El Rey del Mundo Robusto Larga Oscuro 6.0×54 (Aged 2.5 years) Monday, Jan 30 2006 

Cigar Reviews and Misc Matt 2:58 am

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Country: Honduras
Wrapper: Oscuro
Filler: Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan long fillers
Size: Robusto Larga 6″x54 ring

These ERDM’s are one of my most favorite cigars. I love these things. It is one of the very few cigars I will buy a box of. I had one of these that I bought about two and a half years ago. It has been sitting in the bottom of my humidor resting. I decided to smoke it this weekend and see how the extra humi time effected it.

When I smoke these fresh, I find that they have a peppery bite to them and they have a strong woody flavor with a long peppery finish. They also have a decent buzz factor too. This aged stick changed a lot and I was pleasantly surprised.

The peppery bite was gone. The cigar mellowed out quite a bit but was still very delicious. The strong woody flavors had changed over to a smoother more earthy flavor. It was fantastic and I loved the way it tasted. The finish changed too. If you have ever chewed a freshly roasted coffee bean, that is exactly what the finish on this cigar was like. It had a slightly bitter coffee taste that left a slight burning sensation on the tongue. Strength wise it mellowed out a bit too. The buzz factor was noticeably reduced but the flavors were so smooth and delicious, the loss in strength didn’t bother me.

I really like how well this cigar aged and I think I’m going to set aside a few more of these to age. It seems to be well worth the time.

If you’d like a second opinion on the ERDM, check out Richards thoughts on BlankMind.

 

Padilla Cedro 6.0×52 Saturday, Jan 14 2006 

Cigar Reviews and Padilla Matt 6:37 am

Country: Dominican Republic
Wrapper: Connecticut Shade
Filler: Nicaraguan, Dominican, and Peruvian long-fillers
Size: Toro Grande 6″x52 ring
(for a detailed description of the points system I use please click here.)

Broke out one of my Cedros earlier then I planned to. Couldn’t wait to try one. I’m still trying to get a hang of describing the flavors of a cigar, but here’s my best shot…

Appearance – 6/10
The wrapper is a very nice Caramel Brown with small veins throughout. There were a few minor blemishes/color variations. The cigar was nice and firm except for one very small soft spot that happened to be in the same spot a light spot in the wrapper. It had a very nice cap that was a little longer than I am used to seeing, meaning it went a little further down the head than normal. This had a cool effect. After I cut the tip of the cap, the remaining portion created a pronounced and very cool looking ring around the head of the cigar. The cut was perfect, the filler tobacco bunched nicely with no rib veins visible in the head. The pre-light draw tasted of cedar. It was a medium draw, maybe just a little on the firm side of medium. Some one who likes a firmer draw may bum this section to an 8. I like my draw a little lighter.

Flavor – 16/20
The flavor was very consistent throughout. I thought this cigar was very much like a 5 Vegas Gold. It was smooth and mellow. It had a strong cedar flavor with a creamy…… toasted cereal/nut flavor. i don’t think that’s quite right but it is the best I can come up with to describe what I was tasting. About half way through I thought I detected a very subtle hint of licorice but it only lasted for a few puffs. Towards the end of the cigar I thought the flavors and the strength of the cigar increased. The whole time I was smoking this I was thinking this would be a great breakfast cigar, perfect with a good cup of coffee.

Smoking Characteristics – 7/10
The cigar lit nicely. The ash was firm and held it’s shape, and was a very nice light grey in color. Almost white. The burn wasn’t razor sharp but it stayed even enough. I just kept rotating the cigar as I smoked and I never had a problem, and never needed to make any manual corrections. The cigar produced plenty of nice white smoke and it had a short woody finish. No real buzz factor to speak of since this was a very mild cigar. Mild but very flavorful.

Price – 3/5.
I fell victim to my own impatience here. I jumped on this right away and paid $6 a cigar for these. A couple days later, CI comes out with a 15 for $35 deal that would have put them at just over $3 a stick. So for five bucks more I could have had 15 of these instead of 5. Sucks for me. Well the review system says to rate it on what you paid so I gotta go with the $6 price point here. If I only paid $3 a stick the cigar would have scored a 5 here. At $6 I can only rate it a 3. Slightly better than average deal.

The Math
6+16+7+3=32\4.5=7.11*10=71.1

SCORE = 71.1

This seems a little low to me, but like I said, at a better price this cigar would score a little higher. It’s also possible the blemishes in the wrapper on this stick were an aberration. I’d like to check the other four I have to compare, but the cedar wrap covers almost the whole cigar. If the blemishes I saw were an aberration the score on this would bump up into the upper 70′s. I really like this cigar. It reminds me a lot of the 5 Vegas Gold (another one of my favorites). I would not call it complex but it is definitely not boring. I thought it was a very nice, very flavorful mild cigar. I wish I was smart enough to wait and see if CI put them on special (like they did) so that I’d have more of them.

Very nice cigar Ernesto. I really enjoyed it.

 

Cigar Review Scoring System Saturday, Jan 14 2006 

Site News Matt 5:46 am

NOTE:  This is an old scoring system that i do not use anymore.  Click here for the new ratings.

I decided that once and a while I might like to review a cigar and put a score to it. PMP is a moderator on the forum at BlowinSmoke.net. PMP created a scoring system that is used for reviews on that board, and I am going to adopt it as my scoring system here. This system considers an average cigar to score about 50%. Keep this in mind since a cigar that scores in the 70′s is a very good, above average cigar. Only superb cigars are likely to score in the 80′s and 90′s. It works a bit different than the CA ratings. Here is how it works…

From PMP @ BlowinSmoke.Net:
I present for your reviewing pleasure the official blowin smoke rating scale. Obviously you should still feel free to use whatever scale you like. This is just a suggestion.

Rate the cigar on four categories:
10 points total for appearance and construction – this is solely based on the look and feel of the cigar prelight. Is it neat? Is the wrapper smooth? Are there any large veins? Is there a skillfully applied cap? Are there any spongy spots? Is the draw too tight/loose? etc…

20 points total for flavor – self explanatory

10 points total for smoking characteristics – does the cigar burn even? Is the ash firm? How powerful is the buzz factor? What is the finish like? etc…

5 points total for price – Is the cigar worth what you paid for it? 0 would denote a complete ripoff while 5 would denote a great bargain. This category is entirely subjective but then again, so is flavor or color or smell.
Then add the 4 categories up and divide by 4.5 to get the average of the four categories.

Then multiply by 10 to get points out of 100.
*Example – If a cigar rated a 39 total points.
39/4.5 = 8.6
8.6 x 10 = 86.6%

With this system you should expect significantly lower scores than with other systems that only use the 80-100 range. An average cigar should expect a 50%. So although it may seem low at first, it is actually more descriptively accurate.

Most of my reviews aren’t really reviews, but just my general impressions of a cigar, but once and a while I like to get a little more indepth. When I do, sometimes I’ll use this scoring system, sometimes I may be detailed but not use a score. It depends on my mood.

 

Master Blend Box Pictures Thursday, Jan 12 2006 

My Stuff Matt 3:04 am

Here are the pictures I promised of the Oliva Master Blends box. It is beautiful.

320x240

320x240

 

Box Purchase: Oliva Master Blends Robustos Friday, Jan 6 2006 

My Stuff Matt 2:37 pm

I don’t buy boxes of cigars very often, but recently I fell in love with the original Oliva Master Blend Robustos. After smoking one, I bought what was left in the box that my local B&M had out, about seven of them. A week later, he put out another box! I didn’t even know he had it. For those that don’t know, this is a limited production cigar from about 2 years ago that is very hard to find. Here was a whole box sitting there in the humidor. I tried to resist my compulsion to buy it because funds were tight. Well to my complete surprise, the box was still sitting there, and it was intact, after Christmas (two full weeks after he put it out). No one had bought a stick out of it yet. Armed with Christmas money that was gifted to me, I bought the box, so now I’m sitting on a full box of these MB’s. The box itself is beautiful. I’ll try to get a picture of it up soon. Anyway, the box is now safely tucked away in my coolerdor and the plan is to leave it there until 2007 so I can see how these wonderful cigars do with some more age on them. I am a very happy cigar smoker :)

 

Padron #5000 Maduro 5.5×54 Thursday, Jan 5 2006 

Cigar Reviews and Padron Matt 1:29 pm

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Maduro
Filler: Nicaraguan Long Filler
Size: 5.5″x54 ring

This is a gorgeous cigar. The maduro wrapper is a dark leathery brown color. It has a beautiful oily sheen and it even looks like it’s leather. It is very toothy with small veins throughout, but no rib veins. It looks very well made with a perfect cap. This has got to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing cigars I have ever seen and it only gets better. The cap cut perfectly and the pre light drawn was smooth and easy. The cigar lit as if it knew that it was meant to do so. I have never had a cigar light so easily and perfectly before. The flavor was consistent from start to finish. I found it to be earthy and woody with hints of leather and nuts. The ash held firm but was a little papery on the edges. I smoked this one until my lips started to burn.

It’s a great time to be a cigar smoker. There are just a lot of really good smokes to be had and this is definitely one of them.

 

More Cigar Reviews Wednesday, Jan 4 2006 

Cigar News Matt 4:21 am

I was bouncing around the internet tonight and I came across another Blog with some good cigar reviews. BlankMindBlog has a nice collection of cigar reviews and is a pretty entertaining site in general. I reccomend you surf on over that way a check it out. I’ve added a link to the site on the lefthand side.

 

Ashton VSG Tres Mystique 4.5×44 Tuesday, Jan 3 2006 

Ashton and Cigar Reviews Matt 5:46 pm

Country: Dominican Republic
Wrapper: Ecuador
Filler: Dominican Republic
Size: Petit Corona 4 3/8” x 44 ring

This is a pretty little cigar. I tend to like bigger vitolas but I heard a lot of good things about this particular VSG. It has a dark brown toothy wrapper and looks very well put together. There were no hard or soft spots. The cap looked a little puckered. The cut was perfect and the filler looked nicely bunched, and no rib veins were visible. The pre light draw was nice with only a little resistance. I took my time lighting this cigar and it was worth it. It lit very nicely. The initial puffs delivered a very spicy flavor that had little too much bite in my opinion. After the first few puffs the spiciness gave way to much more enjoyable flavors. The flavors were still very strong, but I detected a lot of leather and wood while smoking this cigar. For a little cigar this thing gave off a lot of smoke. The burn was perfect until the end when it started to canoe a bit on me. I was able to correct it and I proceeded to smoke it to the nub. It was a strong cigar and it gave me a nice “cigar buzz” afterward. I had to be careful getting up off the couch.

Overall, this was a really nice smoke. Although this cigar is something I’d like to smoke a lot of, it’s a bit pricey, so it’s not something I’m likely to have very often, but it makes for a good special occasion smoke.

 

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