Vegas Robaina Clasicos 1999

This is such a great cigar, such a great size, and a great name, arguably as times have progressed.  Don Alejandro Robaina has passed on, and Hirochi Robaina is said to be taking over with a huge enthusiasm and dedication. 
But back to the cigar, a thing of beauty.  The smoke is a 'cervantes' factory size, and can generally be called a lonsdale.  One of my favorite sizes to be sure. 

Dark and oily and loaded with character.  It has a slight box press, but not much remains after having been cabinet-stored for 4-5 years.  A problem arises though, as I clip the cigar and fail to get much air. So I get a "brainy" idea to light the head and smoke through the foot.  But this sounded like a much better idea than it actually was.  I slid the band to the opposite end and tried it.  It lit fine, and I knew that as it burned past the hard spot at the band, it might take off.  And it certainly did. 

The unravelling of the wrapper I mean.  I knew better.  And yet I did it anyway.  So I got a daub of honey and rolled it back up.  It smoked fine despite the handicap I saddled it with.   This was a really strong and smooth, well-balanced smoke with stark coffee and nut tones.  The finish was generous and thick, coating the palate with a creamy, cool vanilla.  This continued from lighting to one inch burned.  It forged along a bit bolder and more rooted in toasted tobacco taste for most of it's length.  It would offer up hints of molasses, honey and herbs at times.   

The burn was perfect, even as the wrapper mistakes and sloppy repairs I made were patched up.  This is a highly recommended cigar.  This entire brand has good high points, but I find these the best of the best.  The Unicos are reputed to be fine, and lovers of double coronas will find excellence it the Don Alejandro.  The Famosos are some of the best robusto-sized cigars found in the 15 or so cigars of type Habanos offers.  This cigar, matured carefully for a decade, is a 91 point smoke.  It could have hit 93 had I smoked it properly. 

Punch Royal Selection No. 12 - 2000

Hahah, that's the way to start THIS entry, look at that thing!  A dream wrapper enveloping a perfect little bunch, screaming for a light, but patient like all great beauties.  Allowing the visual gratification a connoisseur demands; a lush, oily wrapper, translucent and fragrantly alluring.  Neatly clipped and draw tested, no major irritations present themselves, and the cigar takes a deep and fast light.  The tongue is immediately coated with a dark, herbal and creamy finish.  The body is light with a prominent aged tobacco and hay character. 

As the cigar burns down, the body becomes light with a more tea-like taste.  A citrus and menthol hint comes in about every third puff.  The fact that this cigar was not dryboxed becomes apparent near the middle as it gets a bit steamy and harsh.  I let it go out then carved out the ash and re-lit it, purging it.  It came back darkly chocolatey with some bitter coffee hints.  A core of herbs continued as the main body element.  The finish got a little shorter as the cigar got shorter, and the strength became about medium moving to high.  I put it down immediately, wanting to make sure the cigar ended as soon as the pleasure did. 

This smoke got out of hand fast, although to say it was not enjoyable is wrong.  It was just a bit too old for my palate.  I like a cigar 5 to 7 years old, or as fresh as I can get.   These are fantastic cigars for a developing palate.  Fresh sinuses, non-smokers, movers-up.  My palate was ruined young.  Ehh.  We'll see how that goes.  But these look, smell and taste powerfully funky and sweet.  They are right up somebodies alley, perhaps a slower smoker than me.  This one, 86.  It was a 83 taste and  3 points extra for the gorgeous visage.

Up for a spot of cricket, mate

There is a famous cigar website where a blogger was talking about being a Yankee fan in Cuba and having people say "Go Yankees" to him in bars or restaurants in Havana.  The another blogger commented that being from Asiatica, or pacifica, Oceana, wherever, that he has watched a little baseball in the USA during a visit.  He found it murderously slow. 

Well as it happens, I was trying to catch a LSU game online, and stumbled onto a site that had it, plus cricket and CFL games, too.  So not knowing how the heck Cricket is played, I decided to watch one night.  Sometimes I would ALMOST have it figured out and then something would happen to make me think, "NO, that can't be right."  I WAS struck by how one side does all it's bowling or batting at one time, then the other team tries to top their score after switching off halfway through.  After three hours, I finally figured it out.  But I had to check back in the next day to watch the complete on-demand version to make sure the other team DID in fact get to bat.  They ended up losing by a few points, it was NZ vs Bangaladesh.  The kiwi gents lost.  But even as I waited for the intolerable interval between when the bowler, from WAY off, ran up to the line and bowled the ball, at times the action was quick enough.  And I THINK the long run-ups to bowl are all show and confusion.  I saw a guy bowl just as effectively from 5 feet behind the line.

But if you've never watched cricket, surf over to ESPN3 and watch a match some time. 

http://espn.go.com/espn3/player?id=100289&league=Cricket

If you can't figure most of it out after one match, look up some rules videos for idiots.  Fascinating, yes.  Exciting, not really exciting per se, like the man said about baseball.  But still I can't stop watching cricket, at least if by that, one means once a month, hah.  It's power as an oddity on the shelf for me is strong.  The more I watch, the more I learn to look for this or that in particular and focus just on that facet.  How sometimes hits just keep coming and cats are running all over the pitch.  Then in this one I watched today, it was dink, dank, dernk.  I still watched it, though.  It was fascinating.  The entirity of it is too much. 

I'll PASS, Shorty.

I agree with many of the things that Habanos S.A. has done to maximize the profit from any given year's tobacco crop.  But one of the things I do not like, and now I can fairly say, never WILL like, is the absolute explosion of petit robustos, and to a smaller extent, petit piramides.  I understand that more cigars can be rolled with less wrapper leaves, and even that some wrapper leaves that could only be used on a perla or minuto can suddenly be found dressing a much fatter, and therefore more costly cigar.  What started with the Petit Robusto of Hoyo de Monterrey has now gone on to play some part in nearly every marque in the entire Habanos portfolio.  The place they have done the most damage is the Ediciones Regional and Ediciones Limitada series.  Here you have the effect of hypnotizing the customer into thinking, "here is a EL or RE cigar that I can afford 25 of."  25 of these tiny cigars may cost less than a box of Sir Winstons or even some lesser churchills or piramides.  But the satisfaction, to ME, is nothing like the same.  There are many cigar lovers who will say that they H. Upmann Magnum 48 Edicion Limtada is a fantastic smoke, and it is certainly very good.  But how many people have been utterly disappointed with the Bolivar Petit Piramides, the Bolivar Short Bolivar, the Partagas Serie P No.1?  When not disappointed with overall flavor, many people seem to come to a place of wanting for more once any burn issues burn themselves out after lighting and things get rolling.  Good manufacture or bad, Love it or hate it, the flavor you get is all to quickly over and you are holding a stub thinking, what just happened? 
Lots of people like the Hoyo Petit Robusto, but now there are even Short Robustos T.  A great cigar in it's full robusto size, but hardly worth the money in this Petit size.  Montecristo Petit Edmundos are also very hit and miss.  I heard rave reviews for them for a few years running, but every one I have had has shown come construction problems and run up one side like it's a race. 

Here is an idea for Habanos...Instead of rolling 25 of these cigars,  roll me a cabinet of 50 delicious, fine-burning, well-blended Minutos?  Franciscanos, Trabucos.  I will even pay a little more for the product.  Right now, I know that you feel like this is a good strategy, but to me this format has long over-stayed it's welcome.  I don't much care for them, based on the ones I've had.

"Mechanics of Smoke taste"

Someone asked about my "theory" that the flavor does not come from the smoke in a cigar.  This is probably a mis-reading of what I wrote, which is not hard to do.  My sentence structure always gave my teachers a headache, too.

What I said was that the buring tobacco at the lit end is not where the flavor comes from, but from the smoke's traveling through the bunch towards your mouth and it's interaction with the leaves.  As the unlit leaves in the bunch warm up, they release flavors which load the smoke with taste and nuance.  I said molecules, and I tend to believe that this is so although I am not a chemist, lol.  This is the same principle I guess as what hot water does to tea.  You are not drinking hot water, you are drinking tea.  But the hot water releases flavors and tannins that are locked into the structure of the dried tea in much the same way as the smoke leaches flavor from the cold tobacco in the bunch.  So while you are smoking the product of the lit end and nothing else, that smoke does not come off the cherry loaded with flavor.  That flavor only arrives at your mouth because it is drawn from the leaves, the part of the bunch that is not burning. 

Again, this is just what I think, maybe a flavorologist will step forward with the real truth, haha.

1998 Punch Corona -

Seems like every December around the first third of the month, I pull these out for a delicious smoke.  And every one I have had has been fantastic until this one.  And I smoked this one without complaint.  But it was no great smoke.  But at the same time, this being the "Special Period" for US havana smokers, I tend to forgive the little things and focus on the fact that I am lucky to have it.  The first thing you notice is the beauty of the toothy wrapper.

This type of wrapper makes me a little excited.  For one thing you don't see them anymore, at least not very often.  Very little if any colorado in the color.  The toothiness means there is good oil in the wrapper to aid in combustion.  And it burned straight as an arrow.  The cigar is perfectly rolled, at lest in it's initial appearance.  A quick look at the foot however, shows that things may get a little tight.

That's an awful lot of tobacco in there.  The bunch is very even, though, not rolled up like a Temsco machine might do it.  And once she is lit, sure enough, there is little air coming through.  This greatly affects the flavor.  For those who are unfamiliar with the mechanics of taste in cigars, the taste does not come from the burning end.  Rather, the coal simply creates the smoke which travels through the bunch and warms the tobacco which releases oils and molecules that creaste the flavor you taste.  The flavor RIDES on the smoke through the cigar and the tobacco in the bunch filters it and loads it up with taste.  Class dismissed, lol. 

A cigar like this must still be appreciated because they are not making 98 Punch Coronas anymore.  In any box of havanas, a smoker must accept that 10% or so are going to be totally disappointing.  Or at least as disappointing as this one.   It smoked down to my usual lay-down point without going out.  It gave up mild and uninteresting smoke, tobacco flavor with a little musty oak and fine aged tobacco.  But outside of that, there is not much to reccomend here.  It's not like you can go out and buy these, so there is no harm in scoring it so low.  It won't affect sales.  And tonight, I will smoke the other one sitting in my humidor and balance out the review.  I am going to fire up the Jimmy Buffet and make myself a Strawberry Daiquiri with some 7 year old Havana Club Rum and salute the brothers of the leaf WAY down south.  I will also salute the "followers" here at the blog.  I really do not like that term.  They are friends, members, readers...not followers.  Disciples, sure, haha.  Thanks for showing up and reading this blog.  I do not advertise it outside of my little home in the crazy house, and still I end up with someone to read it.  I do not use advertising, because I do not LIKE to dig through all that junk in other people's blogs.  I thank Guugle for allowing me to present it without any advertising if I choose.  And frankly, I do not think there would be that much money involved with making it a going concern.  Not to mention, it would be wrong to profit from it, given the subject matter and the sensitivity of it.  So Thanks again to all.

Viva Cuba!

I know I have a few friends down on the beautiful island who view this blog occasionally.  I know that I do not always portray them in the best light.  And by them I mean the tabaco industry.  But the people behind those jobs are strong and interesting people with a wonderful homeland and great pride in their it.  Feliz Navidad mi amigos, y gracias por el regalo maravilloso de tabaco cubano!  Su trabajo me trae gran alegría. 

It is my hope that soon we may sit down and smoke a fine cigar and drink a toast to your homeland.  Again, Feliz Navidad y un Año Nuevo bendecido.  Gracias.

Unbelievable - 2010 Montecristo Grand Edmundo EL

Fooled you.  This Edicion Limitada was NOT unbelievable.  What was unbelivable is that in all my time handling havana cigars, I have yet to have a beetle hatch under my roof.  Well, until today.  I was just poking around and opened the box, and saw some weird, fine brown dust on the cigar on the far right.  I had shuffled the cigars around once before.  I like to put the problem cigars on the far right side of a box so that I can polish them off first.  Light cigars that show underfilling, magazine rolls, super-heavy sticks.  Well, three weeks ago there was no sign of trouble.  Tonight, the dust.  So my eyes immediately went into danger mode.  WHERE was it.  I know you didn't make dust like that without coming out from.....there it was.

Now I have a firm true-ism where havanas are involved.  I have never had a single hatchout in a authentic cigar or box of cigars.  And now I was faced with this situation.  And I was not happy.  But I was definitely cutting it.  I would rather smoke a tight cigar than a loose one, and looseness and underfill was the reason for moving this cigar to the right.  And now I had to smoke it.  And it did not impress.  Some light cocoa and a little tea, but not much else.  Just too airy to properly develop flavors.  I stuck little tobacco cones into the holes, from pieces of clipped head.  I don't even feel like this cigar has any pedigree issues.  But finding a mature beetle and a twisting larva that was apparently not happy with the lights being turned on had me a little POed.  And yes, there were two exit holes.  If there is a good thing about the box being "infested", it's the tight-fitting lid on these boxes.  I have no fear of migration of the problem.  But DAMN, I am upset.

The cigar IS young, I'll say that in it's defense.  And as I said, it's the bad apple in the box, now in more ways than one.  But I expected to find great flavors that would have made me say, "aha, I sure didn't want to smoke one of these this early, but man, was it worth it".  But as you can see by the butt I left in the end, I was not going to get that experience.  In 4 years when I smoke another one of these, I hope it's a lot better than this one.  An embarassing 80.

Partagas Chicos

I have been looking around for these, not to smoke, but to keep a handle on whether or not they remain in production.  Smoked one last night that was really great.  It smoked much more like a small cigar than a machine made mini cigar, or cigarillo I guess.  The flavor was deep and musty with a interesting hybrid of vanilla and bleach.  I know this is a disgusting thought, but two things bring about this "taste-vor".  In my first job ever, I had to clean out coolers that housed racks of plastic bins with hundreds of pounds of raw chicken.  We used wooden pallets to raise the floor level and would cover the floor of the cooler with a mixture of vanilla extract and bleach.  Nice, huh?  Not my rules or my concoction.  But at times the flavor has very positive connotations.  I guess the bleach whiff could be also called menthol, but the notes of vanilla steer my mind to other origins.  This is a cut filler cigar which requires ashing almost as much as a cigarette, but the flavor is quite intense and enjoyable. 

These are narrow ring gauge smokes about the size of a "100's" cigarette, and yet even after 8 years in a box (in cello), they retain a massive flavor appeal.  Really strong and delicious.  Certainly a pleasant surprise on a night when I was not going to smoke anything.  With notes of black tobacco and pepper, white pepper and  roasted meat, this was a really complex cigar for a machine made product.  But that can be the nature of the cut filler beast.  At any given puff, there could be a piece of ligero chopped from the end of a Esplendido or a Edicion Limitada of the choicest kind.

I only needed to devote 25 minutes to it, and if I had nubbed it and burned my fingers, it would have lasted 35 minutes easily.  Now for the hard part.  You would have a nearly impossible time finding these anywhere.  I am sure there are brick and mortar stores that have them, but online these are a tough find.  Hell, anything online is a tough find these days after the thing that shall not be named.  I am not saying go right out and get some now.  You either have them or you don't.  I also tend to THINK that these are rolled near the end of the handmade run when there is little left to roll but that which a macine can use.  This is not a review with a strong BUY BUY BUY at the end.  Just a warning that if you DO see em available, snap up a box or a five pack.  Bearing in mind that these are machine made cigars, and not to be thought of in terms of normal scoring, I give last nights edition, nearly black and covered in dots of plume, a solid 85.

A tubo question

Now to a question on TUBOS that a member of the blog asked. "Do you take all of your tubed cigars out of the tube prior to smoking, to give them a bit of drying time?" Yes and no. A good tubo should be ready to smoke right out of the tube. The problem is that no human can be perfect, and especially havana torcedores seem to have trouble with consistency. So you can get a tight draw from a tubo now and again. But I think what I have found most true is that in most brands, a fresh and moist tubo tends to be a bit milder in flavor, and for more throttle response, you can dry them on a counter for a day or two and enjoy a totally different taste. It is best to try both methods and discover which condition suits your taste best. The best bit of info imparted to me, however, was that the blog member stocked up on the cigars in question and is in for a real treat. I have smoked hundreds of havanas and NEVER had a TRUE consistent performer until I ran into the H. Upmann Coronas Major Tubos.   The flavors in this cigar are truly remarkable.  Couple that with the fact that they are among the lowest-priced havanas available and you have a real gem.  Now, as I look back on the latest entries, this question could be pointed at statements I made concerning Magnum 46s in Tubos.  And really, either way would be a good buy.  I just recommend more the Coronas Majores due to the price being lower and the flavors really being a toss-up.  They are both FANTASTIC cigars with unique flavor profiles.  In fact, here's another tip on cheap flavor stars.  Fonseca Cadetes are very consistent and offer a unique havana flavor.  Cheaper than the HUCMTs.  And for an even better taste in Fonseca, go for the No. 1.  And as always, buy two or three boxes.  You will not be sorry.

The shape of things to come

This is hard for purchasers of most non-cuban cigars to accomplish (cello), but I smoked a cigar tonight that helped me come to a stark realization.  If you look at the foot of a cigar in a store, as a single, and your eyes can detect a pattern of any kind, you should choose another cigar.  If you look too long, you are likely to find SOME pattern.  But if you detect one right away, chances are your cigar is going to burn erratically. 

Tonight's cigar is a Diplomaticos No.1 that I received at a herf this summer.  It should be noted that ANYTIME someone offers to you an open box of cigars to select one from, it is already a very nice gesture, and no guarantees are proffered as to the eventual flavor, draw or satisfaction that it might impart.  In other words, be happy with what you get.  This was offered to me as a friendly gesture.  Once lit, it took all of a quarter of an inch to develop a run up one side. 

You can see that there is a crescent moon in the bunch, and the side opposite the crescent is the run.  The idiotic blog software has lately been rotating the photos to suit it's idiot brain.  I am tired of chasing the  rabbit, so I just left it rotated. 
HOWEVER, the cigar's draw was so firm, that it never "took off" on me and became a problem.  Well, there WAS a problem after all, and that is that there was almost no flavor to be had.  This was about as boring a cigar as I have had this year.  Now, it is widely known that the Diplomaticos cigars can offer really fantastic flavor.  "Any Given Sunday" as it were.  There was a hint of bread in the flavor, and for the first half-inch, some light tea.  But after that, nothing.  It was not sick, there was a taste to it, but so muted as to be just too little ligero in the blend to carry the taste.  I left it to go out where you see it here last.

It is a shame to paint all Diplomaticos No.1 with such a broad brush since they can be so good.  But this blog is more dedicated to "the moment" and I think that most people understand that your mileage may vary.  In fact it is likely to.  In the case where I know enough to say for sure that you should avoid ALL of the cigars of a type, I will certainly let you know.   But I love the lonsdale size in general, and these are a "dalia" in terms of factory name.  I think there is no finer smoke in habanos than the long and thin cigar.    They create such a fine draw and intensity of flavor, I can see why the great havana cigar salesmen like them so much.  BUT, back to this stick.  It would be impossible to score it higher than a 70.  And it's lucky to be there.  If I were not in a generous mood I would give it below 65.  But I do not want to scare people off of the brand or size.

2008 H. Upmann Magnum 46 Tubo

One of the all-time popular habanos of the modern era, the Magnum 46 is possibly the biggest love/hate cigar in the catalogue.  Many people swear by it as one of the best, just as many think it's overrated, has a weird taste and they just don't like them.  This cigar was fantastic.  It slipped out of the tube a bit moist.  When I pinched a divot fromt he head, it was extremely soft and spongy.  Not the cigar, just the cap.  I thought that might be a problem.  I usually try to dry a cigar like this out, but I was ready to smoke, and it just could not be helped.  It fired up a bit slow as expected, but I was greeted by a rush of twangy delicious tobacco taste, with a side note of tea.  At times during the smoke, it would go completely off of the flavor train and go all creamy.  Just spectacular complexity and taste.  Even burn, but extremely slow.  My inattention led to a few relights, but these did not affect the flavor in a negative way.  It gave up a ton of smoke and flavor.  This tends to make me believe that I have been a little late to the Upmann party.  I just finished one of the best cigars I have had in 2010, a 2010 Upmann Corona Major.  Chalk up another one, this Magnum 46 tallies a 90 without even trying.

Me want BBQ!

I have been sick for a week, guy comes to work hacking and snortiung and slobbering and gets a few people sick and they share of course.  So it's been no cigars for a bit.  But what I am even more upset about missing is my smoked meat.  I used to be humble about it, but apparently I have a skill set here.  Ralph misses it....

I taste test the smoked ribs and he just looks at me like I have NO class whatsoever.  "When goin be MY time?"  Indeed.  He eats first EVERY weekend, why he looks at me like that is beyond me.   I make sure it is cool first, the whole deal.  And THIS look.  I will take one this evening with a little more drool.  Now, if I can only get some cigars smoked....

Machine-Made to Handmade conversion in Habanos' catalogue

When Habanos stated it's intent to cease all production of machine-made cigars in which hand-made versions were also available, it came as a surprise.  But not an altogether bad idea if you consider their logic in making the decision.  First of all I have no idea what HSA does behind closed doors.  I can only take what little they say, and couple it with what I have seen them do in the market subsequent to those statments.  And it looks like they are comfortable with their position.  For a consumer of habanos, it came to a head during some righteous sales where a buyer could get machine-made habanos for 33 to 99 cents a stick it seemed, and then the slow rising of the price of the boxes in the hands of "smo-llectors" who bought to have something to cut the grass with and now had cigars that people wanted but could no longer get.  While it never reached the frenzy for discontinued cigars like the Ramon Allones 898 Varnished or Rafael Gonzalez Lonsdales, the machine-mades witnessed an upswing in purchases as nostalgia proved a major factor with buyers.  I know a collector with 40 boxes of Partagas Perfectos.  I wish it was me.  The cigar's demise is not likely to bring too many tears, they were spongy, inconsistent in flavor and wouldn't hold an ash.  But they were fun and cheap to smoke and now they are gone.  Save some against the push of progress if you've got a box.  Smoke em and enjoy em if you have a dozen boxes.  If you have a rush of nostalgia, find La Troya and Belinda machine-made tubos availale at better retailers.

But wait a minute, what's the second half of the two good things we got the day the cellophonic music died?  All or plenty of these cigars were, at least for now by default, switched to handmade production sticks.  This has been ongoing since near the start of the discontinuation of Machine-mades by 2003.  And after now having had two standouts among the new HAND-made versions, I am pleased that they are being offered.  I spoke about it earlier, but the Super Partagas and Por Larranaga Montecarlos and these H. Upmann Coronas Major tubos are just great little cigars, now totally handmade.  In fact, the Por Larranaga Montecarlos have overtaken the shooting star Petit Coronas that seemed to have wasted immortality.  Great cigars of near cult legend one day, and then just so-so today.  I have personally quit buying or smoking them.  But the Montecarlos spill over with creamy, toasted toffee tastes and a little caramel and pepper and spice.  Everything the old Petit Coronas used to be.  Habanos said that they were going to use the best tobaccos for the hand-made favorites and stop smearing the name of handmade cigars in a marque with the performance and the impression of machine-made cigars using the same name.  I think in a lot of cases, the hand-made versions were no longer widely available.  Now that the machine-made cigars are mostly out of manufacture, these hand-mades have almost been making market re-introductions.  And boy, some of these cigars are emerging stars...Or so it would seem to me, looking on from space.  TO ME, some of the best things being done now by HSA.  That's why REs and ELs to me are not as satisfying.  These now-all handmade versions of old cheap cigars are where the taste is now.  How that changes with time is certainly still up in the air.

Aging Small minutos and perlas

A reader asked about aging Montecristo No.5s.  I can only state what I would do.  Provided you had access to them, I would buy two or three boxes at a time and put them away and smoke new cigars of one or two years age while other boxes aged.  I would take the cigars out of their original packaging and place the cigars in either the varnished cedar plywood box of modern Cuban cabinets, or the solid cedar plank boxes many NC cigars come in today.  I'd keep unboxed cigars in amounts of 25-50 cigars on hand for grabbing.  Old cedar or mahogany really makes a nice home, especially mahogany as it is less aromatic and likely to become a dominant flavor in stored cigars like cedar does.  Just as pipe tobacco in a mason jar ferments and gets sweeter and offers an more intensely fragrant experience to the nose as time goes by, so will your Little Montes.  There are nice boxes around at your tobacconist, or you may already have several nice ones.  Real age will be happening in the boxes you hopefully fail to remember having buried somewhere.  If you want to artificially age them a little faster so you can smoke them quicker, just let the little dress boxes do their work and oxidize your smokes.  A cigar in that type of packaging peaks a lot earlier than something packed in cabinets.  You should get a variety of interesting tastes as they age, seemingly monthly, if you smoke them fast enough to notice.  It's such a consistent performer at any age, but all of the research I have done while in space points to 4 years as a basic spot where your cigars are performing at their peak and the burn and taste are very well balanced.  Age after that is beneficial, especially if the cigars are properly stored with as little direct contact to oxygen as possible.  I mean theoretically.  Chasing cigar performance over time is a rabbit hole...everything is fluid and crop dependent.  The way they used to make em is different every year, haha.   I find that the cocoa and cedar flavors as well as mouth coating is enhanced as the Montecristo No.5 ages into the limited perpetuity of my limited experience.  Tea flavors build in and add to the pleasure.  Buying more than you can consume per year by even one box in 12 months can really result in some great cigars in 5 years and super-sweet cigars in 10-20 cigars.  It's just the level of one's self-control that allows them to age.  You can either do it or you can't.  But the reward is certainly there.  If you wanted a lot of fantastic Montecristo No.5s or Shorts or Bolivar Coronas Junior, you can unbox and place into cedar as many as you can today, because no matter HOW long you age the smokes before smoking them, you have to START saving them before any of it can happen.  But specifically I feel like they peak at 7 years and age very gracefully from there.  In the dress box they can offer variable success.  The boxes don't seal all that well sometimes.  Two year old cigars would begin to develop a creaminess to go with their pepper and spice and leather.  This begins the balance process.  It comes into stride, I find, at 4 years.  And it's definitely worth it.

Too good to pass up.

I keep running into perfect times to smoke some 2010 H. Upmann Coronas Major that I came across that I was sure were going to be project cigars, just too young to waste, and they performed variably right out of the tube, and strong when dried.  I was sitting down at the Flying Saucer waiting for a friend to join me for a beer, and I look up and see in chalk, "If you HEART cigars, HEART em outside."  At a location nearby, there is a smoking section for cigars, and I appreciate that.  I don't appreciate the policy at this location, however, as dusk begins to fall.   A long bank of scattered clouds covers the last of my warm face-sun as I smoke this cigar outside like the bums insist.  WOW.  What a fantastic cigar  Plenty of strength and super-charged coffee elements and sweet hay.  As it burned a bit more, NONE of the flavors went away, they just piled on like the Bremen-town Musicians.  Cocoa and vanilla, chocolate, herbs, toasted bread and meat.  Really a well blended smoke.  Perfect burn even in the wind.  Yes there was wind, and temps were heading down overnight into the mid and high 30s.  But right then it was hanging in around 58.  This actual cigar was an easy 93 and really pulled up the average for the whole survey of four I have had over the past 30 days or so.

To me this is a cigar with huge potential.  I would try to find some and get a few boxes before the bosses find out how good these handmade marevas are.  This is one of those mysterious cigars that were inconsistent as  machine-mades;  they were just as good as bits of mixed filler can allow you to be, but no more.  TODAY, these handmade cigars, along with the Super Partagas are just wholly re-invented as good representatives of the delights of one marca or another.  You taste a Super Partasgas today and you get a cigar that approaches the vaunted Charlotte for pencil-sized stunners.  Less power, but hinting at it.  I'm sure there are more than a few formerly machine-made cigars that are perfect strangers to people everywhere in their hand-rolled form, now the only form available.  I wish they would start a Partagas Perfecto handmade version of the old machine-made superhero.  That'd sell.

1998 H. Upmann Monarch

Smoked a pretty gutsy cigar today, a 1998 Monarch that was not interested in how my day was, it was strong and a bit unbalanced.  That said, there were not a lot of distinct flavors for me outside of tobacco.  An occasional hint of cocoa was all of the exotic flavor I would get.  I also got some hints of froot loop dust in my nose a few times.  Now kids, I do not condone snorting pure sugar and food coloring, but as a veteran cereal eater, I've had a bit of the magic dust that makes that Toucan go a bit off kilter.  I got hints of that in the beginning.  But enough spoilers.

The cigar was a medium tan wrapper with a bit of a dark oiliness.    It was a hard, box pressed stick with little indication from wrapper or construction that anythng might go wrong.  It lit up nicely and took flame evenly.  It was basically a flawless performance throughout the first 1/4 of the smoke.  It burned uneven for a
 time but not crooked. 

The flavor was quite wheaty with herbal tones that played a surprisingly complex palate, but my taste buds were reeling from a recent bout of pipe smoking.  To top that off I had sinuses that were a bit irritated to boot.  The flavor was constant and  uncomplicated, but I missed a lot of nuance.  Some of that could be the cigar.  Most of it was me.  It burned cool and slow for it's entire length, the only fault I could find with it was it tended to put wisps of smoke in the air near my eyes that I could have lived without.  It also had a habit I did not care for much and that is the development of a slow burn, which most people like, but made me impatient.

I liked this cigar.  It was different in texture and patois than many havanas and burned with excellent construction evident at every turn.  It didn't try to do too much, and held up well for it's 12 years in the game.  I'd have liked a bit more flavor, but I smoked it in less than perfect circumstances given the fact I wanted to have an entry for today and I had to smoke a cigar to do that.    I also smoked up some ribs this morning and wanted somethng to work well after that meal.

Clearly burnt to a crisp.  But these were those 'ehhh' ribs from the proud rib region of Denmark.  I wanted to cook but did not feel like breaking out my good meat.  A little chewy, but good for anchoring the slather of BBQ sauce, anyway.  But I should have bought baby backs instead which I would have served dry with sauce on the side.  According to my brother-in-law, I cook cash money ribs, and that's a fair compliment since he gets em free. 
But not today.  Well......they'll eat.

As for the monarch, I think this is a good example of Havana getting some things right during a tough time in their history.  In general the churchills from right after this period are well constructed but seemingly with less interesting materia prima.  They are fine, but kind of foggy on the palate.  But without a doubt, they retain some power after 10 years in the worst HSA packaging for aging cigars over a longer term.  So this cigar is worth smoking if only for that.  But it had hidden finesse and a balanced body and mouth-feel.  80 for that quality, but short on interesting and unique flavor bursts that make or break a cigar this age, so when overall flavor comes into consideraton, the cigar fails to rise above 82.  A good performing cigar that just fell short.

2010 Partagas Serie D. No.4

After some very interesting results recently, I decided to break down a new Partagas Serie D No.4.  I had them while webcasting a kart race this late summer, and they were as right off the truck as they come.  Kind of strong and obnoxious and gassy, like Rosie O'Donnell.   Then  over a Saints...no, LSU game I had another and they were great.  Approaching 90, maybe more, great.   

So you'd have to be a little intrigued, they SMELL great.  The performance shows potential on two planes; strength for the future development and body and finesse when enjoyed now.  Which would be no surprise to historic lovers of the "PSD4".  The cigar comes from a box of unvarnished wood containing ten great looking cigars.  Nice packaging for a Christmas gift, retirement, graduation.

 The cigar is a dark winey-tan colorado maduro that looks dangerous as dynamite.  So NOW, it is time to smoke it.  First I need to eat some ribs I smoked yesterday and some marsh taters.  Best ribs I have made in some time.

Whew, that was way too much food.  4 smoked wings and about 4 ribs.  Small ribs. 

You need to light this cigar well.  It's foot shows signs of a kind of magazine roll-up job, they tend to canoe when lazy rollers pull this jazz with a robusto.  It's not classic bad, but it resembles a  magazine roll.  It might be this half roll that makes the cigar burn at least tolerably.

Roll this cigar with respect please. 
OK, I had a big corncob full of Va-Per this morning on my walk and was happy it mostly kept burning without much re-light for 2 miles.  When I turned it up, it was just ash.  Nice and clean, but kind of strong first thing in the morning.  But the point of my going on and on is that my palate was a bit bruised already on just a piece of toast and a cup of milk.  But this cigar is a real treat.  Better than dessert, this no calorie snack is very well complimented by the taste of BBQ that lingers on my palate.  It pours smoke, and is very full-flavored on a medium-full body.  Top notch taste and strength.  Almost too much strength to my tingly sinuses.  The aroma is like a roomfull of those good fries in the red box with the yellow arcs. that are still made with lard cause it tastes good.  That is the aroma.  Whew, this is some cigar. 

Spicy and almost smooth, still a cigar you could mess somebody up with as a first cigar or a first havana.  And it just LOOKS great, starting to reach iconic status in league with the Esplendido and Hoyo Double Corona.  As expected, it is trying to burn up one side and will want repair.  Probably constantly. Sad too, when you consider the really epic one I had burned perfectly and was head and shoulders above your run of the mill havana these days.  A little tea and raisin on the very top that can be enjoyed through the nose.  But the the flavor is there, moving down a bit on the power scale and giving up peppery and leathery taste and a nice salty aroma.  Meaty and aromatic with that side of fries quality.  It is pretty constant in flavor for most of the way, getting a bit more subtle and aromatic in the end, SOMEWHAT saving the cigar. 

As you can see, the burn is going to have to take something away from the final score.  I have smoked three this month, and I have to give it an 87 due to the bad burn on one, unbalanced flavor of two of them, and fantastic flavor and performance on one of three.  Nothing to hang your hat on at the old Partagas factory, but this is fairly young and gets a bit of a pass on that aspect, but the construction on this last one is a really bad sign.  I have smoked more crooked burning cigars lately than good ones.  Not a good ratio.

Montecristo No.5 revisited 2005 box

Montecristo No. 5 is one of my top 5 cigars and gets a lot of playing time in the game that is my love of habanos.

It's not neccesarily cost-effective, but it is taste effective.The definition of wishy-washy is me saying that this is my favorite small cigar, a point I make about every cigar this size.  Spicy and sweet like a good steak, shows a delicate cocoa powder taste with a sticky finish and a lot of power for a cigar so small.  It is only about 4 inches long with a 40 ring gauge. But a really satisfying cigar. 

The cigar burned straight as an arrow from beginning to end with perfect draw and consistent flavor.  The ash was perfect with rounded ridges and toothy white specs embedded in the ash.

I am glad more than anything else that I am smoking a good cigar finally.  Been on a bit of a bad streak lately here at the ole' Warranty Seal blog.  As it was absolutely nubbed and was really not spent THEN, we've got to give it a pretty high mark.  But the draw and burn were both so strong that this has to be elevated even more highly to begin to approach 90 in scoring, and if you add in a few points for mood-altering ability this is a solid 92 points and had the flavor been just a little more intersting and delicate it would have been a 94.  As it was the cigar was a very solid, consistent deliverer of rich, strong, sweet flavor with just a hair less balance and complexity that I would have liked.  Get these while they are hot.

I never nub cigars, but I took that one down to 3/4 of an inch before I was willing to let it go.

Sancho Panza Bachilleres

Boy don't you hate it when things make you think of other things.  Sure, sometimes it's good, in fact some times it's REALLY good, but this is the bad kind. 

Had my best '66 GTO dream ever last night, and I really miss that car.  It's far too long a story for one blog entry, but every 6 months or so I remember in depth and at length about the sad story that is 'why I no longer have that car'.  But I digress. 

When Habanos SA first began announcing discontinued cigars, no one knew if they were serious.  It was a really bad concept for the cigar collector.  But while I think of it, it was a great time to be a cigar seller.  You could do what you liked with your old cigars after the announcement.  Some held a fair line, some scalped, some just stashed.  Half of the habano-knowin'-about population thought it was a sales gimmick.   898s started the march, then duplicate vitolas in a marque, or poor sellers.  Some people snatched up a closetfull of their favorites.  Others speculated.  Still others believed that HSA was only half-serious to begin with.  And to add fuel to the fire, that shocking announcement, of what later became known as "the list" became a regular, annual thing.  A perverse tradition.  As supplies of cigars slated for, or even a few years into "discontinuation" began to dwindle, buyers have become accutely aware of priorities within their personal cigar wish lists.  Moving SLOWLY towards the door like smart people did on Wall St. a few months before the big flush.  Like people SHOULD do in a burning theater.  But now it's much more urgent for folks, and the price continues to rise on cigars for which it is now obvious that the bell has tolled.

What the hell was I talking about?  Oh yeah, Sancho Panza Bachilleres, or as it's known in my house, the perfect cigar in the perfect size. 

You can FIND this cigar if you look and have money.  And if you are relatively comfortable with sticker shock.  It's not the COST of the box, it is the relative cash to leaf ratio that gets 'em.  This is a Fransiscano vitola de galera.  That's the term for factory size.  There are a decent amount of Fransiscanos, and I think most of them are kaput.  It's a little shorter and a little thinner than a petit corona.

 

Other standouts were the Rafael Gonzales Tres Petit Coronas as well as the eponymous (or epynomous) offering from Partagas.  Of note in particular is the El Rey del Mundo Lunch Club, long an insider favorite.  The little Romeo y Julieta Tubos #3 is also a Franciscano.  So we are together on the whole discontinued cigars thing?  It's BAD.  So now it's tougher and tougher to find the Bachilleres, and huge discounts on them are but yarns and lore for putting newbies to bed with at night.  But hang on.....

I think I have 3 or 4 around.  

Yeah, there they are.  Really spectacular little cigars, and they never die, they just fade away and change and evolve.  As delicate and delicious as any cigar made, actually.  Anyone who runs into one is bound to be pleased.  It is neither strong nor dry.  A sweet and tangy, chewy-smoking cigar with easily discernable chocolate and berry flavors, and rich tobacco and toffee at times.  And they put 24 more in a box to ease the pain.  Man I love Pixies.

The cigar is a nice blend between box press and round, kind of a Dave K cigar.  Lots of smoke almost every time.  I have never had a bad draw on a Bachilleres.  It's on the playful side of light, burning perfectly, but not slow.

So what's say we smoke one shall we. 

Hah, I'm  kidding.  I am not smoking one.  Maybe later.

JR Cigars "Copied" BHK Alternative

I used to really like Lew Rothman. You couldn't read one of his JR Cigars catalogs without chuckling and you had to admire his testicular fortitude. But one day about 5 years ago, he wrote a piece for a magazine he was putting out that at once bashed and tried to "out" the online havana cigar vendor phenomenon. In one minute, I went from a kind of respect for Lew to wishing failure of every kind on him. But I read something in his last catalog that put the final nail in his coffin for me. He has come out with a new useless cigar and sold it like this. (Paraphraseology) Habanos is trying to rip you off. They came out with a cigar called Behike that cost $4000 for a box of ten. So I copied it, because I don't want you to have to put up with that crap." I understand that Lew may be too busy to get his facts straight, but it is much more likely that he doesn't care to get his facts straight, because the statement wouldn't be strong enough if he painted an accurate picture.  But to be fair, he is right about one thing.  Even 100 is too much for a cigar.  However, Lew, HSA is not in the discount cigars business.  That's your line of work.  So in my eyes, he is just being whiney.

Habanos SA came up with the Behike years ago and offered it in a ridiculously expensive humidor, for perhaps, and here MY OWN facts may be shaky, $4000. It contained 40 cigars which is still a whopping 100 bucks per cigar. but believe me, there are people that will pay that. This year, Habanos came out with a cigar called the BHK, or the Cohiba Behike BHK, in boxes of ten, for about 350-650 per box depending on the size. So Lew conveniently mixed up his products for the maximum shock effect. But he knows the real situation. He just likes to spout BS and sell inferior cigars. Granted, they are cheap. So he comes out with this cigar that is, according to him, "a copy" of the BHK line.

It's close in ring gauge, but not dead on. It has no pigtail. It might be the right length, who knows. But I buy a good deal of cigars from his enterprise for the troops in the war theaters. So I thought, "what the hell, I'll buy a 20 pack for 40 bucks."  

The poor troops. I hope they don't come back and hunt me down. Luckily I sent them some other cigars that might be made of tobacco. This cigar smelled great out of the cellophane, but I instantly recognized the signature JR cheap smoke aroma. But I was wanting this cigar to be a true "alternative" to the BHK. This is the way Lew sells them, and although he never even comes close, at times some of them have been passable 1.50 smokes. But I mean he went out of his way to say he "Copied" the BHK. Once lit, the trouble began.

You could say, 'well, you should have lit that thing better.'  Well the truth is, you can't properly light this cigar.  In fact, when I cut it open later, I am not really sure what's going to be in it.  If you go by the smoke pouring off the end of the cigar, I think I will find burning tires and creosoted telephone poles.  There is no flavor in this cigar at all.  It is simply an obnoxious citronella candle that repels humans.  Loyal readers will recall that I do not smoke all of a cigar that I do not enjoy.  You can well imagine what I am going to do with this one.  If you guessed 'let it go out before you throw up in the tub', you win a free cigar.  Or what's left of this one, anyway.

 Just look at the frayed end of this thing.  It looks like a exploding cigar from the cartoons.  Or it would have, had I let it go any farther.  Stay as far away as you can from this little 'new product' from Lew Rothman.  But beware, this entry MAY be edited, as I intend to let the other one I kept back from the troops sit out a while outside the cello and light it with the hopes that drying it out helps.  I am not expecting any changes, but I do not like to let my feelings for Lew color what might be a smokeable cigar.  But pity that fool if the second one is no better.

Cohiba Robusto 2009

I am not so sure about these smokes.  These are Cohiba Robustos, the flagship short cigar from the most famous name in the cigar business. They were kind of spongy when I got them, but the were wet from pre-travel over-humidification to be sure.  It also must be said that these cigars are not this dark.  I adjusted in Photoshop using auto-level as they were darker than I'd like and I was being lazy at the time.  They are more colorado maduro in shade

Well-rolled and oily, the flavor was as bad as any cuban cigar I had ever had. Right off the truck.  This one started out minty and fresh but not particularly great. Maybe it was 'Cohiba grassy'. It began, once it warmed up, to be a little creamy, but still not very impreesive. Did I mention that I left this smoke out on the table for more than a week? I find a dry cigar smokes better than a 'properly humidified' cigar, in flavor and burn. Mercy, I would hate for this smoke to be at 70% rh. I hate the wrappers on these, kind of a sick version of the Habana 2000. It just doesn't want to burn in a consistent manner.

Right now, the best I can really say is hints of Black Cherry. And this is very disturbing to me. This is one of the best cigars in the world, for sure in the top 5. And hints of black cherry? Sweet. Slightly herbal. No chocolate, no vanilla, no coffee. No nutmeg. Argh. I need to dig and find out what boxing date these are, because they are just awful. And remember, awful is totally relative here. This is not a cigar that I would toss in the gutter in disappointment.

You guessed it.  That's about where I left it.  Not going to smoke a cigar for pleasure that doesn't give me any pleasure.  These are far too young to be smoking.  But if you think this cigar failed to conform, wait til you hear the story of the JR Alternative to the BHKs.