Well, I had bought this here cigar on my recent trip to NY & JR's (the biggest cigar store in the world, on 5th Ave.) and was dying to try it. Not only was the cigar recommended to me by a very helpful gentleman in the store, it's dark, seemingly forbidden allure, and really beautiful label just called out to me.
Take a look at what I'm talking about (pictures actually taken from Google images because I had way too much going on last night to be fumbling around with a camera...it was Halloween afterall):
It looked just like this:
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And the black & silver double bands really are pretty with the larger showing varying shades of tans, browns, pinks & reds.
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And I add this photo because I found it pleasant, yet strange among the first page of images of 'Camacho Triple Maduro' on Google images. Strange I say because it's obvious she's not smoking a Triple Maddy. Who cares.
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Anyhoo, as just a few of you know
:-):-), my particular Camacho's fate was seriously jeopardized when, upon my return to Los Angeles, a British fellow shoved this cigar (and its friend) up his nose (DEEP) one night after we enjoyed a scrumptous meal of fish 'n chips.
You can read about this here (if you dare):
http://www.clubstogie.com/vb/showthread.php?t=191941
Naturally, I was extremely hesitant to actually smoke this sucker. But I was desperate. And possibly a little bit drunk (thanks to the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue brought over on Halloween by our neighbor with whom we're only now getting familiar after living across the street from for the past two years). Damn this guy! I'll post a thread about this shortly.
So I searched deep inside the new Vino for an appropriate cigar to have on Halloween. Naturally, in the spirit of frightening oneself, I grabbed for the cigar that would keep me sitting on the edge of my seat, trembling in fear with every draw. Fear because this is supposed to be one helluva full-bodied cigar. And it's so dark and brooding.... AND THE FREAKING THING WENT UP AN ENGLISHMAN'S NOSE, damn it. That alone would have most chucking this thing in the trash.
But not me.
Like George Costanza, I would dig through somebody's trash for a good thrown out cigar. What are people thinking throwing away a perfectly good eclair???
So there I am, last night, despondent over the fact that we didn't trump last year's 30 Trick-or-Treaters trekking through my Haunted Garden set up that always takes me a good amount of time & work to set up (we had 18 kids - what is the world coming to?), I whip out the Boogergar.
Like Romeo drawn to Juliet or Chaereas drawn to Callirhoe (
http://people.uncw.edu/deagona/ancientnovel/mscott.htm), I couldn't resist the temptation.
The Camacho Triple Maduro Figurado
Prelight
(oh, oh, I've just gotta say that I do not give good reviews one bit because I don't really notice all the fancy nuances of a cigar, but well, here we go)
Like I said, this is one perty cigar. It is dark, mysterious and strangely alluring. See for yourself in those pics. Lifting it up to your nose, you are reminded that a cigar is best smelled from afar not from within (the nose). I'm also reminded of a similar dark Maddy in my humi; the CAO MX2, which I have not smoked yet. It just looks similarly like a big black log of a cigar.
I remove the band at the foot (cleanse my hands with hand sanitizer because I know where that sucker's been - ok, I would have done this but I don't want the alcohol & cleanser to affect the taste of the stick) and inspect the foot. Looks good, I'm goin' in.
I cut off the pyramid-shaped end with my $10 steel cutter and I'm surprised that I haven't cut off further down and exposed more surface area. Damn that Johnnie Walker! I do a pre-light draw and notice it's pretty loose so I figure that the small opening could only help but I'm becoming even more frightened than I already am because I've heard so much about the awful tar drop that occurs with punch cut cigars and while I've used my double-blade cutter, well, I may as well have used a punch.
Ignition
I whip out my single torch/flame Xikar lighter and toast the foot. I rotate while I toast and hey, my lighter isn't as f'd up as I thought it was (it had given me some problems but then I realized I just needed to turn the darn wheel at the base of it). So I've gotten this one going pretty well, toast, blow on the foot, toast, blow, etc. until I've got a pretty even glow.
The Smoke
I'm not going to talk about thirds because this one pretty much smoked even for me, until about the last 1/4 when I gave up and went to put away the Halloween decs. The smoke was strong but not overly so. Somewhat sweet. Again, the draw bothered me a little bit because it was loose but I'd say I enjoyed this but not enough so that I'd need to be buying another one for awhile, except to admire that nifty band. I can't talk of specific flavors because I'm not that mature, I guess.
I still have this problem keeping a cigar lit and maintaining an even burn. This one went out on me a couple times, got a little jagged, and I couldn't keep up with my buddy's Padron 1964 Toro which was burning beautifully even with about an inch and a half of ash and never once going out. How the heck does he do that while I'm here struggling to keep mine lit and barely get any ash of any intimidating size. I don't think it's a RH issue because the Vino is holding at a solid 65 degrees/65 - 67 RH.
The Lowdown
I'm curious why they call this a Triple Maduro because I've read that this sucker contains a blend of five different types of maduro tobacco. Go figure. Maybe a Quintuple Maduro would be just too darned scary. Being a relatively new consistent cigar smoker, I was surprised that I wasn't knocked off my a$$ with this one but after it and the Joya de Nicaragua Antano I had on Wednesday, I may just lay off the ultra full-bodied smokes for a little bit. Again, I wouldn't run out to buy another one of these for quite some time but I'm glad I tried it, boogers and all.
Post-Script: Now that I've actually smoked the boogergar and lived to tell the tale, I still plan on returning to the fish 'n chips joint & confronting the bastard who shoved my cigars up his nose. Deep.
I'll just also tell him that I really enjoyed his snot and ask him if he come on over and sneeze on the contents of my humidor to add that 'je ne sais quoi'. Freak.
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