2008 Montecristo Sublime Edicion Limitada in NEW ORLEANS

Let the smoking begin.  I have been lucky enough to take advantage of my sister's gracious offering af a place in her condo in New Orleans for nearly the entire week.  I worked a few days in Memphis and am sitting in New Orleans on not such a good night, but for New Orleans, any cool night is not bad.  It's low overcast and windy with a chill in the air, and I picked a heck of a time to smoke a MONSTER of a cigar in this Monteccristo Sublime.  What was perhapes the most popular Limitada ever, the Cohiba Sublime, lent it's size to this giant cigar.  Not a cigar you want to smoke on a windy evening.  The cigar is wrapped in a dark wrapper reminiscent of the old fireproof wrappers, and wind and fire makes it tough for a leaf lover.  It burned a bit unevenly, and the sheer girth makes it tough to make a go of it.

The cigar was steeped in leather notes, all on a medium/strong body.  Various chocolatey flavors wove their way in and out of the smoke, but the feature of the cigar that made it a challenge to write about was this one flavor I found nearly impossible to finger.  I am taking a stab at it with a "musty, old oak board taste" with a hint of mint.  I loved the flavor of the cigar and it made for a good hour on the stoop, but I hate it when I can't place a flavor.  I have an amateur's palate to be sure, and this flavor just made it that much more difficult to feel like I have progressed very much.  I liked the cigar an awful lot, but when something bothers me like that, it takes all the fun out of it.  Add to that the fact that the smoke is easily a two hour smoke, and it made me as uncomfortable as I get watching a movie like Bill Murray's "Quick Change" or Anna Faris' "Smiley Face", just a series of uncomfortable moments strung together leading me to a feeling of rushing through it to get over that FEELING of discomfort.  I should have smoked something short, thin and simple.  Instead I took the most complex and time-consuming of the cigars I have with me.

Top it off wth the fact that the current price of one of these cigars is about 22-25 dollars and it makes for a colossal mistake.  But it's also just another glorious day in the city that care forgot, and who really cares in the end?  I can't put a score on this cigar because in smoking terms, I just butchered it, and it will take a two-person smoking con-fab to sort out the flavors at work here.  I paired it with a Acai daiquiri cranked out by the Frozen Concoction Maker, and it was a good, tart, sweet mate.  Under proper smoking conditions, I could see this as a 95 point smoke.