Hoyo de Monterrey Le Hoyo du Dauphin - AUG 2000

One of the things I most wanted to do here was to play rhythm guitar on the swan song of the thin cigar.  The lonsdale, the panetela, the Delicados.   I don't want to go overboard.  I am not going to MARCH for the panetela.  But there is so much pleasure in smoking Habanos that has nothing to do with taste and aroma.  The touch and feel of the cigar, or the elegance or regality that a vitola presents or does not.
I also wanted to try and look in on some of the cigars known as the sale cigars.  No need for quotation marks anymore.  I found a good first foray in the Le Hoyo du Dauphin.  Officially known as The Laguito #2, you can also get the delicious Cohiba Coronas Especiales in this vitola, as well as Montecristo Especiales #2. 

The cigar looks like a Cohiba, a buttery tan, blemish-free oily wrapper, finished with the pigtail cap.  It cuts easily and draws perfectly.  Hmm, I wonder how that happened?  The taste is not unlike a salad, or a piece of buttered toast for breakfast.  There is not enough flavor happening to open your eyes, but it is perfectly suited to a light post-breakfast smoke.  The flavor is slightly vegetal and can be compared to the aftertastes of cucumber and celery.  It is slightly salty and burns perfectly.  At one and an eigth inches in, the ash drops in my lap. 

This tends to happen when you write reviews, photograph cigars, and smoke at the same time.  Halfway through the cigar, what you end up with is alot like smoking a pipe.  You get flavor, but it is mostly coming from the nose or somewhere, because the actual flavor on the tongue is nothing much.  

I am intrigued by the cigar because it is light and refreshing, but as Le Hoyos go, this is on the lower end of the scale.  They are all one note cigars to a certain extent.  But on some cigars the note is amazing.  The du Depute comes to mind, as does the de Dieux.  But this is far from a bad cigar.  What it really is is simply uncomplicated.  Sometimes you NEED to smoke a cigar but you are too busy with conversation or drinks or tasks.  And it needs to be worth smoking.  That is the sum total of the du Dauphin, to me.  On my Habanos scale of 100, I think it is about a 75.  It screams quality and class and is frankly one of the 5-8 epic vitolas in the Habonos catalogue of the 21st Century.  In fact, let's end this topic with that, for I smell another entry already beng written.