I think I'm gonna give up the ghost on this one. I was hoping to bring it to the nub, but can't. Wow, how do people smoke these things.

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Final thoughts: Well, I thought this was gonna be a fun review of a relatively tasteless and mild cigar. Wow, was I wrong. How do people smoke this ****? It seriously was as bad as the Backwoods. Man, I wish my friend woulda given me a corona. I gotta ask him if he actually smokes this thing of if he was just messing with me. The blessing is that it does burn quickly. It normally takes me about two hours to get through a toro, I was down to the label on this in 45 minutes. I think I need to smoke a El Duque to get bad taste out of my mouth. If you actually spent the time to read the review do the opposite of what I'm about to write. If not they get what's coming to them. BTW, the staff who did the reviews for this on CI should be shot.

Liked it: Loved it, go out and get one if you can.
Buy again: Sure, they're a steal.
Reccommend: To all my friends
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i smoked one of these by sticking the cut end in a pipe meh i have had werse
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Great entertaining review.
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LOL.

Didn't we have a discussion about these at the quintuple-secret herf a few weeks ago?

I bought a bunch of these to give out to friends at a bar as a gag gift once. Even though the firends were all smokers, mostly cigarettes, but a few pipe/cheap cigar (DiNoblis) smokers, the bar allowed smoking and no one in there would care or complain if you lit a cigar or a pipe, no one actually lit these things, they wanted to save them because of the cool bands.

BTW, I think I read something somewhere that stated that these were either mixed or short filler (just in case anyone out there is dying for technical details about this cigar...)
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Still a good laugh!!!:-)

Thanks for posting this Steve!!!
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Steve, you must have a pallate of a professional! How did you pick up all those wonderful flavors? Crab grass and dandelions? I'm so jealous!
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LOL! Nice review Steve :-)
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Great review, quite entertaining, those are all yours! I'm not THAT daring to try them :-)
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Rotf!!
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:-):-):-)That was a great review, I really liked the "dry heave at the label":-)
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I remember that review!! Thanks for bringing it over. I'll admit I got a 5'er of them off Cbid for $3 once, figured what the hell. I sure wish I had that $3 back. But then again, there are many others who have never had the pleasure of fondling the breasts on the label while tasting dandelions and crab grass. I say it was money well spent.
:-):-)
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Ha, that wasn't a joke. I really did dry heave. :-)

Thanks everyone, yeah, after this review and the Backwoods review I put the cheap cigar reviews on hold for awhile. A long while. :-)
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Thanks for the review. Wondered if the boobs on the label made you dry heave? Surely not.
:-)

Added to my die before I try list.
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But...but...but...the label has boobs!

fwiw Ratters still talks about how horrible this smoke was, and he smokes a lot of lousy smokes. :-)
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Good stuff!
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I think you guys may be missing the point, this is a political statement...

There will be cigars like this around unless you "Free Cuba" :-)
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Good review, I am so gratefull I read the whole thing!
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Haha, that is GREAT! Nice review, I have one of these sticks Maybe I will give it a try.
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