| ring: | 42 (medium) |
| length: | 129mm |
| beginners: | not recommended: too strong and too dry. |
| price: | $12.90 (AUD) |
| summary: | dry, strong and harsh with hints of herbs, nuts and coffee. |
The Punch Coronation is another very common, cheap Cuban found mostly in bars and bottle-shops throughout Australia.
I’ve had a few of these cigars in the last couple of weeks. The first one came in a dark, mossy green coloured tubos and featured a modern, stylish red and gold band. Later, I got them in the older (and for my money, nicer), silver tubos and it had a very old-styled, matt-brown band. Minus the packaging, they are both the exact same cigar.
The stick itself is quite nicely built with some small veins and a few bumps in the wrapper, but nothing too bad. It’s a medium-brown colour and has an alluring sweet aroma with hints of toffee and aromatic herbs.
The opening few draws reveal a full bodied smoke with dry, harsh characteristics and herbal undertones which I didn’t find to be particularly pleasant.
About a quarter of the way in, the flavour improved. That’s nothing to get too excited about though, and if it had got worse I would have just ditched it. Some nuttiness became apparent with hints of dry coffee, but the overall smoke was still plagued by an unpleasant herbal characteristic that I could only liken to cheap hemp leaf (I’m not a hemp-smoker, but I do know the taste).
The experience was the same with both cigars I smoked. The first one was also unimpressive, but I braved another, not only for for the sake of this review, but also to be sure that both the new and old styled packaging contained the same product. They do (differences in the wrapper colour was not as noticeable as what appears in the photographs).
Unfortunately, I don’t think this forgettable experience can be blamed on poorly kept cigars. I got them both from specialist tobacconists. The second one I got it from new stock and kept it in my personal humidor under ideal conditions for about a week before lighting it up.
I’m giving this a 3, the only saving grace is that it had an easy draw and straight burn. However, as a Habanos coming from a reputable cigar company, one can only assume that this is a taste that some people enjoy; and I note with some surprise that it has attained a decent score at cigars-review.org. I’d be interested in second opinions, but this cigar really didn’t do it for me at all.