back to reliability - Bolivar Coronas Junior 2005

After a few duds in a row, its easy to select a cigar to smoke with only 40 minutes to spare.  I was needing a good cigar to kill 45 minutes before Big Brother.  Why I still watch that show is beyond me, but I do.  So I reached for a no-lose selection, the Bolivar Coronas Junior.  This is a truly unique cigar.  You can enjoy it aged to dust or you can enjoy it fresh out of a brand new box.  This one falls somewhere in the early-middle of it's life, 7 years old.  I lit it up and it burned so slowly.  I was worried that it was going to burn too slowly to finish it or at least do it justice in a short 45 minute window.  It is still really hot outside, and the forecast is for yet another week of intense summer temperatures.  The wild card tonight was the great breeze blowing through the neighborhood with the weak front moving through.   

But man was this cigar fighting my attempts to burn it up.  In a way it was the fault of the draw.  I used to be SUCH a dry-boxer, but I have been consistently pulling cigars out of storage and smoking them right up.  In a lot of cases it is hurting the performance of cigars I am smoking for this blog.  This cigar was firm, and as stated, slow as molasses.  But the flavor was good.  Strong, tannic, a little tangy and with a creamy and acidic mix that was intriguing.  I popped the top on a Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale, one of my strong ale favorites.  But it is NOT a hot weather beer.  I felt like I was being smothered by a wet towel constructed of malt, hops, and frozen honey.  

But I soldiered on and puffed that bad boy til my brain just couldn't take it anymore.  Wave after wave of little Bolivar Shock Troops hit the beach.  I really enjoyed having a cigar that was up to the challenge for a change, though.  I have had two in a row that just tasted like hot air and were NOT good cigars to have on a hot and muggy night.  The beer helped a little bit, but it was too much body on too hot a night.  I really chose poorly all around, but especially on the cigar.  But I HAD to have a winner.  And when the chips are down you ALWAYS bet on Bolivar.  Things I should have smoked instead?  New Partagas Chico...I eyed a Monte Petit Edmundo, but there was NO WAY I was going to take a chance on THAT wreck of a vitola OR a nice, springy new tubo-covered MPE.  I just didn't think it over long enough.  But the clock was ticking, like I said.


You handicap a perfect cigar by not letting it dry out for a day, you press yourself for time, and you smoke on a hot Memphis night and you end up with a 88 point cigar that wanted to be a 95.

Ready to roll on summer fun....

Its kind of embarrassing to be taking my first break of the LONG, HOT summer so late.  Most Americans with any money to spend have already been where they intend to go, now they have to focus on getting their kids ready for school.  Not me.  I am lucky in that my family, while always greater globetrotters than me anyway, are using this last hurrah of summer to gather together in the Great Smoky Mountains.  

Every year for the last 5 or more we have taken a week to come together for a great time there.  We were always happiest in the Smokies as a family, but we always camped.  Nothing wrong with that at all, in fact it was a blast.  But now there are many more of us...and the kids today aren't much on camping.  So for convenience, it's now a cabin deal.  We eat great food cooked by renowned cajun chefs, (my mother and me, haha. ) We hike all over those mountains, sit in icy-cool streams and play with rocks, my nephew and I try to out-do each other in photographic skill.  The girl chillens from up north, my little sister's crew, are also freshly returned from a large youth conference in the NC mountains where they get together with 'weird southern children' and have a week of fellowship together, so they are full of stories and songs and a little fake energy.  I know they are beat.  But when we get up into the higher elevations and it cools off and they start seeing salamanders and birds and trees and streams, they get wound back up.  

Me?? I am just old.  I can walk and climb and am a bit of an amateur naturalist and a bit of a photographer, and a bit of a meat-smoker and a bit of everything.  I just try to keep up.  Even my mother in her 70's can still out-work me.  She always could.  We are about even in stamina, my weakness owing to a career in smoking cigarettes.  Now that I have quit that habit, it's a little easier, but I quit too late.  Shame.  It wasn't from a lack of advice.  Or morbid things seen.


But the reason I posted this entry is to make sure that you are hep to the news coming down the pike.  One item is that a reader is sending me a travel case/humidor to test out and give my impressions of.  I am NOT a fancy traveler when it comes to cigars. When I go to a herf, EVERYONE else has a pelican case with foam inserts to cradle their cigars.  Me, I have a big cedar cigar box.  It may or may not have a humidifier in it.  They roll around and get all busted up and I don't CARE.  But this reader mentioned that he was trying to get something going on the side, and the "363" cigar travel case was born.  It's not very different from any of the other cases you see at herfs around the world, but my job is to see what it does well and what, if anything, it does poorly.  I am going to be hiking and riding in the car and smoking on a balcony deck, so it will get a weak test.  I am not going to toss it off a cliff to test it much, but I can't promise I won't drop it SOMEWHERE along the line.  If they turn out to be great cases, I will let you know where you can get em.  I like the idea of supporting a regular guy over sending money to a large company.  They had their time when life was easy.  Now that its tough, we need to help out the little guy.


In addition to that I am gonna be knocking out a few more BHK 52s and some long and thin la Gloria Cubanas.  I'll be drinking a couple of new beers (to me) in the hot tub while smoking cigars, and drinking a lot of blended smooth drinks out of the ol' Jimmy Buffet machine.  I am gonna be complaining about my feet.  I am going to be complaining about the heat.


But I am also gonna be praising (hopefully) my new Rostra Cruise Control on my Cruze.  I was being cheap at the dealership last year, attempting to buy a car for cash while I could.  I got a decent trade-in price on my Colorado, and I thought, what the hell, might as well drop one bill for good since I had some cash on hand.  But in my being extra careful to leave myself some money in the bank, I opted down a package for what was essentially the cheapest new car on the entire lot.....WITHOUT cruise control.  Now those of you who are old like me KNOW that you gots to have your cruise control.  Trips over a few hours long are MURDER without it.  I was heading to Ohio last year for a herf and actually whimpering, my legs hurt so much.  I had to pull over all the time to stretch them for fear of getting "coach flyer" syndrome.  This crap went on for 18 months until I had had enough.  I spent $160 on a aftermarket setup and installed it last night.  We are unlucky in a lot of ways that we can no longer work on our cars like motorheads used to do.  But there are times when I am thankful for drive by wire technology.  The speed on most cars today is strictly a matter of voltage.  You can have the car stick to a set voltage range and therein control a car's speed.  So there was not vacuum module or mechanical linkages or any of that drek.  Tapped in to a few wires, installed a control fob lever et voila'!  I be cruisin, yo.

So my little 6 hour trip to the mountains will be MUCH more enjoyable.  Even now I am shaking my head and exhaling and thinking of how much better life will be behind the wheel.  Now if I can only do something about phone jockeys.


I will be making a lot of entries on the week, the sights, the smells, the finish, the burn...should also be fairly photo heavy and loaded with stuff to read.  So be on the lookout for the wrap-up in the middle of August.  And just as a test to see who reads this drivel and who doesn't, I WILL be at the Shack.  So that's another major smoking event and cruise control test, a 12 hour ride!  NOT fun.  But now, maybe even a little pleasurable.

HOT - 2004 Exhibition No. 4

ARGH, its hot.  Why just the other day I saw a Robin dipping his worm in iced tea.  


I did NOT see that. 


But what I DID see was a guy who was lucky that he smoked one of the worst Montecristo Edmundos he ever smoked (and I have smoked a ton of bad ones).  It was so hot that sweat was rolling down my face and down the back of my neck and down my lip and getting the cigar all wet.  Now I DID have sweatpants on, the mosquitoes are terrible right now.  But I am used to walking in them, so I figured sitting in them would be fine.  It was NOT.  Dang it was hot.  So I smoked an inch of a 6 inch cigar and that was it.  I will never finish a bad cigar, but man when it is all global-warming and stuff, you can be damned sure I won't.


So the next night I was looking for houses on the internet and I got up to get more tea in the kitchen and saw outside that it had quietly been raining for a while.  So I grabbed a Sierra Nevada Pale ale and a RyJ Exhibition No.4 and headed out to the porch.  It was a LITTLE COOLER but not much.  Tolerable.  As I look back on it now I think this had to be one of the cigars I left in my travel humidor (cedar box) for 8-9 months.  But when I cut it I did not realize it.

What I did realize rather quickly was that the cigar had a crack near the head.  The draw was not so hot because of it.  But the cigar was burning pretty well and the flavor was a little light.  There was that coconut flavor that over-packed cigars often get.  There was a little light tea and spice and the burn was really straight.  

I am not a big fan of double-clutching to get smoke out of a cigar, so you can imagine how my impression of this one was beginning to go down fast.  The flavor went away to nothing, and a few moments after I thought the cigar might be in a sick period, I remembered there being a Exhibition No.4 in the dried out box of smokes I took to Blowing Rock last year.  So chalk another spent cigar down to my stupidity and forgetfulness.  No sense in grading this one, I love these cigars normally, and this poor thing got messed around pretty bad by me, so I decided I would go back upstairs, take the beer and cigar in and snap a last pic for the blog.   Best to just forget about this one.  Shame.

My first Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was not bad at all.  A little odd and hoppy, but they were bought for my Brother-in-Law for the Smokies, so it was only a taster and I don't have to love it.

The Dirty Rat - A Very Pleasant Surprise

I have an opinion on non Cuban cigars of a certain stripe that puts me greatly at odds with a tremendous amount of cigar smokers.  Nothing personal really, just that I am no fan of the cigars they seem to love.  The biggest disclaimer is that I just don't SMOKE THEM.  Tatuaje, My Father, all these flavor of the decade cigars, I just haven't HAD THEM.  I have no money to spend on them and I have no time to SMOKE them.  I am fully stocked with cigars and if it weren't for this blog, I would likely be a ten cigars a year smoker.  I enjoy it, but I do not have an outside hanging spot that I like enough to DRAW me outdoors for a cigar, and I am kind of a homebody, I don't get out to bars often and when I do they are little bi+ches that don't allow me to smoke indoors.  One day a reader got so agitated with me and my not smoking THOSE cigars, or not giving proper respect to the cigars he liked, that he sent me a bulging handful of  Liga Privada and other Drew Estate products.  He sent me a Flying Pig that I smoked in Blowing Rock last year and it was ehhh.  Strong, sure, but no real flavor outside of this dark, black, strong tobacco taste.  I smoked a long L.P. cigar, kind of a fat Lonsdale size, ehhh, better but not something I would buy.  

And so it came to pass that I decided it was high time I pulled out another one of these smokes to try, as I had just received a shipment of beer for my trip to the Smokies.  I really wanted to taste this Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout.  I figured I'd smoke a strong dark cigar with a strong dark beer.  I was bummed out as usual, there was a crack in the wrapper at the head, and as also usual, that could and DID lead to a bad draw.  Undaunted, I took my stuff out to the porch and lit up the cigar and it was as expected, strong and 'loud'.  


But as they say on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 'but then something happened that I did not expect'. The cigar was freaking fantastic.  I can't do my job here and say I tasted this and that and the other.  What I did taste was some kind of melange of outrageous sweet and rich and dark and exotic flavors.  I NEVER could pin down anything, I needed a pen and paper.  But as bad as it sounds, I rely on my memory for these reviews, with my rationale  being if it wasn't memorable, then I likely don't have to mention it here.  A cigar I smoked was either good or bad.  If it was good, I remember why, usually.  But WOW, and I never say that about NCs, even the quality ones by the old names.  WOW.  Vanilla, sweet chocolatey pepper, orange and figs, creamy sweetness, and not just a flavor expression, but a complete balance of flavor, mouthfeel, moisture, dryness, sweetness, sour tang.  Nothing was out of place and everything was pleasurable...except the draw which was completely the fault of the cracked head which is likely my fault entirely.  I don't specifically remember dropping it, but I'd bet it was dropped.  Or crushed in an ice chest as it sat in a baggie.

The ending photo is not very complimentary, too much flash, but it was dark.  And despite the bugs, the heat, the draw and the oncoming night, I didn't want to let this cigar go.  I should say right now, this will likely be the last one I ever hold in my hand.  While it is kind of sad considering my newfound regard for this smoke, I will not be buying them.  I long ago gave up the desire to own a box of everything.  That is a terrible idea, spurred on by the idea of "my collection".  For some people it's a great thing, they have money, space and appetite.  For me, I was lucky to escape from 'collecting' with cigars and money.  But I know people who have had to sell their cigars to support a wife, a new car, a transmission, a new baby, etc.  My new advice to smokers is to buy a little what you know you like and enjoy it.  As people give you this cigar or that and you find you like those, too, buy some.  Never go out and buy a box of cigars another smoker told you were awesome.  Try one.  If a cigar is so rare that you are scared that by the time you get your box they will all be gone, there's a good chance that you are trying to buy hype and are better off without them.  Kind of like me and Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout.  I never should have drunk the first one.  Try and find it TODAY.  Good Luck.  And if you really, REALLY like it, I feel sorry for you.  I see my boss buying car after car and I want to slap him and say "look, you aren't going to live forever, and you are pretty OLD as it is."  

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, I doubt I will buy these for myself, but I can wholeheartedly recommend that a cigar lover find himself a fiver or a box or more.  WHAT a cigar!  SURE, they might not all be this good, it happens all the time.  A person buys a box of cigars after having one great one and never recaptures the magic.  Or a reviewer tastes one cigar and declares it the best NC he ever smoked, lol.  But as usual, I am very late getting around to most of the cigars everyone else already knows about, in this case the Dirty Rat, and I am sure most of you who CARE know that they are every bit as good as I say they are.  But if you haven't had one, I suggest you try one as soon as possible.  And I hope for the best in that smoking experience.

(and I know I went against my own advice and 'told you' they were good and that you should get some, hahaha.  The reader should also know that this cigar was in my hands for over two years, and I have no idea how old it was before I was given it, so it might simply be the age and rough storage that aged this one into a symphony.)

((Oh, and the BEER.  NOT as good as I had hoped, I was looking for a sweet, chocolatey taste that I now understand doesn't ACTUALLY exist in a "chocolate" stout.  HINTS of chocolate, but mostly beer....Also a little thin, but make no mistake, what this beer lacked in chocolate it more than made up for in buzz factor, a hefty 10% alcohol by volume and EXTREMELY well hidden at that.))

Thanks, NEENS, again, for the great cigars.....

A joy at 93 points.

Small cigars for a hot night

That post title brings up thoughts of a rhythm-filled night in Havana, music blaring, men and women smoking small cigars.  That might be fine for an evening in the theater of the mind, but for the two cigars in question, it was just a hot night on the porch, with the most exciting thing being my learning about a group of muggers who were robbing people at gunpoint in my neighborhood while they worked in their yards or sat on their porches and smoked cigars.  And before I go on with this, let me just say.  Suck it Ron, you bloated piece of $hi+.  

I heard that the cold front that caused the temperatures to plummet into the low 90s was clearing out, so I decided I would give a cold beer and a great cigar one more shot before I got to the Smokies.  I had been generously replenished with Partagas Chicos, so I thought it might be a good time to stop hoarding my 2005 box.  I realized that one whole beer might be too much for a Chico, so I grabbed a 2011 Cohiba Panatela to backstop the venerable machine made Partagass.  I took up a comfortable spot on the porch, looked right and left for muggers, then lit her up.  Wow are these good.  The cellophane manages to hold in all the sweet, funky power these things are know for and preserve them for, in this case 7 years.  I say Funky because to me they seem to have a dank, basement flavor that is an acquired taste.  I have never seen evidence of mold on mine, but it seems my boxes of 25 all had a musty character.  I do not specifically recall the flavor in the 5 packs I got long ago.  Regardless of whether it's inherent or accidental, I might be almost through with it, because I now have only boxes of recent vintage that I will report on as the coming years go by.  If they are also musty, I will mark it down as being the blend.  Hard to say BLEND as these are scraps rolled by a machine, but they DO taste the same every time.  So you tell ME what to call it.


The cigar burns fast and warm, but delivers superb spicy, sweet flavor with a hint of wine.  It takes about 24 minutes to go from good idea to pile of ashes, and then the landlady comes out and talks about some business with her yard.  I get distracted and over-smoke the thing and ruin my mood.  Eventually it becomes clear she isn't going to go back inside and leave me to my warming beer and cold Chico butt.  So I light the Cohiba Panatela which is a mistake to begin with.  I have already determined that they are nothing to waste by smoking them before 2013-14.  But my mother tried her best not raise a fool, and she was only partially successful. It tastes good but can't hold a candle to the Chico.  The flavor is cold and weak and trying to be good, but not trying hard enough.  So she rambles on about the muggers, the lawn, the dogs, all the hot subjects just now.  I tell her she is missing the best possible chance to have her lawn fill in this summer.  Leslie will have to forgive me here, I am the Johnny Appleseed of St. Augustine grass.  I love it, she hates it.  But my landlady is sold.  She walks around on MY portion of the lawn in bare feet and giggles all the time about how great it feels.  When I moved in her yard was 57 vaieties of weeds and a little bermuda.  But she has LONG St. Augustine runners heading from my part of the yard to a bare patch on her half of the yard, but SOMEONE, and I think its HER, keeps raking them up so they are just flopping around on the lawn, not sticking to the dirt and making progress on stitching together to make a perfect carpet of St. Augustine.  I say raking, I think she is pulling up "Creeping Charlie" or Ground Ivy....when she pulls THAT UP, (which she told me she is doing) she must be yanking up the runners.  Geez, did I get off track again?  


Anyway the Cohiba gets warmed up and really delivers the goods after about a half inch.  I find my beer did not get as warm as I thought it might have, tell the landlady that its time to get back to my relaxation, and she toddles back inside and lets me be.  No muggers destroy my serenity either.  If  they ever tried to lay in wait once, I imagine Ralph barked at them so fiercely that they probably won't target any of US in their crime spree.  They like to creep around in the early morning or super-late night and walk up on you when you are entering or leaving your car in the dark.  They point a gun in your face and demand 'you shi+'.  As the cigar burned down, it gave me vanilla, raisin, nutmeg and toast flavors and performed flawlessly for a tightly-rolled smoke.  All in all both cigars were real winners and I look forward to seeing what the Cohibas are like in two years.  As for the Chicos, I will be smoking them regularly and will continue to note their qualities here.  I think they are a great value that everyone should find and purchase.  They are cheap but fulfilling and help get you through the summer and winter smoking times where it's just to unbearable to be outside for long.


Man are we in for trouble when the machine breaks down.  I know I AM spoiled with my air conditioner.  When the machine breaks down, there will be a LOT of angry bands of angry people roving around that will make Mad Max look like a Saturday Morning cartoon.

Revisiting the Montecristo Sublime EL

My first chance to smoke the Montecristo Sublime Edicion Limtada was in New Orleans in 2011.  At this point, the Cigar was already 3 years old, and the performance was a bit disappointing on account of several factors.  I was on a week-long trip to New Orleans and the conditions were unfavorable for smoking such a cigar.  It was a little cool and very breezy, perfect for New Orleans but no so much for porch-smoking a giant cigar.  The cigar was OK, but not something that would make me think I had spent a lot on the smoke or that this was a special cigar of some kind.


The second attempt I would make turned out slightly better.  The conditions were a cool and wet evening, coming out of a horrific heat wave, and after the first rain after a prolonged period of drought.  I did not see frogs singing Ragtime Gal, but the birds seemed happy, and so was I.  I thought it might be time to pull out the heavy hitter.  Once again I hampered myself a bit by picking the lightest stick in the box which when cut, revealed a stovepipe draw.  For a limited edition smoke of no easy price tag, I am continually disgusted by Habanos S.A.'s inability to create a quality cigar.  But I lit the cigar and took a few puffs and found an exceedingly mild smoke of weak character.  No real flavor to speak of.  Great.

The beer had more character, the Rum Cask aged strong ale from Innis & Gunn.  I was not a fan of that either, but it was tolerable.  As the cigar burned down the performance improved on all accounts.  The draw closed down a little with the high humidity of the evening, and the flavor improved slightly, giving ever-weak notes of herbs, cocoa and toasted tobacco.  It was SO light I had to keep trying to focus on the fact that this was a massive cigar, and what a crime it was to create a cigar with that much blended potential with so little flavor, punch or excitement.  This was one of the marquis Edicion Limitadas!  It had the name and vitola which had been a triumph in the Cohiba marca just a few years before.  This smoke tasted like it was made of sand leaves, although it burned a lot worse than that kind of cigar would.  I stopped smoking the previous cigar in New Orleans because it was an uncomfortable situation and the cigar was not impressive enough to keep me out in the wind.  This cigar was trying to do the same thing with the heat.  

Where was the flavor?  As it burned down past halfway, the only thing that improved was the harshness gave me the impression of some flavor component SOMEWHERE that could be a reason to continue smoking it.  I got a hint of cream and spice and a little something to puzzle over, but just not up to the name Montecristo, or Sublime, or Limitada.  This is not going to be an impressive score......72 points and some of that is for burn and appearance, or else it would have a hard time breaking 60.  Boring and weak.

Trinidad Series Part 2 - 2005 Fundadore

Bill from Nashville decided that he would like to see a Series of reviews on Trinidad, are they hype or are they MONEY.  They sure cost some money.  This is the most expensive Trinidad of all.  Its also the oldest in the line.  We covered all of the attributes of it's time in the Habanos portfolio in the Robustos T review.  And I have to state up front, I already know this is a monster cigar.  The last one I had had one problem, it just would not stay lit.  But it offered up unbelievable flavors, SO MANY that I just couldn't remember or list them all.  So while I really wanted to get this series going again, I was NOT looking forward to it.  First, I only have about 10 of these left, and smoking one just hastens the day when I will be out of em.  But the intrigue was palpable.  Would this cigar come CLOSE to the performance of the previous cigar?  Its a cliche', but there was only one way to find out.  I had to cut it and light it.

The cigar was dry and tight, with a great-looking wrapper and a slight sheen of oil and a lighter dusting of general plume from head to foot.  My last Fundadore had a cracked foot and it did NOT help the smoking session.  Tonight's cigar was perfect in every way.  The draw was perfect, the light was fast and from the VERY FIRST PUFF, I was impressed and excited.  The cigar started off with one of my top two favorite flavors, sweetly alkaline cuban twang.  By the time the cigar had burned a scant 1/8 inch it was GUSHING with the creamy and sweet vanilla quality but added a first-for-me Rum and Raisin taste.  For the entire 7 plus inches to go, it held onto a core of these two flavors.   That alone would have held my interest for the whole smoke, but it had more secrets to share.  The twang and vanilla and rum and raisin stayed nearly exactly the same throughout, but each alternating puff would feature a different type of berry with vanilla.  I tasted strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and even acai, whatever that tastes like.  I had a daiquiri mix that claimed to be acai once, so I almost feel like the taste I couldn't quite peg was that.  But that's kind of a cop-out.  I have a poor palate and sometimes I taste things I just can't describe.  

But one thing I DO KNOW.  I have NEVER had a cigar this good as long as I have been smoking cigars.  And you'd think "Hey, that's great, what could be wrong with that?"  Lord, there's that commercial with the black Napoleon Dynamite on it....weird...and what's more...WHY?


The thing that sits and gnaws at me from the back of my mind is that from here on out, I will face disappointment in every cigar I smoke.  What makes that an actual threat is the terrible hit or miss tendencies I see in habanos.  This "any given Sunday" kind of subplot just kills me.  But luckily I still can recognize goodness wherever it is found.  Smoked a Dirty Rat tonight someone had given me last year and it was pretty dang good.  I did not expect that.


But as usual I totally digress.  I smoked the cigar a little too fast, hungry and greedy for the thrilling flavor.  But it never really degraded because of that puffing regimen.  IT DID get a little stronger, and I have to admit that the only reason I did not smoke this cigar down to the band and push the band up for more smoke was the fact that I just lost the urge to smoke.  This is a long cigar and a real commitment.  If I was sitting on a beach or in a cool mountain stream, I would have made it last, savored it.  But I ran out of beer and time, and really just wanted to go upstairs and get out of the funky air.   So I did not smoke this to the nub like I should have or wanted to.  THE NERVE it takes to smoke the best cigar you ever had and leave 1/3 of it in an ashtray!  But that's what happened.  This cigar has acheived the highest buy recommendation I can possibly give you.  They are not cheap, but when you can have a GEM like this waiting for you in the humidor after 3-4 years, the money is nearly inconsequential.  If I was a buyer of cigars, I would get no less than two boxes.  There are cigars that make you think, 'hell, I can get 75 of these X cigars for the cost of 24 of the Fundadores.'  And I can say without reservation that you will have 75 experiences that together can NEVER reach the splendor of this fine cigar.  I score it 97 points.  What's more, I have now had TWO 97 point Fundadores in a row.  Could be if I smoked two more I'd have two more 95+ point cigars.    I like those odds.

Smoking crack...ed cigars

I unpacked some Partagas Serie D No.4 cigars the other day and found three with cracks in the head or otherwise above the band, one of the cracks a full inch long.  Normally I would say toss em, but I had managed to greatly enjoy a Cohiba Robusto with the same type of damage, simply by covering the crack with a piece of clear packing tape.  This cigar that I smoked tonight was the worst one of all, and tape extended an inch below the band.  After I smoked one of the other 3 a few nights ago, I was not thinking this would be a problem.  The cigar was nothing to write home about, so I doubted seriously I would be nubbing this one tonight.  Naturally the tape would become a problem.  It had to.  We are having the hottest July on record and no rain for 3 weeks.  I no longer ask what else could go wrong.

I paired the cigar with a North Coast "Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.  It poured SO black that the black graphics on the glass looked totally visible, as if they were light-colored.  The photo naturally doesn't do this contrast justice.  In fact, the cigar doesn't even look like it has a large piece of tape on it.  Must be on the other side.  So I lit the cigar and everything began to change.  I went out into the 100 degree night and it was 84 degrees and breezy!  I was hit in the face by a VERY stray raindrop.  What was going on?  The cigar lit up slowly and turned out to be outstanding.  Of course, this was a habano, so there was no guarantee that it would remain great, in fact, I fully expected that by the time the burn line reached the tape, it would have turned tarry and hot.  But it kept going and going, offering up rich and almost fruity flavors of tea, toasted tobacco, herbs and pepper.  From time to time a light twang would pop in and light up a smile across my face.  The cigar burned on towards the band and the tape which was much closer than the band.  There was but one thing to do...tear the tape off, which I am sure would take off all the wrapper beneath it.  It did.  And it did change the flavor a little, To be honest, it was getting to the time that I would normally let the cigar go out anyway.  But just to salute it, I smoked the cigar to the band.  The uneven burn sort of made this seem imminent, but in reality, I had a little more cigar to go before I tasted burning paper.  But the breeze had died down, the beer had run low and I thought that maybe it was time to let it go.

I suppose that it was not the fault of Habanos that the cigar developed a crack near the head, the box was undoubtedly  mistreated some time after it left the island.  So I will score this cigar as if it were a perfect cigar, because barring the tape I had to put on it, this was a fantastic Serie D. No.4.   I give it a 92!