Smoking the "good Cohibas"

I see my friend Heiko smoked a rare Cohiba for his blog the other day, and as this was Memorial Day here in the US, I decided to copy him and smoke one of my rarest Cohibas.  It is not SO rare as El Dondo's Piramide, but this will be a Siglo VI from 2003, one of the first boxes to be bought anywhere on the open market.  And now there are only 7 left, lol.

Here it is posing with some of my Memorial Day choices.  I originally cut a Montecristo A for this session, but it was too tight on the draw to smoke, so I left it out on a table overnight, perhaps to get to today.  Only a fool lights a tight cigar after it is cut and tested.  And only a bigger fool cuts a cigar, pops it into his mouth and begins toasting the foot without evaluating the draw.  So the lot fell to the Siglo VI last night.


I cut a winking eye off of the barest tip of the head of the cigar, and the draw was perfect.  It lit almost too fast, firing up to ramming speed in about 6 seconds.  The draw was perfect on fire as well, and the smoke coursed through the stick like a perfect machine.  I noted some dry spice and a little honey on the first puffs.  As it burned down a bit, the burn just remained absolutely straight, and the ash was so pretty.  This is a very expensive cigar, and one can easily see that in the beginning of the life of the canonazo vitola, construction was very important.  This box of smokes has produced nothing but winners since the day I slid the lid back for the first time.

Twilight was coming on, so forgive the blurry shot of the burning cigar, I did not want to blast it with a flash, and the camera wanted more light to focus properly...even then, you can see the perfect ash.


The body was mild but the flavor was just short of intense.  Not a LOT of things going on, some grassy sweetness and a hint of cocoa now and again, with tea somewhere way in the background.  Pity.  I do loves the tea.  But overall, there was a lot of taste,  just limited in it's scope.


I saw the wind high in the trees and realized that sitting by the pond was NOT the place to be, surrounded by a fence and in stagnant air.  I moved to the front porch and the breeze instantly cooled me off and kept the skeeters away.  The cigar burned to halfway and was not evolving in taste, but the power picked up a notch.  I wanted more flavor out of this smoke, but my palate is too unrefined to pinpoint much.  I focused on the Peewee out in the trees across the street.  It called over and over for a mate, but I don't think there are many around.  First I have heard is the one I hear now and again in the neighborhood.  I've lived here 8 years and never heard one calling.

The cigar gained some coffee notes and lost the little tea flavor it had, which got me pretty bored pretty fast.  A good cigar that is expensive does not impress me unless it is great.  This one is really good in so many ways, perfect construction, great burn and draw, decent mild to medium flavor.  But just not getting me over the top  like a money stick should.  Still glad I smoked it. and for me, this is nubbing it, but I still  let it go on some more.  Sadly, part of being perfectly rolled is you get a really good roll going if you ever find yourself in a position to do so.  I laid it on the sink edge to wash my hands so I could take the nub shot.  It rolled into the sink and sat there until I could rinse up and grab it.  Such a pity such a noble cigar had to be photographed in such an embarrassing final state.  A bit like Elvis dying on the toilet, I guess.  You should have given me more flavor if you wanted respect.......89 points