A look at the future of the Behike, 2007 Esplendido

Every once in a while I get SO MAD at Habanos SA and/or Cubatabaco that I want to end my commerce with them entirely.  Who even knows what Cubatabaco calls itself nowadays?  And after tonight's Cohiba Esplendido, who cares.  The title of this post is simple to decipher.  The Cohiba Esplendido is the supposed flagship of Habanos, the finest cigar of their finest brand.  But what happens when you show a cat that is currently playing with a ball of twine a sparkly piece of tinsel?  They drop the ball and play with the tinsel.  And so I think it will go with HSA.  For me to pay $20 for a Cohiba Esplendido and have this kind of performance is an outrage.  And now that Cohiba is focused on the BHK line as their ultimate production Cohiba, you can count on more and more disappointments from the rest of their line, a ball of twine that is put down by the people who operate the global havana cigar monopoly in Havana.  They will be distracted by the new effort, start funneling the best materials to the BHK and the Linea Classica will turn to the same crap shoot that all of their brands have become.


I began a project last week with a Cohiba Esplendido, a Panatela and a BHK 52.  I had high hopes of 3 glowing reviews of the finest havana cigars in the world.  What I got was a large wad of cash gone to pay for one fantastic cigar, one OK cigar, and one cigar that defies any name I can give it that properly reflects the anger and disappointment that I feel after smoking the piece of crap.

It all began so well on this evening.  I had a beer that I have never had, all frosty and new, and ready to go.  I had what appeared to be a perfect julieta 2 cigar ready to cut and smoke.  It must be mentioned that I selected the heaviest cigar from the box to smoke for this review, fully aware that the weight alone could portend a BAD outing, but confident that the densely packed cigar would shine if given a chance.

I paired the cigar with a Gulden Draak ale, one of the new beers that I bought for my upcoming trip to the Smoky Mountains.  The beer ended up being the star of the show.  That alone is just sad.

After I cut the cigar, the draw revealed that things might not end up going so well.  It was on the tight side of tight, and although it would draw some air, it was not good.  I could poke it with a spoke, but this is a review, not a drive to make the smoke work no matter what.  Once lit, I could draw a mouthful of smoke with two small puffs, and without a lot of effort, I found the cigar to be grassy and extremely mild with no flavor standing out as particularly pleasurable.  As it burned though some initial difficulties in burn, it was beginning to show some tea and a little creaminess, but not the flavor I was looking for, the flavor of a $20 cigar.  Let me repeat that for Habanos S.A.  A $20 CIGAR.  Some poor bastards have to pay 40, 50, up to $80 for a 50/50 chance at getting a piece of junk like this.  I know that once you have the money, you could care less if anyone enjoys your product, but I think that what I have on hand now will do for Esplendidos in the future.  You won't be getting any more of my $20 bills.

As the cigar burned down on it's pathetic path, it developed a distinct Gangster Lean which is not very well shown in the photo.  I knew then that I not only had several large stems in the bunch, but certainly a twist in the bunch, too.  Not sure if you know this, HSA, but I did not buy this cigar to discipline a bad dog.  I bought it for smoking pleasure.  There is no reason to roll it up like a copy of Granma to smack a perro malo, especially when your country pioneered the entubar method.  Or are your most skilled rollers not rolling Cohibas anymore?  Are Grade 1 torcedores practicing on the Esplendidos now??  Why do you allow people with so little skill to roll your most famous cigar?  Is it because Sadaam Hussein is dead?  Do you no longer fear the reprisal of the famous Cohiba-smoking  dictators now that he is dead and Fidel is so weak?  Or did they get too many bad cigars and eventually stop smoking these supposed super-cigars?

I could have let the cigar go out after only two inches were gone, it was THAT BAD.  But in the end I thought I should stick it out to see if maybe it would improve.  I massaged the over-packed head and hoped for the best, trying to get smoke out of it as best I could.  But in the end I got SO MAD that I could no longer go on.  I took the butt apart and extracted the two biggest stems out of the twisted wreck of a bunch to show here.  They look a LOT smaller in the photos, trust me.  For truth in blogging, though, they were attached to whole leaves, I simply stripped them for the photo.  I have plenty more Cohibas on hand, it's true, but know this.  I will never buy another Cohiba.


SHAME ON YOU.  60 points.