| ring: | 50 (fat) |
| length: | 127mm |
| beginners: | Good choice for beginners. Enjoyable at a good price. |
| price: | $47US for a box of 20 |
| summary: | A reasonable choice if you just want a cheap box of cigars for a boys night out or something like that, or you want an affordable daily-smoke. |
This is not a Cuban cigar. In fact, it’s not even a brand-name cigar. This is a cigar.com “house blend” (which is sort of like a clearskin bottle of wine) that is made to imitate the flavours of a Cuban cigar.
I received this cigar with a heap of others as part of a sampler pack. They were very well and securely packaged inside with a small humidification bag to ensure they arrived in good condition. After examining each cigar singly, I discovered that they arrived in good condition, and outwardly at-least, look like finely made cigars. They also have quite a strong a pleasent aroma of rich tobacco. However, some warning bells began to ring shortly after lighting up.
The weak and flakey ash, and the fact that the cigar burned a little quickly with a bit of hissing and popping along the way, suggested to me that this was probably a cigar that had a core made with short-filler tobacco, instead of the long-filler used in premium cigars. However, this assumption was not entirely accurate. Jim Krebs from cigar.com has since let me know that the filler of all the cigar.com house blends are a mix of short and long filler tobacco, and they are entirely rolled by hand. This is partly re-assuring, but I still have reservations about the internal construction of these brand-name cigars. I will, however, note that the service I got from cigar.com was generally excellent.
Anyway, the main question is, “how is it to smoke?” The first flavours I noticed were of sweet leather. This was the predominant taste for the first third of the cigar, after which very pronounced aromatic, floral and perfume -type overtones became apparent. The last third was again dominated by a noticeable “damp leather” taste which I found pleasant and nostalgic. I also detected some unexpected hot peppery notes towards the end. The smoke become noticeably more bitter as it neared the nub.
Does it really taste like a Cuban cigar? That’s a hard question to answer, as I haven’t smoked every Cuban cigar on offer, and to me they all taste a little different anyway. I would say “not really”. I haven’t experienced that strong hit of perfume-type tastes in any Cuban I’ve tried yet.
All in all, this cigar was a pleasent surprise, despite the lack of a brand-named band and questionable internal construction.
To give it such a high score – well inside the range of what I’ve given some real Cuban cigars I’ve sampled – might seem ridiculous to some seasoned cigar smokers; and perhaps it is. But I guess I have to say what I really think, and that’s my own opinion. Ignoring a few question marks above the internal construction of the cigar, and putting all pretentiousness to the side, if I’m going to be honest about the experience, I would have to say that this was actually a very enjoyable and flavorful cigar to smoke.