2001 Partagas Culebra

Like the 27 inch tube TV in the closet, the machine-made Partagas Culebra sits as yet a totally functional smoke, despite the fact that you have forgotten it in favor of it's updated digital model.  How can the simple star-embossed foil compete with individual cedar coffins?  The easy answer is, it can't.  In fact, if they never again use the machine to create the three loose panetelas that form this serpentine super-cigar, it will be like moving that tube TV up to the attic, likely to be lost forever.  

These excellent mild-medium bodied cigars have everything going against them, and yet they shine.  A check of the foot reveals a multicolored knot of cut filler tobacco.  Upon dissection, you will see that the cigar also features 2 inch flags of whole leaf in the filler which must give the cigar the ability to twist without tearing open and dumping cut filler all over the place.  it also gives the cigar a kind of consistency and complexity of flavor that can be tracked 1/3 to 1/3, rather than the crap-shoot fleeting flavors that a true tripa corta cigar usually offers.

The heads are nothing to look at and add nothing to the experience.
But as a whole the cigar is a real work of art.  As bizarre as the effect of the braid is, the cigars really are beautiful to look at.  One of the great things about cigar smoking is the historic variety of ways the industry came up with to store, sell and use tobacco.  The further back you go back the more interesting the ephemera gets.   That's why I hate to lose the Long and Slim Panetelas.  "Who's gonna care when they are gone", I imagine Habanos says. 
Only I know that's not true. 
ALL of the old cigar men know what they like to smoke, and they like the long and (reasonably) slim cigars.  Or robustos, but that's not important right now.  No sense in worrying about that when you can have anyone roll you any kind of personal cigar you want by the gross.  But as a customer, that ought to make you sad.

  Or STOCKED, baby, YEAH!

But that's the world we live in.  We want our Lanceros, but we also want our cheap cigars or thin cigars that someone runs on closeout.  But keep your eye on the long cigar.  Too wimpy for SOMEBODY down there.  Gonna give them up.  The only thing that seems might save us on the minutos and perlas is that someone is also making a killing coming up with ways to make robustos shorter.  Maybe my beloved little cigars will be spared cause they look like a good future fad.  "Announcing the Montecristo petite No. 5."  The Stewart Little. 

Or maybe the Bolivar Coronas the Third. 

(get it, smaller than 'Coronas Jr.')

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and now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

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