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.