So I've moved into a new condo with some buddies who all smoke their own kinda tobaccy. So i started saying well.. im gonna smoke my real tobaccy then in my room. Lit some smell good sticks and opened the window and the smell doesn't reach them. My room is on the ground level, they're on the 3rd floor with the kitchen and living room area on the 2nd floor. Anyways to the point of this thread!
I've had this sitting in my vinotemp/humidor for quite sometime now. I was lucky enough to have this from a bomb (not sure who bombed it to me and i deeply apologize!)
Appearance: This cigar comes with a shiny silver tin foil wrapping on it (fun for us ADD folk). The wrapper is full of veins, and is surprisingly light. The cap is very nice and has what looks like up to 5 in some spots..
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pre-light: It has a very mild smell to it and im hoping this is not a mild cigar. I've done very little research on this cigar so i have no clue what to expect.. hopefully this way i won't have any biased opinions about it.
The pre-light draw is very easy and takes very little effect. I'm getting very subtle hints of some sort of wood flavor, and again i'm getting the feeling this is going to be a fairly mild cigar.
Initial light: The first puffs taste like nothing but wood, the draw is still extremely easy. the smoke isn't very dense or thick. There are some after flavors which i am having a hard time identifying and are new to me.
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By now its produced a pretty steady flavor. It has a very smooth earthy flavor, almost reminds me of one of the taboo cigars but cannot remember which one for the life of me. The draw is still very open and easy to grab a lot of smoke. Its also producing a lot more smoke too, not very thick but enough to keep me pleased. This is definitely a more mild smoke. I tend to like my mild smokes earlier in the morning with some coffee and seeing as this stick is a pretty good size probably wouldn't smoke it in the morning.
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture073.jpg
After about an inch in... this cigar isn't for me.
A. its too mild, even if i was to smoke this in the morning it would be too big of a smoke for me in the morning.
B. It doesn't seem to wanna hold its flavor as much as i would think from a more rarely seen and smoked cigar.... which maybe is the reason you don't see this being lit up all the time?
I'm giving it another chance. Gonna stick with it for a little longer and see how things play out. The taste has picked up more and seems to be... "in the sense" or "more there then not".. if that makes any sense at all. I guess what im trying to say is the flavor is standing out a lot more now. Before i almost felt like i had to sit there, smack my lips a little bit and really search for something. But now its like "Hi my name is flavor".
By no means am i saying this cigar has an extreme amount of flavor but compared to when i first lit it... its like a whole new cigar. The flavors i'm getting have gone back to a wood taste with some earthy undertones and a very subtle hint of what seems to be carmel?
The burn is staying extremely even which surprises me. The tip you light resembled a fig. roll of a cigar and they never seem to burn evenly for me and i always have to touch it up to get it to burn right. The draw is still perfect in my book. The lighter the draw the better IMO and the smoke is pretty decent. Not as thick as the Illusione MK i had smoked earlier today but still enough to blow smoke rings with and watch it bellow out of your mouth.
About 1 inch later this cigar has changed my mind. Good thing i stuck with it (lesson learned). This cigar has completely changed and has gone to a more medium bodied smoke, the flavors seem to just get upfront with every puff i take. the burn is still incredible even and the draw has tightened up just a tad but not nearly enough for me to make any complaints about.
It just ashed itself as i wrote that last sentence and as you can see the cherry is dead square in the middle and is a little hill, no mountain on this thing.
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This cigar is one of the bigger ones i've smoked and it seems to be never ending. I don't think i'm even to the half way point yet... which if you absolutely love this cigar is a good thing. The flavor has gotten a hint of sweetness to it now and a small puff through the nose STINGS!! ouch... yea i got no flavor profile out of that besides too harsh to go through the nose. The sweet has seemed to take over in place for the carmel undertone and still a lot of wood is present with a decent amount of an earthy taste to it.
The burn is starting to become a little uneven in spots but not enough to the point where i need to fix it up yet. The draw is still, the draw i dream of and the taste is only getting sweeter. The sweetness has overtaken the wood flavor and forced it out of the picture. Its now sweetness complimented by undertones of something earthy.
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Well after a little longer of smoking this cigar it once again ashed itself a little earlier like it has every time so far. It also got extremely bitter... i mean REALLY bitter. I tried a purge and it helped a little bit, i purged again and it stayed the same... sweet and bitter. I HATE bitter, i hate bitter coffee and i hate bitter cigars. I dunno maybe there was a litter of beetle eggs in that part of the cigar, but either way that was definitely a huge unexpected and unpleasant surprise and to be honest... even if though it was changing my mind about it. Another puff of that much bitterness is not worth the chance of it becoming unbitter again.
My overall thoughts on this cigar seem to be.. mixed opinions. I can see why people would love this cigar. Me personally I'm not a fan of it. The flavors and combo's of flavors just weren't doing it for me. The middle of the cigar was fine and i would buy a cigar that had those flavors and smoked that well. Would i pay top dollar for a cigar like that? No, i'd dish out as much as a typical CAO would run ya.
I feel as though this cigar was playing games with me, like us boys do with girls when we were back in high school. Make you hate us one day then love us the next.
Overall Score of this cigar.
Burn: 8.75
Taste: anywhere from a 0 to 8.5
Ash: 5
Appearance: 6 + 2 for the shinny wrapper it came in
:-)
construction: 8
overall: 29 to 39/50.
I did not score this cigar based on my personal opinions and if i liked it or not I.E. the taste, but i based it on how much there was.
Edit: After hitting submit and looking at the pic's, i noticed there seemed to be some white stuff that could be mistaken as mold. I inspected the cigar before lighting and found no mold, what you see in the picture was just ash from my stinky ash tray.
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