H. Upmann Magnum 46 Tubo 2008

I am guessing 2008, because I can't find the carton, Might be later than that.  But what I KNOW about this cigar is it was great.  The Magnum 46 is easily the most popular H. Upmann cigar, created in the H. Upmann factory in Havana.  The entire production of the Upmann line is produced in this newly-updated factory.  You can wipe out more than a century of historic fixtures, but you can't change the sights, sounds and smells of the factory.  While Upmann is a major brand, it is still small enough to be quality controlled in such a way as to ensure that the cigars you smoke are the finest available anywhere.  This factory has helped bring the image of Havana cigar production up to world-wide standards and focuses on the needs of the torcedore to feel pride in his work and his surroundings.  

I opened the tubo and drank in the rich, dank, sweet smell of fresh cuban tobacco.  The cigar was moist and springy and clipped with a bit of crumbs, revealing a beautiful draw.  It lit evenly and slowly and  absolutely erupted with bright tea and tobacco flavor.  The burn was agonizingly slow, and produced a burn line that was straight and clean.

I paired the cigar with some good, lightly-sweet iced tea.  On a day that started out in the 50s, ran up to 80, and only late in the evening returned to 70, the cool evening breeze and songs of happy birds  were a great compliment to this wonderful cigar.  I smoked it a little fast, surely around 30 seconds per puff, but it remained cool and rich, with hints of brine, wine, and tea, with fleeting hints of dark chocolate.  The power of the cigar I would classify as full bodied, with medium flavor.  It managed to hold up well even after the Esencia 2008 I had smoked for lunch.  Both were bold and rich smokes.  As great as this cigar was, it was still no match for that Esencia.  I PREFERRED the Upmann, but the Esencia had more defined flavors and flavor changes through the smoke.  But this cigar served up my favorite, distinct tea flavor.  It won't score very high, it should have been allowed to dry a bit after years in the tube.  But it's a sure winner that anyone would be lucky to light up.  I rate it a 87.       

Checking in on the Montecristo No.5

This is my all-time favorite cigar, and I will say it over and over.  The truth is always much more complicated, I have a short list of 5-8 favorites.  But this one is right up there at the tip top.  I had to change the oil in a pressure-washer on a Saturday afternoon, but I wanted to enjoy the cool and breezy afternoon with a cigar.  I selected this short stick because of it's tendency to always give the smoker what he or she wants.  Well, unless you want a million dollars, I guess.

I lit the cigar right up, it drew very well and gave up it's signature flavor of light pepper, and a heavy dose of cocoa powder and sweet tobacco.  This one was right on target for it's entire length, and I smoked it so unconsciously that before I knew it, I was burning the band.  Even the band was great.  I let it go after it had burned for almost 40 minutes.  I am not exactly running short of these, but I have far less than I want.  I could use 20 boxes of these and would still fear for a day when I reach for her and she isn't there.

Cold Beer and an old favorite, a 2000 Punch RS12

Since I have reported on these cigars so many times, and they never fail to disappoint, I will spare you the back story, except to say I once had ten boxes or so of the Punch Royal Selection No.12 and now I have about 38 cigars left.  So smoking one is no small occurrence anymore.  I always hope to enjoy them, and am rarely if ever let down by it's rich yet simple character, and it's excellent, crisp flavor and unique sweet and tangy character.  I poured a very strange beer that I got in a sale at Peabody Beer and Wine in Boone, NC.  It's BREWDOG "TOKYO"...  I like good beer.  I do not drink much of it, because I do not like drinks that tend to bloat me out, and I am 1/50th the drinker I was in my younger and wilder days.  So it's like Zino said, drink fewer and better beer, er, paraphrased as to be relevant here.  The smoke as you see here, is packaged without a band, in a neat bundle of 25 in a sliding lid cedar cabinet.

Now, In another era, this beer would be a joke.  Today it is just another crazy way to make a beer and a buck.  The bottle states that it is an Intergalactic, fantastic oak aged-stout brewed with Cranberries and Jasmine.  
Are you serious?
Jasmine?


On the one hand, the beer is different.  But on the other, I am not a fan of weird.  I will tolerate Abita Purple Haze, but only when someone else is buying.


But the cigar?  That's another matter.  These cigars are perfect.  This is a 2000 vintage smoke, perfectly created, oily, perfect dark-tan color and fragrant in the hand.  The smoke lights very slowly and burns slow and even.  The taste is elegant and starkly clean.  Pure, sweet and smooth smoke with light, sweet, peppery notes, and a core of raisins and wine and honey and licorice.  The licorice I think is the beer.  It has a strong licorice taste.  It is THICK and fruity and funky.  Not terrible at all.  Some would call it great.  For me it serves a purpose.

This is a complementary pairing in a way, but I do not particularly enjoy it.  It starts with the beer I guess;  I do not mind a stout, in fact I enjoy it, but this is not something I like in a stout.  Make no mistake, there are people that would LOVE this beer.  In a stout, I  like tobacco and chocolate notes with raisins at the OUTSIDE of the fruit range, I guess.  This beer is a flamboyant gay man in a biker bar.  The cigar smokes very slowly at a time when I want it to go a little quicker.  I am enjoying the outside air and the birds and breeze, but a nap is calling me.   I only ended up smoking about half of the cigar.  

It was a waste to a degree, but these old cigars have tended to start off with a bang and then slowly lose their character after halfway.  They are WELL-AGED indeed, but likely would be better had they been in a cave for 15 years and not in a warehouse for perhaps half of their lives.  I can STILL give this cigar a high score, though, based solely on the first half flourish.   I score this one a 90.

Cohiba Robusto 2004

I don't get much Cohiba Robusto....Charlie don't get much U.S.O.  Just a bowl of rice, and a little rat meat if he's lucky.  But I DO have them. And on rare occasions I will pull one out and smoke it.  And so it came to pass that tonight was one of those nights.  I counted them up and saw 8 little robustos in the box, not so short that I wouldn't be able to enjoy one tonight, but getting there.  As I pulled it out, and lit the cigar, I managed to crack a bit of the wrapper, so I wrapped a piece of packing tape across the damaged area.  Not something you want to do on the lit end, but near the head, ehh, why not?  I cut the end and found a fine draw and a minty taste, popped a Hop Wallop, thankfully my LAST one, and went downstairs to the front porch, where I could enjoy a cool spring evening with a moist, clean character to the air.  A storm overnight had spawned tornadoes to the west but merely rained like hell here, and scrubbed all the pollen from the air.  (By the way, if you have kids with allergies, don't keep them indoors in the springtime to "help" them, just give them half a Benadryl and push them outside to play.  When they grow up as allergy free adults, they will thank you for it.  Let the body go through it's natural progressions no matter how distorted their faces get.)  Where was I??  Oh yes, the porch.  I greeted my three children, Magnolia, Frasier and Rhododendron, and popped open my collapsible chair and sat down to watch the world go by.

The cigar drew like a dream and gave up a light spice, some sugary, minty coolness and some coffee flavors.  The burn was razor straight and perfectly well-behaved.  It seemed a shame to ash it with a 1.5 inch ash, but I am not one to try and discover how far I can push it until it lands in my lap.  

I said earlier that I was glad I was out of Hop Wallop.  I do not think a grapefruit character makes a beer good.  Beer is barley and a little hops.  Not a citrus drink.  Hops have a place for me, and it is not in the lead role............But I hate to say it,  I really enjoyed this bottle.  Maybe its the year it spent in the fridge.  Maybe I am finding that I like to have some of everything on hand and maybe dark stouts aren't everything.  In any event, the beer went well with the cigar.  It did not bring out or amplify any of the cigar's flavors, but it was a great compliment from a back and forth standpoint.  I looked forward to each after having a sip of the other.  So OK, maybe I will buy another 6-er of Hop Wallop for the cellar.  I may not prefer it, but I won't say it is a cheap, crappy beer.  It's mighty fine for something I don't like much.

The Cohiba Robusto did something I rarely find, too.  The longer I smoked it, the better it got.  Almost everyone uses this idea in reviews, but I do not usually find improvement over the length of a cigar.  I find them best at the start, and I ruin them by over-puffing usually.  So when it happens and I notice it, it stands out.  I can't say that it changed so much as it became more enjoyable to me as it burned towards the band.  The chocolate hints mixed with the tar to become a rich dark chocolate tone that hid it's nasty implication.  The sugar turned to caramel, but subtly so, and the coffee turned to espresso.  I could not nub the smoke, there was a lot of tape on it.  But I enjoyed this cigar and wish I had been more careful with it right out of the box.  Not a high scorer, but a great smoke...I give it a score of 88.

My Three Sons

Or daughters, I am not sure.  I have a mental condition.  It's called waste your life syndrome.  I have been working for 36 years.  And in all that time I have never owned a home.  I have been carrying around my stuff that I have accumulated and a lot of my father's stuff that I was given when he died.  I am dragging it all around waiting for the time when I finally settle down.  But in television, you never really settle.  In news, you move from town to town til you make it big.  In production, you get tired of clients and management and you quit one job and go find another in some other city.  And you drag all your crap with you.  Waiting for the day when you finally realize you are "home" and you can put pictures up on the wall, build a shop for all your tools, get a dog, plant your own landscaping.  Well I must think that time is getting close, because I have lined up my three sons, 

1.) a fir tree from the Tennessee mountains that represents a time to relax, I dug it at the site of one of the cabins I stayed in on a relaxing week off with my family, 


2.)a tiny gardenia bush my mother bought me last week at Home Depot.  To me there is no better smell on the planet than gardenia flowers on heavy air.  We had a large one in our front yard in Louisiana when I was a kid.  I want one or ten of my own.


3.) and a rhododendron that my sister and I dug together in Blowing Rock, NC.  Once again I had taken a week off with my family to join them in their relaxation.  When I was a kid in the deepest south, a week in the mountains was the single best vacation you could take.  As kids we developed a deep and abiding love of the Smokies that continues today and hopefully will always be there.  And this plant reminds me of that love.


They are sitting on the porch, living in pots until I move for the last time.  I have a crazy dream at this late stage of life.  To buy a house for cash, or close to it, and to move for the final time.  To live in a place until I die, to plant my own shrubs, hang my own art, chop down trees I don't like and plant ones I do.  To develop a compost pile.  


Trouble is, most people do that without regard to finality.  They call it "life".  To them it is not special, it is just Wednesday.  They have a mortgage because they have kids, cars, crap, dog.  But they have never been nomads.  They can't grasp how a person can bounce from town to town and put down no real roots, because whatever job they are in is not a career, but a job IN A CAREER FIELD that is a means to an end.  That end is "not working".  The end is to have a home no one can take from you and working just hard enough to pay the tax man.  It's a crappy goal, but it's mine.  And to that end, I have developed my little family of shrubs.  They are killing time, rootbound and waiting to see their their final resting place where they, like me, can just relax and put down roots.  Where they can make friends, and be responsible, voting human beings.  


I told my sister the other day that I finally figured out why life for a kid plays out in such slow motion.  It's because of payday.  When you are a kid in a hot classroom, summer seems as if it will never get here.  You desperately PUT OFF things you dread;  tests, first dates, vaccinations...you mentally move them off into a future that will never come.  You hope.  And time moves in slow motion.  A school year drags out seemingly forever, and the vacation is far too short.  Because kids are GOOD AT IT.  Masters of time manipulation.


But then you become an adult.  At first you work any job just to get out of the house.  My first job was at age 14, as a cook in a fried chicken restaurant.  It was for money.  Not to get out of the house.  It got me away from a lot of the things most kids do.  I did not go to parties, I went to school all day and worked all night.  I didn't date, although I had the money to.  I started a very early, very sad path towards responsibility.  Before long I was in the service, living the wild life for the first time.  Money?  Ehh, not so much of that, but fun, hell yeah.


And then after college I was a worker drone again.  But this time I had to get out of the house to prove I was not a burden (intentionally), that my education had not been in vain.  It was a horrifically slow start.  But after a time, I never had need of anything but love in the support game, and I was pleased that I was self-sufficient.  But never rich.  And this is the crux of my argument.  The modern world moves so fast because we are so close to the edge, we the 99%, that instead of focusing intently on DELAYING time's march, we focus a willing energy on the calendar, moving with our minds the proximity of Friday...payday.  I actually get paid on every other Monday, but the effect is the same.  We watch a little TV, do the laundry, and whatever extra you poor married saps do,  and we MOVE THAT NEEDLE ever forward to payday, the only thing that sustains us in our efforts to pay for all the endless things that need attention.   And hopefully it will buy us a place to stash all of our crap, that no one can ever take away from us.  And sure, a lot of people recently lost that 'thing no one can ever take away from us', but not because the banking system is so unfair.  There are a lot of people who lost homes that had no business being home-owners.  Those people lost homes because they believed the big lie, that everyone gets a trophy.  Everyone should own a home.  It's not true.  America has retreated in it's vast economic strength.  We won't be doing better than our parents.  We will struggle to make it happen and be lucky to leave anything to our children.  Not everyone needs to own a home.  Some people, like me, should RENT a place to live until such time as they can afford to buy a home safely.  It must be tough to lose a home to foreclosure.  But to me its even tougher to be so dumb that you believe what your predatory lender told you.  That you could afford a home, 'no problem'.  That gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach was not the bad clams.  It was your brain trying to tell you that there was no possible way you were going to be able to guarantee your steady employment and uneventful life such that you'd have 1800 bucks every month laying around for 30 years.  Come on.  And naturally, there are people, even some who might read this and disagree.  Congratulations, you are one of the lucky ones.


If we are going to survive to reign on this planet for another 5000 years we are going to have to start paying a bit more attention to our brains and a lot less time listening to what the man on TV tells us.  Leave your phone on your hip until it rings.  Better yet, leave it at home.  Surf the web at home, if at all.  You don't HAVE to buy into the hype.  Tend to a couple of plants, smoke a few cigars, live within your means and live long enough to find your reward.

Montecristo D EL 2005

I think that this blog is far too often a venue for reviewing the cigars I have on hand that are for my personal daily smoking and far too infrequently a place where you are likely to find the oddity in habanos, the rare or hard to find cigar.  Today that changed somewhat with the pulling up of a Montecristo "D" Edicion Limitada 2005.  This smoke was a cracking good stick, from it's first glimpse of daylight after 7 years asleep to the nubbly nub of finger-burning tobacco.  

It cut and lit well and I proceeded down to the pond to smoke the cigar, drink a Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere from a few years back, and watch my meat smoke and watch the fishes play.  And then I dropped my beer bottle on the patio and the morning became more about cleaning up my mess than smoking the relaxing cigar.  And even after all that bending and stooping and cutting myself with glass, the cigar maintained it's form.  Not sure why some glass breakages cut you even though you are an adult who is TRYING to be careful.  I could see a kid cutting himself, but a fully-grown, fully-aware adult?


The cigar drew firmly and offered up a decent amount of smoke that had a charry, chocolatey flavor with a small amount of cuban twang around the edges.  The flavor never really changed, except to say that it got more intense as I smoked through it, and tended to go out a bit, which gave it a few really intense moments of flavor.  I find a PROPERLY re-lit cigar has a really intense burst of good flavors for a time.  I picked up on a sassafrass root type taste a few times, and a slight wine flavor that came around a few times in the second half.  

Overall this was a pretty good cigar.  I am no fan of the EL program; too much money for too few cigars with too many dodgy results.  What's more they can be characterized as having too narrow a window of time to enjoy them.  I don't think  anyone knows whether they will be great in ten years or crap.  And even then, people lie.  But this smoke, at about 7 years of age, was a muted version of a really good cigar.  It had great written all over it but the flavors were too subtle for such a brawny smoke.  I would like to smoke this cigar in a thin, natural wrapper shade.  If I rated this one on flavor and not what I think it was holding BACK or didn't HAVE, I would rate it a 88.  But this could have been a much higher-scoring cigar, I can't escape that feeling.

Rafael Gonzalez Coronas Extra 1999

People continue to smoke the last of their vintage smokes that they picked up at a discount over several years during a sale that seems like it took place eons ago.  And what the heck, it DID happen in another century.  In fact, these smokes were also rolled in another century.  And yet it goes on.  Titanic references dominate the news in this anniversary year, and the heart of this cigar does indeed go on.  A nearly 15 year old cigar should not taste this fresh and delicious.

I lit the smoke after pinching a bit of a divot out of the end with my thumb and fore-fingernails.  It drew an acceptable but tight amount of air, which proved to be acceptable for this smoke.  It would later exhibit a tendency to go out, but I got a little talky out by the pond, and perhaps I neglected it a little.  The smoke was excellent.  It was sweet, tangy, and had lots of tea and twang flavors which are my personal favorites among your havana flavors.  The smoke burned well throughout it's length.  I took TERRIBLE photos while smoking, the focus is just not there.  But bad photos are better than none in a blog setting, so enjoy them if you can.

The cigar was lightly oiled, perfectly rolled, smooth and attractive.  It was a darker than normal shade with hints of ruddy colorado.  The ash was well-behaved and everything about the smoke throughout it's length simply added to the pleasure the cigar gave me.  It is safe to say that this is the best of the cigars I have smoked from my two boxes over the past 5 years.  I get pretty emotional when I reach the end of any box of good smokes, but these are particularly painful to see go as they were aged to perfection, and are quite hard to find these days.  The entire Rafael Gonzalez line seems to be going dodo on us.  It's one of those brands that people will wake up one day and realize is missing, and be the worse for it.

If you can find these, I am torn in advising what to do.  In normal terms these cigars have a solid reputation of being tightly rolled and tough to enjoy, but when they are well made, they are the clear favorite of the line.  However, many people who enjoy lonsdales actuallyprefer the Lonsdale of Rafael Gonzalez, and I am certainly one of those people.  But these cigars have been a real surprise and a treat to smoke.  It is astonishing that this cigar is so old.  It tastes like it could be a five year old smoke, perhaps even a three year old smoke.  Just astonishing.   You just don't get that in cigars outside of Cuba.  This is where the hype comes from, I guess.    This cigar ranks a solid 91 points.