Emjaysmash
Cigar: No. 3
Vitola / Wrapper / Binder: N/A
Drink / Food: N/A (just ate lunch so smoking on a full stomach)
Outside Factors: Nice with intermittent breezes.
Construction: This cigar dons a thick oscuro wrapper with no noticeable veins. The wrapper is nice and oily and very toothy. This cigar is a sharp torpedo shape, very much similar to the shape of the 5 Vegas Classic torpedo. It is rolled well overall with no hard/soft spots and is very consistent.
Prelight : The flavors I get from the prelight are sweet tobacco and straw.
First Third: This third starts out med-full body with flavors of earth, coffee, nuts and an almost overwhelming bitterness. Towards the end of this third the bitterness lessens but is still noticeable.
Draw: Free with slight resistance.
Burn: Not good. Wavy at best (when there was no breeze at all) had to touch the cigar up over 3 times.
Ash/Smoke: Ash is somewhat flaky at the beginning, fragile all the way through. Smoke is nice and thick.
Second Third: The second third transitions from the first with flavors of coffee and predominantly earth. Bitterness is still present. Flavors of mocha or caramel are found in the finish. Halfway through the second third the bitterness has ramped up and there is a distinct sharp chalky bitterness in the back of the throat, similar to the taste you get went letting a tablet of aspirin sit in your mouth too long. The body fell into the medium body range.
Final third: At the beginning of the first third I decided to purge the cigar to see if it would help. Immediately after the purge the bitterness was gone and I was left with the flavors of coffee, slight earthiness and sweet tobacco. Hitting the halfway point of the final third, the bitterness was back. I decided it was prudent to end there.
Strength: Medium Flavor: medium
Overall Impression: Overall I thought this was a decent cigar. For those who enjoy bitter coffee this might be up their alley. If I hadn’t experienced the bitterness this would have been a nice medium body smoke with solid flavors. Not terribly complex but enjoyable nonetheless.
Construction: 10 10
Prelight: 4 5
First Third: 11 15
Draw: 10 10
Burn: 6 10
Ash / Smoke: 8 10
Second Third: 7 10
Final Third: 7 10
Overall impression: 15 20
Total Score: 78 100
hoyodude
Cigar: Cigar #3
Vitola / Wrapper / : The wrapper on this very sharp-nosed torpedo is
almost black and leather tough.
Drink / Food: Expecting a mildish cigar I've cracked a Pilsner
Urquell. As it turns out - good call.
Outside Factors: Typical evening - couch surfing in the relative
coolness of our living room escaping the blast furnace outdoors.
Construction: Feels and looks well made.
Prelight : I got nuthin.
First Third: Initially a mild tobacco flavor with a typical maduro
sweetness over it. Pretty non-descript but not offensive.
Draw: Kind of tight. Just past my threshold of where I like my draw
but not plugged.
.
Burn: It burned alright when it was lit but it kept wanting to go out.
Kind of a pain.
Second Third: Same.
Final third: Same.
.
Strength: Mild.
Flavor: Mild.
Overall Impression: An unimpressive smoke. Nothing I would buy but
certainly a cigar you could smoke while fishing (or whatever) if it
was handed to you.
Total Score: I'm going to skip to the chase here and just call it a
solid 55 out of 100. I didn't care much for it but it wasn't a
terrible cigar. Just a real yawner.
tj2001cobra
Cigar: Lou’s Taste Test – Cigar #3 – The “Shocker” (that is the picture on the band!)
Vitola / Wrapper / Binder: Torpedo – about 6” x 50; Dark Maduro Wrapper
Drink / Food: Bud light to drink
Outside Factors: About 90 degrees out. 44% humidity says the TV. 9
:-)0 PM.
Construction: Cigar looks to be constructed well. Not Veiny. Smooth. The cigar is a little “bent” or “squeezed” around the 2” mark (from the head of the cigar). It looks to be a cigar that either came in a bundle or was wrapped with a ribbon in whatever packaging it came in. Don’t expect any problems. Cigar is solid and heavy in hand. It’s VERY firm with no soft spots.
Prelight : Maybe a chocolately fragrance? Not sure what the smell is. Smells pretty good though. Prelight draw is good. Not too loose or tight. Getting a pretty distinct cocoa flavor I think.
First Third: Cut with my Palio and lit with my Tat (Lotus) Triple Flame. Wow! Got a blast that tasted like salsa on the initial light! LOL Don’t remember tasting that before on a cigar. OK, Lou. I finally like one of the cigars!! Nice spice to this smoke . I’m still getting a chocolate/cocoa taste on the palette. Hmmm just got a floral taste at about ½” in. Hope that goes away. Had a few burn issues that were corrected with a touch up.
Draw: The draw is a bit tight, but not horrible. Still very smokable
Burn: Have had to do a several touch-ups to get it to burn straight. Nothing major, but definitely not a straight burn
Ash/Smoke: Produces enough smoke, but not a ton. Ash is medium gray in color. Ash seems to hold about 1.5” before dropping.
Second Third: More of the same. Floral went away. Having a few burn issues, but the taste is good. The spice backed off but still shows itself a bit with a retrohale.
Final third: And more of the same. The cigar hasn’t seemed to change a lot, but since I liked the first and second third, that isn’t a problem to me. The last third has gotten stronger.
Strength: med/full Flavor: good flavors but not overly complex to me
Overall Impression: I liked this smoke. I think my score came out just about right. I probably would have given it a score in the low to mid 80’s had the burn been better. No idea what it was but I would most likely buy this smoke if I needed more inventory.
Construction: 9 10
Prelight: 4 5
First Third: 14 15
Draw: 7 10
Burn: 5 10
Ash / Smoke: 7 10
Second Third: 9 10
Final Third: 9 10
Overall impression: 15 20
Total Score: 79 100
[Reply]
steveH
Cigar: Number 3 – The shocker
Vitola / Wrapper / Binder: 5 ¾” x 52. Very very dark wrapper (Oscuro ?); oily and with some small veins.
Drink / Food: Iced Tea
Outside Factors: HOT (103F)
Construction: Very firm and hefty in the hand
Prelight : Mildly sweet tobacco
Cut: Straight cut using Xikar Xi
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N.../IMG_00232.jpg
First Third: Cigar lit easily and we settled into a hot summer’s evening. Average smoke production yielded some quality tobacco flavor along with anise and dark fruits…No real sweetness to speak of. Moving more into the first third; the anise became more black licorice in flavor. What was quite astounding was that the cigar even seemed to provide some of the pectin coating. You’d swear you just swallowed a bunch of black jellybeans and still had the coating on your mouth – really really nice. But, it got better as we neared the end of the first third; as the licorice was starting to mingle with an herb sage-like favor which really gave the cigar a slightly medicinal (in the traditional sense) quality .
Draw: Very good ; especially considering how hefty and firm the cigar was.
Burn: Very Good.
Ash/Smoke: Darker grey ash; grey smoke. Average smoke from the cigar when resting. The cigar would hold its ash nearly all the way through each third.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-w.../IMG_00233.jpg
Second Third: Finally letting the ash depart, we started into the second half. The herbal quality of the cigar picks up and a peppery spice starts to tickle the throat. The anise/licorice fades into the background as heavy pepper comes through. The smoke production also picks up, and about ½ way through the cigar started to burn a little hot. After slowing down a little, some leather and wood began fighting their way through the pepper. These remained through the rest of the second third.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v.../IMG_00234.jpg
Final third: Heafty smoke production. What was interesting as we neared the end was the cigar really wasn’t producing much in terms of flavor profiles. After really delivering so much complexity, the cigar was slowly fading into the heat of the night (or perhaps it was just me ?). That said, it burned so well and slow I didn’t find this too disappointing; and surely would not let it persuade my purchase in the future.
Total Smoking Time: 96 mins
Strength: Medium/Strong Flavor: Strong/Complex
Overall Impression: I really, really enjoyed this cigar. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea; those who enjoy maduro’s would really be pleased with what this cigar brings to the table. There were flavors and blends in this cigar that I’ve never experienced before – so it was quite an eye opener.
Construction: 8 10
Prelight: 3 5
First Third: 14 15
Draw: 8 10
Burn: 7 10
Ash / Smoke: 8 10
Second Third: 8 10
Final Third: 6 10
Overall impression: 18 20
Total Score: 81 100
jimbud
Cigar: lou2row’s Cigar No. 3 in 4th (or 5th) Blind Taste Test.
Vitola/Wrapper/Binder: 6 by 50 torpedo; jet black wrapper.
Drink/Food: Ice water; before lunch.
Outside Factors: About 80 degrees; patio.
Price: Unknown.
Cut: Xicar; Lit with cedar matches.
Construction: This is a beautiful cigar. No soft spots and the wrapper is so jet black it looks like a bar of chocolate. I could take a bite of this thing. I’ve had many torpedos, but other than the Perdomo en Silvio, I don’t recall a roll that produced a sharper point. This could put an eye out. The wrapper bears further mention – it appears very thick and there are small bumps thoughout. It is beautiful, but almost feels like sand paper. I wonder if there was any coloring used to make the deep black hues so uniform. Only one pronounced vein. The foot reveals tobacco in various shades of brown. This stick has a nice balance and weight. It does not reveal much to the nose, perhaps some cedar notes or a distant berry taste – nothing else. Looks to be a well-made cigar.
Prelight: Upon clip, the wrapper is tougher than usual. Not surprising. As I suspected, the wrapper is quite substantial. Pre-light draw gives me a distinct raisin flavor.
First Third: Deep, dark black espresso notes. No pepper. Finding deep espresso without pepper is very nice and a nice contrast to many sticks. Clear semi-sweet dark chocolate, almost to the point of bitter chocolate, but I like it. Trying to force myself to smoke this slowly. The aroma is of baking bread. The draw is slightly tight, but to my liking, or I would clip a bit more to open it up. I’m clearly getting dark unsweetened chocolate, rich soil, charcoal, but with an odd underlying creaminess. Still virtually no pepper. Malty; musty; rich soil. Very well-rolled stick. Almost turgid in the hand. Could club a baby seal with this (kidding). Ash is largely white, which is in stark contrast to the oscuro wrapper.
Second Third: Burn needs a slight correction, but not much. The thing I am enjoying about this cigar is the lack of pepper, but the deep notes of burnt coffee and espresso. Reminds me of that chocolate cake you can get that has no sweetness in the actual cake, but relies on the icing. I always enjoyed that cake without the icing. Burn is slightly wavy, but no problems. The retrohale gives more of a milk chocolate flavor – for me, the retrohale always yields a milder version of what I am smoking. Suprisingly, some slightly sweet notes creep in cautiously. Perhaps distant molasses or nougat. But the predominant taste remains unsweetened chocolate, must, malt, charcoal and dark espresso. Smoke continues to smell of baking bread.
Final Third: The cigar holds true to form. Not much change in the flavor profile. If I had to compare these flavors to other sticks I have had, I would say some of the musty, malty notes can be found in the Kinky TJB, while overall, the closest stick I have had to this is the RP OWR. In the final third, I wet the wrapper slightly to see if I can determine whether any dye was used, and I do get some transfer. Not sure if that is natural or not.
Overall: I really liked this cigar. The main feature that differentiates this stick from others is the lack of pepper. To get the espresso, dark chocolate, charcoal, earth notes without a pepper explosion is a treat. I would be lying if I did not admit that the cigar’s beautiful appearance did not influence my opinion of this stick. Burn lasted about an hour and a half and I enjoyed it throughout. Does anyone know if the RP OWR ever came in non-box press format? If pressed, I’d say that is this stick. Overall, I’d give this an 87. I would recommend it to just about everyone and would buy again.
hscmit
Construction: heavy densely packed with a very thick wrapper, also has a couple of big veins
Prelight: slightly sweet and salty
First Third: chocolate, licorice, and coffee flavors
Draw: asy draw
Burn: good burn
Ash/Smoke: good volume of smoke solid ash
Second Third: coffee is gone, sweet and oak flavors
http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p...t/101_1159.jpg
Final third: definitely an increase in the strength in the final third, sweet flavors persist
Strength:med/ full
Flavor: full
Overall: not something I would reach for with the sweet flavors, but is a quality cigar. I could see a lot of people who like sweet maduros enjoying this one
Scoring
Construction: 9/10
Prelight: 4/5
First Third: 13/15
Draw: 10/10
Burn: 9/10
Ash / Smoke: 9/10
Second Third: 8/10
Final Third: 7/10
Overall impression: 16/20
Total Score: 85/100
[Reply]
