One great cigar on a BAD WEEK

I hate Thanksgiving.

Does that make me a bad American?  Nope.  

It makes me an employee of the company that puts on a large go-kart race every Thanksgiving.  Every year I give up ten days of my life to create webcasts that emanate from the event.  I spend a week in a motel room that scores a 1.5 out of 5 stars.  I am generally in a foul mood for a month prior to the show, up until that moment after the last race is over and all the cables and equipment, covered in filth, are all cleaned, the gear is all packed up, and I arrive home at 2 am Sunday morning.  But with the exception of two 18 hour days at the end of the week, I get to spend some late evenings in front of my motel room in a chair with a paper cup of whiskey and ice and a fine cigar.  On the first of 3-4 such evenings, I selected a 2005 Partagas Serie D No.4.  This one was remarkable for the fact that it was the first of this vintage that I have smoked yet that was not smoked with tape over the damaged heads.  I had 4 boxes of ten and I emptied all the boxes into an old cabinet of fifty robustos...  Among the 40 sticks, there were 3-4 that had severe damage to the head.  I find some packing tape works pretty well in fixing the damage , cures the bad draw and saves the smoke, which I am all for.  And now those damaged sticks are all officially smoked.  

Down to the good stuff.  

I proudly lit the cigar and kicked back enjoying the perfect draw and superb flavor.  Man what a smoke.  These are notorious for their erratic performance in terms of flavor.  If you do not know the 'secret' to their proper smoking time, you end up complaining about them.  If you DO know the ancient chinese secret, you smoke new boxes up fast or put em down for 3-4 years.  Or so goes the lore, passed down from viking times.

This cigar went so well with the Wild Turkey Rare Bird that I hardly noticed the bitter cold.  (For the record, that bottle of Basil Hayden's in the back was NOT killed at the motel.  That one has been around all year, til I finished it earlier in the week.)  I smoked the PSD4 up too fast, but enjoyed it well enough.  I tasted licorice, coffee, mint, cream, pine, spice and leathery goodness.  The draw was perfect and the burn was straight too.  All in all, one of the rare moments of joy in a week I dread every year.

If you don't expect much, sometimes you get a lot

I have smoked a lot of Montecristo Petit Edmundos, and had now a total of two good ones.  One of those happened today.  On a cigar website, I had suggested to a person who wanted to cook a shoulder in a crock pot that it might be better to smoke a cigar and have a beer outside while the shoulder was smoking in a traditional smoker.  I can't think of a better way to spend a meat-monitoring session than with a fine havana cigar.  Now the weather is different for everyone,  and this person was expecting some cold rain, so who am I to tell him where to smoke his meat?  

Here where I live, it was going to be COOL with rain moving in at any time.  And since this blog has languished for over a month without a new entry, I decided I needed to take my own advice and sit outside this morning and smoke a cigar.  I clipped a Petit Edmundo that was sitting in a humidor designed to dry cigars out prior to smoking, and spending much more time in that box was going to ruin it.  So I poured a pint of Abita 25th Anniversary Ale and ambled on downstairs.  One of the best things about the morning up to that point had been at the new placement of my bird feeder.  I'd cut down a small dead tree last year and was about to cut it up into small pieces for burning when I realized it might be best to just dig a post hole and plant the old dead tree in a different spot as a wait station for birds who like to drink off of the waterfalls in my pond.  Many birds use my pond and it's water features for a morning or evening bath, and it can get crowded at times.  What's more, the birds like to act like they are not waiting.  They are just chilling out.  So having a few nice perches around act as both a spot to wait and a spot to scope the area for predators prior to putting themselves in a dangerous but necessary position.  I hung a bird feeder from one of the limbs and the black sunflower seed in it appeals especially to Nuthatches and Titmouses and Chickadees. What falls below is a treat for the Cardinals. These birds are pretty entertaining and really pleasant critters to watch.  They are all pretty tolerant of me being out there, and this morning, they gently scold me when I go too close to the feeder until they realize I am peeling a pecan to break up and put in the feeder tray.  They really love that and their scolding turns into an excited chatter.  

So once I get the cigar lit it dawns on me quickly that I am enjoying the smoke a LOT.  It started with a lot of Montecristo cocoa and spice, and headed into a very mineral twang of cuban soil.  The burn was as slow as a coming Christmas for a 5 year old, and it was a real sight at the foot of the cigar.  It was ragged and ugly but it was a joy to smoke the cigar and have it last so long.  The flavor kept on going and going, and the pleasure was notable, after not smoking for so long.  I watched the birds come and go, choosing their sunflower seed or pecan pieces, and puffed away happily, watching the blue smoke from both the foot of the cigar and the chimney of my smoker.  Once the Boston butt was done, I thought, 'ehh, what the heck, solid days of rain are coming, it's already wet from a morning rain and the smoker is still going', so I went upstairs and split a whole fryer and rubbed it well and smoked that, too.  I fed the smoked giblets to Ralph, who really appreciated it, especially the liver.  As he was gobbling it down, I realized I should PROBABLY be eating that instead.  What careth he if its a gizzard, a heart, a neck or a liver?  And there were TWO livers in this bird's cavity.  And I STILL let him have it.  Not thinking straight from smoking my killer little cigar.

I love a good Petit Edmundo.  All two times I have had one.  Wait, MAYBE I have had THREE.  I seem to recall writing this same schpiel in another post a while back.  Still has about the same impact.  To have smoked maybe 20 and had 3 good ones?  That makes an impression that is hard to drop.  But when I get a good one, and enjoy a cool and damp morning among my little furred and feathered friends, it makes it a day worth living even more than usual.  

2007 Choix Supreme

I had two boxes of these and have yet to smoke one, and I am already down 35 cigars.  So it was time to try one.  Just a gorgeous cigar, wrapped in a near flawless wrapper covered in oil.  It cuts easily and lights a bit slow.  I walk outside to smoke it and a barred owl lets out on of those HOO-ahhhhs.  Startled me a bit, but there are a lot of barred owls in the neighborhood, so it did not scare me. I kind of expect it.

The smoke is thick and oily with a hint of white pepper and some cane syrup.  It is still stingy with the smoke though, and I think a draw poker would help, but I don't have one.  So I struggle a bit through half of the smoke, but it never opens up in the flavor department.  It is extremely thin on flavor and there is nothing worth noting other than hey, it was HIGH time I smoked a cigar for you guys.  I poured the last of a bottle of Chardonnay I bought for my sister but never gave her....screw cap embarrassment, I guess.  It's not bad, but also a bit thin on flavor.  I call out to the owl in all of my barred owl phrases I know but it stays silent.  It's buddies out in the deeper trees answer, but it is too smart to call out to me.  i would like to say this was a good cigar, but I can't.  I am going to bury them for about 6 months and give one a shot in the spring.  Don't forget to set your clocks back, that just reminded me.

A little coffee with my cigar

I was lucky enough to be one of the people that S. Shilala greased with a few of his experimental sticks over the summer, wherein he took a few boxes of cigars, or at least a few handfuls, and plunged them into a large container of coffee beans.  They sat there for some length of time, I haven't any real details, but I can find some here in a bit.

I was given two smokes, one was a Por Larranaga Petit Corona and one was a Bolivar Petit Corona.  Both were just hideous from the perspective of the bands.  They had had a bit too much moisture and coffee.  The cigars themselves looked OK, but overall they showed the abuse they had been subjected to but were not really any worse than you might expect, save for one item, they are a little heavy.  Not sure if it is excess moisture or too much tobacco in the roll, but I let the PLPC sit awhile, way too heavy, and decided I had to smoke the Boli PC.

It lit right up, and was very strong and a little bitter.  But the coffee nuances were there in full-strength.  Now I don't have a sophisticated palate, but I did get a sense that this cigar had been infused with PEABERRY coffee and while it stole a bit of the BPC character, it was handily replaced with the strong essence of coffee.  As with most infused cigars, this is mostly an illusion.  You get a good whiff of coffee owing to the olfactory system in your head, but the cigars themselves are mostly tobacco.  The way your sense of smell works however, you do feel like you are smoking a cigar that tastes of coffee.

I am looking forward to the KONA infused PLPC.  The Bolivar was a bit stronger than most I have had, and I did not get to smoke the whole cigar.  It had a bad habit of just pouring smoke off of the lit end, and it was all going in my face.  So I smoked about half of the stick. 

I have to give the entire project a thumbs up, mostly because I talked to Shilala and he told me all of the things that went wrong on his first experiment and how he intended to correct that if he tried it again.  I am not one to waste cigars or coffee trying to raise up a hybrid, but I am glad that Shilala did.  This was a great little smoke for the most part.  I am happy he gave me a pair of them and lucky, too, I guess.  If you know Shilala and want to give these a try, ask him when he is going to try it once more.  You'll enjoy the flavor.

This works better, obviously, than the ACID cigars.  it also works better than the Maker's Mark smokes.  In fact, these were the best flavor-enhanced smokes I have had.  I'd really like to see him come up withe some vanilla bean enhanced Short Stories.

Quick follow-up on the DEMITASSE...awesome.

WOW, just WOW.  Pulled out my last unplaced cigar, I emptied 4 boxes of Rey del Mundo cigars into another cedar box a month or two ago and had 4-5 left over that would not fit inside.  Talk about a dull, flavorless cigar.  But I hear people RAVING about them all the time.  So after smoking 4 of these so far (2012 vintage) I can only say, smoke a cigar more when its ready, rather than when YOU are ready...

WHAT a smoke.  Excellent balance and finesse, bursting with rich and creamy flavors with a ton of mouthfeel and delicious, sweet, spicy smoke.  4 boxes is not NEARLY enough.  I now understand why people love these smokes.  The overall rating for 4 sticks, 83.

The rating for this last one.....96.

Settling in - El Rey del Mundo Demitasse 2012

These cigars began life in this country a little wet.  But I had to try one, I'd never done so before.  
Ehh.  I look like that flippin gymnast girl, not impressed. 
Not worth the trouble.  However, I DID have an idea that a box of absolutely crappy smokes might not have long to be crappy....speculating on pedigree alone.  So off they went to the dark place and above you see one that poked out of the humidor to watch me while I flossed.  I wheeled around and snatched it, cut it's head off and tortured it with fire at the foot.  It relented almost immediately and gave up a hint of honey and lemon that I got from the draw-test flavors that revealed themselves.  It was mild to medium, highly aromatic and pretty darn flavorful.  It had a very similar taste to the Tainos, the discontinued churchill from ERDM.  That was unexpected, completely so.  I didn't get to smoke any cigars in New Orleans last week, so I wanted to try something soon to make sure I didn't lose your interest in this blog.  Tough in the South.  Sure, we can smoke meat year round, and often do.  But smoking in the oppressive heat is just unbearable.  So I am glad to even have an opportunity to air the house and smoke some cigars while I do it.  My house is absolutely, terrorizingly dirty.  So smoke a few cigars, air out the joint, and maybe clean up some.....tomorrow.  

Pushed up the band on this one.  EVEN with me doing something I NEVER do, re-light a cold cigar, this one smoked deliciously to the end.  I was pretty impressed, as I usually am with all small cuban cigars.  They just really do it right.  Which likely means they are going to ruin it with slicing and dicing like they did with the panatelas.  But for now, I will ALWAYS put my money on Havana's small cigars.  Until they blow it, at least.  The cigar was almost as advertised, creamy like cafe au' lait and some sweet honey notes with a characteristic Rey del Mundo citrus that I also find in La Gloria Cubana.  These are always scarce.  You have to strictly monitor many multiple stores and KEEP coming back to check on them if you want them.  Your rivals scoop them up by the 5s and 10s of boxes every time they show.  It's not an emergency stocking item, but you really need to get em when you find em.

88 points, great little cigar.

Opening up with a bang

The harsh weather abated a bit and I managed to smoke a cigar over the weekend.  I wanted to smoke three or four, but I got myself into a big project that took the entire weekend, 48 hours worth of eye-straining work.  So to make a part of it easier, I took out the two cigars I wanted to smoke over the weekend, without a doubt, and it was to re-smoke a few great cigars, namely the 05 Montecristo No. 5 and the 09 Romeo y Julieta Duke EL.  More on that one later.

The Monte 5 was stunning, dark and beautiful.  The wrapper was dry and rough and uniform in a WILD-looking dark wrapper as dark as coffee and smelled as fragrant.  I pinched a nib out of the cap and lit it up inside.  I had a few windows open and some fans working so I thought it was worth a shot.  I also couldn't give up the hour to loaf around and smoke.  I was working on a difficult project that took an entire weekend. As a result I smoked it up rather quickly, but this was a MOST elegant and well-behaved smoke.  The flavor was tangy and rich and dark and strong.  It burned ridiculously straight with a translucent dark gray ash.  It never gave a single moment of trouble and the flavor was so rewarding.  I stopped editing my little book many times to gaze at the smoke in wonder at why I don't have a truckload of these.  A fantastic smoke to begin fall with.  (90 points)  2007 Montecristo No.5 .