I opened the seal on this box for the first time last month. It was sealed in 2005 in Havana, Cuba, and hadn't seen the light of day for 7 years. After smoking it, I realized I should have opened it a few years before. Increasingly I prefer a young, tangy, powerful cigar. Not a cigar that is STRONG, but one that has not been diminished by time. As I have repeated here many times, I have the palate of a billy goat. I am not sure if I am tasting a cigar or a tin can. I kid. But only because I care.
The cigar lit a little slowly, owing to a firm draw. The flavors, on the other hand, got cracking from the first puff. THIS was a 'old' Montecristo the way they were meant to taste. The quality of the cocoa powder taste was completely 3 dimensional and stark. I was stunned by the brightness of the taste, just so clearly defined, sweet and rich. And that is when it hit me that I WISH I had smoked this cigar sooner. I enjoyed it very much, but it was a subtle kind of power to go with all that taste. As great as the cigar tasted, there was a missing dimension that I love so much in a Montecristo. I find a sweet and sour tanginess and a wonderful lip-smacking richness of flavor that I only really get in Montecristo, and occasionally in a nice 2-3 year old Bolivar. I did not get that dimension in this smoke. But I tried....and I hoped.
What I did get was a PERFECTLY well-behaved cigar and an abundance of smoke just pouring out of the elegant 38 gauge panatela. I choose the word elegant for a reason. Everything about this smoke is elegant. The perfect construction, the shape and heft of it, the flavor, and even the feeling of it as I seem to see myself outside myself, a picture of utter sophistication sitting in a lawn chair on my porch and cursing the heat. In a shocking truth, I have to admit that this is my first Especiales ever. I have KNOWN for many, many years that some people think they are the finest cigar on the planet. And yet there has always been something else to buy, something else to smoke. Add to that the fact that they are not cheap by any mean and maybe I can be forgiven in my omission.
The first half of the cigar was smooth and chocolaty, the second half was a ramp up in power, plus more but softer cocoa, and a surge in tea and milk. It is hard to imagine a better cigar than this, although I think the BHK 52 beat it out at almost three times the price. So I will give it the same score as my BHK, but will NOT subtract 5 points for exorbitant cost and this cigar rings in at 95
Well, I now know hardly anyone either A.) reads this blog, or B.) cares what comes next, lol. I had a total of one reply in helping to arrive at a decision as to what would be a worthwhile exploration of a brand, a vitola or some other type of theme week, for the lack of a better term. Bill in Nashville asked for Trinidad, and since he was the only one to vote, Trinidad it is...Nate in New Jersey also chimed in with a request on one detail, he wants to see a comparison smoke between a 1998 Trinidad Fundadore and 2005 model. He actually wanted to know about 2003 Fundadores, but I am fresh out of those. I think as it is Friday, I will start out with the largest girth cigar that I own in the Trinidad marque, the Robustos T. In that way I can celebrate the 102 degree temperature we are baking in today and see how low it can go as darkness falls. I am betting not too far. 103 today and my sister is walking around on the freaking Matterhorn. That's where the expression "must be nice" came from, although I am imparting a little extra saucy sarcasm on the top of mine today. I lover her, but when we get to the Smokies, I am going to kill her.
Shame of it is, I went to Piggly Wiggly today to get some pork fingers, like I am going out in THAT tomorrow and cooking meat. hah
Fat chance. But trooper that I am, I am going to smoke that 09 Trinidad Robusto T tonight, and tomorrow while I am cooking at 4 am, haha, I am going to smoke a Reyes from 2010. Then I think I am going to smoke inside on Sunday, if I have to hit the Fox and Hound to DO IT as I compare the 98 and 05 Fundadores. I am going to need some real good luck to survive the weekend. I'll see you on the flipside.
For you young people, that's the way the movies used to present the modern-day A.P.B. for the cops to be on the lookout. I can hear it now..."Calling All Cars, Calling all Cars, be on the lookout for a cigar smoking idiot posing as a connoisseur."
I am getting wound up for my upcoming vacation, and I am looking at a few things I want to smoke while I am in a good mood in the Smokies. But for the time until then, I think I like the idea of smoking several vitolas in a row within a marque like I did over the last few weeks with Cohiba. It did not really work out all that well, but I did enjoy a few cigars and I think it helped to generate a little interest among my 19 loyal readers, haha. (Thanks, by the way).
I have a few choices to offer, and there are really not too many choices in all of Habanos anyway, less than twenty I think. But I can do Bolivar, Romeo y Julieta, Montecristo, Partagas and might be able to take a half-ass swing at H. Upmann.
We can also take it another way and think in terms of churchills, Robustos, demi-coronas and maybe petit coronas. After all of that, I guess it's even possible to take a refresh on some of the ELs I have in hand these days, almost all of them at least 3 years old. They are BOUND to suck NOW. You can comment to the blog with your vote or reach me at the Asylum on visitation days.
I went through a few names before it dawned on me who sent me this cigar. It was Scott, another inmate in the asylum. I am not sure of the date on this cigar, by the time I post this I will know, but my guess is 2010. It tastes new, but not BRAND new. I have never had a post-1998 model of this cigar that I really liked. I tell people all the time, which explains why people always try to give them to me, or tell me, "try this one", handing me some soggy-ended butt like I am gonna smoke it. Actually I HAVE tried a few like that, but I don't like it so much. The lore on this cigar is that it is a treasure-trove of caramel and other hard-to-find flavors often hoped for but seldom seen. When it doesn't have it, they say that if you just give it a few years, it will come. Well you don't have to try more than a few cabinets of 50 without finding that flavort before you know that increasingly it just ain't there. It used to be. I got a dress box of 25 in Windsor, Ontario one year that was among the finest cuban cigars I ever smoked. I remember it well, some assholes had just flown a few jets into a couple of beloved icons in this country. That made it really hard to get out of Canada with em, and more than a few sweat trails rolled down my head as I came across. Once I arrived safely on the other side of the Detroit River, I had to pull over and look at them and do a little bear-dance inside myself as I realized fully what I had just done.
But I traded a couple of Purple marine mushrooms to Scott and he sent me a few really nice sticks that he knew were favorites and a few of his own recent favorites / acquisitions. His mushrooms arrived in a completely drenched out cardboard box of dead sea creatures and my stuff got here fine.
Now when I pull out a few cigars to smoke from a cabinet, I tend to take the ugliest first. That's what it looks like Scott did here. This cigar looks like it was rolled by a wookie.
Oh sure, it looks good in THIS photo, but it was rumpled, outsized and torn in a few places. I cut a tiny, shaved sliver of the cap from it and it drew and lit perfectly. It burned with a white/grey ash and delivered a perfect draw and taste, nothing standing out, but full of typical havana tobacco taste. It was pretty strong to me, most would call it medium strength, but this is part of the zone I like in a cuban cigar, and I typically smoke well-aged cigars that have very little of this raw flavor and power left. It is not unruly, and I settled in to a really enjoyable smoke with a Whiskey Sour blended up in the JimmyB. The last 4-6 cigars I have smoked for the blog have been on slightly cooling hot southern nights, complete with biting gnats and mosquitoes. So to say I enjoyed myself is a bit of a stretch, and yet there are much worse ways to spend an evening. The ash grows to a full inch and a half and I begin to give it a wary eye. Not soon enough however, and it drops in my lap. The cigar was well-prepared for it's ashing though, and it continues to burn uninterrupted. You need to prepare for the ashing process, and I don't think many smokers do. When you see your cigar ash getting to a point where you believe it's best to ash it, give it a little purging blow, and then follow that with a nice, long, deep draw. Follow that up with a few small breathy puffs and then let it burn for a minute or so. When the cigar ashes, it should break at the point where you took that deep puff, and the extra few puffs after the fact will establish the burn ring that will keep your cigar burning properly. Try it.
The first half of the cigar was strong and flavorful and had a new flavor for me. It had the tea taste that I love, but there was a really strong note of cane sugar which gave me a unique southern iced tea flavor that I really enjoyed. After the ashing, the cigar was muted for about a quarter inch, but then developed a nice cuban twang that we all love as smokers of havanas. There was a char and a bitter nut flavor and an odd piney finish. All in all the cigar was one of the most pleasurable I have smoked in this short summer. I really have to thank Scott for sending it to me. Don't worry, the last time I sent him a big bag of troop support cigars I put a few nice ones in there to make up for the dead seafood I sent him last time. It was heart-breaking to hear that the mushrooms arrived dead, they were my favorite specimen from my old salt tank. I had never SEEN such a beautiful LSU Tiger Purple in a mushroom, and they were slow-growing and large and healthy. I needed them to go to a good home and thought Scott was it. But the Memphis Post Office is such an inefficient, entrenched gang of idiots that it takes a package 36 hours just to leave the city most of the time. NOT GOOD on a flat-rate box designed to arrive in two days. The mushrooms were well-insulated and the air was quite cool back then. I blame their horrible mis-management and slovenly work ethic for the death of the gorgonian and mushrooms.....
Where was I? Oh yeah, this was a GREAT CIGAR, I'd give it a solid 90 points.
From time to time just by the luck of numbers I find a chance to smoke a 1998 Punch Corona. Apart from an occasional lackluster performance, over the 40-50 I have smoked I have found nothing but amazement in them and pleasure in giving them credit. And tonight I had an extra pleasure in smoking one of the ones I really like...the stack cigar that lies above the cardboard spacer on the second layer of 12. They get so flattened out and look like some kind of cuban Padron. They can sometimes get a little tough on the draw, and this would be the case tonight. But oddly enough for me, this was NOT an impediment to enjoyment. This cigar came very close to being perfect in flavor.
I admired the cigar for a moment, even put my glasses on to do it, haha. Such a beautiful cigar, such a monument to the way it used to be done. I had no trouble imagining that this cigar was going to reward me somehow, and it was just about to do it.
I cut the cigar and tested the draw. Too tight. I cut to the shoulder of the cap and re-tried it. Still firm, but do-able. I mixed up a fresh peach Daiquiri I made from some peaches I bought to day at El Supermercado. I cut em up and sugared them when I got home. I tossed em into the Jimmy B and cranked it up to 11. I poured the drink into a cup and headed outside.
The stick was dry yet oily, and the band was slipping wildly from end to end. It took the flame slowly and I evenly lit it. The first puff was such an intense serving of tea and milk that I was completely taken aback. This was coming close to it's 15th birthday and it was as good as a cigar gets. Well, as good as MY own cigars get. I have simple tastes I guess. That flavor carried on with a soft leather, a little wine, and an occasional taste of cane sugar. The tight draw held it back a bit, and I am still kicking myself for not poking it. I can't imagine what an intensity of flavor that might have produced. But I was outside for the duration and had nothing to poke it with anyway. There was a mystical subtlety to it that was so completely captivating that again, I wondered how it could be going on so strong after such a long time in a dress box. On top of that, it is likely that these were slightly abandoned for a portion of their life. But they taste pretty damn good. Everything was going along well, no real flavor intricacies or changes, but very smooth and elegant. Then I ashed it and the exact opposite of what I thought would happen...happened. I was hit by a gigantic explosion of cocoa powder almost as if it had actually come out of the cigar like a shaker and onto my tongue. I was shown over and over again that there is nothing you can put past an old habano. It is always going to outfox you no matter how clever you think you are. Color me impressed with this one.
This is the cigar that tells me that our friends at Habanos are slapping something together with smoke, mirrors, duct tape and propaganda. I still think they are the best tasting cigars made today, but I can't figure out if the soil is spent, the methods have become too intense for such a natural process, or if they are just making too many cigars with the materials they have. You can't tell me that my 2010 Montecristo No.4s are going to be anything LIKE this in 13 years. But you know what, I HOPE THEY ARE. A man can dream I guess.
I am tickled to award this smoke a 90. With a perfect draw this thing would have hit 95 without even breaking a sweat.
After the complete embarrassment of the Cohiba Esplendido the other night, I needed to let this Blog-speriment end on something resembling a high note. I did not want to waste one of my remaining Siglo VIs or Robustos or Lanceros, but I DID think it was OK to smoke one of my last few 2004 Siglo IIs. I thought that there was a chance that it's oily and dark wrapper might signal something of a surprise inside. The first surprise was the draw. I cut the cigar and tried to draw air and it was tight. But I would not repeat the mistake I made on the Esplendido. I gave it a poke with a bicycle spoke, which is NOT the third line of a naughty limerick but a draw improvement strategy. And it worked well. This was good and bad. It drew perfectly then, but a lot of tiny particles of tobacco dust flew into my lungs, which is likely not good, eh? At least into my throat. The good sign is that in the pre-light draw, I taste the most wonderful chocolate I have tasted in a cigar. I never taste much in pre-light draws, in fact that I do not ever take note of what I taste, since it's always nothing interesting. But I was intrigued now....
The cigar was a wonderful color; deep, dark and extremely oily. The photo does not reflect that in any way, but it's there, believe me. The smoke is well rolled with a few noticeable veins but the oils are what is interesting to me. From certain angles you get that cloudy sheen, like looking at a small spiderweb in the grass from the side. The cut was a little dusty, and the cigar lights up like it's in a race. The smoke does not present the chocolate flavor I was waiting to taste from the pre-light draw, but it is dark and rich and leathery with a lot of spice. This cigar is 8 years old and stout as an East German Track and Field athlete in the 72 Olympic games. I am further intrigued.
I poured a Pina Colada and took it to the porch, and expected that the cigars flavors would mimic the drink, as it was sweet, tropical and fruity. Surprisingly the two complimented one another without affecting the taste of either, at least to where I could detect it. Now that's not actually true, the cigar lessened my enjoyment of the drink due to the taste buds being heated and charred by the smoke. As I puffed into the area where 1.5 inches were burned, the cigar did not develop any different flavors, but my palate is notoriously bad, and I could tell there was something there I could not detect, like a dog whistle tooting away somewhere. The impressive thing was the ash. It was ridged and uniform with mostly white tones with occasional eruptions of black from within. That's not what got my attention, though. It was strong and straight and I have no doubt that it would have held on throughout the smoke and never ash itself. But as I had to take it upstairs to shoot the nub, I ashed it before I could prove that to be true, lest it end up on the carpet.
I smoked it to where you see it, could have pushed the band up again, but it was hot out and the no-see-ems were beginning to find me. Additionally there was not much left to prove to me, it had really impressed me once I ashed it the second time. I went from smoking a stout and leathery cigar to one of almost perfumed florality and delicacy. A real turnaround and just the surprise I was hoping for. The Cohiba Siglo II was NOT very much like a Cohiba on this occasion, but with my attitude towards the brand just lately, that was fine with me. I can't score it very high based on a lackluster first half, but the 3rd third and beginning of the nub was just unbelievable. That brings it out of the high 70s to I would say......ehh, 86 points.
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.
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