Rodrigo Box Cigar Review: Habana Dominican Puro Corona Gorda

Wrapper, Binder, Filler, all Dominican. No further details.

5.75″ x 46 Corona Gorda

Appearance is rough. Several prominent veins, visible seams, dark brown, toothy wrapper. Pack is firm. This is a heavier and more fully packed cigar than the others. Smell again is light, tobacco, a little barnyard. Draw is much tighter than any of the other cigars in this collection. A little over-tight for my taste, but some people like it this way.

On initial light there is only a little pepper, some vegetal or meaty note. I’ve tasted this before, something characteristic of Dominican cigars that I never taste in Nicaraguan smokes, something sour on the back of the tongue with a sensation not unlike red pepper. Some people go after this taste and there are cigars that have even more of it. But this sourness stays distinctively up-front throughout the smoke and it isn’t something I particularly care for. I didn’t get any of this note in the first three cigars from this sampler.

Construction stays good. I had to make a few minor corrections to the burn. The draw is too tight for me, but it stays consistent. Smoke volume is not as good as the other sticks in this sampler, but this improved about half way down the smoke. It helps to have a draw tool as these often improve smoke volume even when you don’t need them for the draw itself.

Other flavors in the first third include some sweet notes, something like mint, and as the cigar progresses, leather, a sweet burning wood and roasted vegetables. But over it all is still that sour note on the tongue. Pepper stays mild and consistent until the last third where it begins to come up strongly. The cigar also goes from the medium to the medium-full range in strength. Unusually, there is less pepper on the retrohale and more sweetness than on the tongue until the cigar gets into its final few inches. Interestingly, the retrohale has none of the sourness I sense in my mouth.

As the cigar gets into the last few inches the draw opens up a bit, smoke volume improves. The flavors remain, especially leather and the sweet note of burning wood, but they all dial back. Pepper comes up on both the tongue and in the retrohale, but behind it all remains that sour note consistent throughout. I got down to almost the last inch. There is still flavor in the cigar, especially if you like what comes across to me as that sourness. There is lots more pepper now in the retrohale. Strength picks up. I can feel the cigar now and if I smoke much more it would make me dizzy. Another slow smoker, this stick went 1 hr. 25 minutes!

Rodrigo Box Cigar Review: San Andres Mexico Robusto

Wrapper: Mexican San Andres
Binder: Indonesian Sumatra
Filler: Dominican

My third cigar from the Rodrigo Box now getting into those vitolas I like. This one a beautiful dark 5″ x 50 classic robusto. The wrapper is dark, a little oily, with a few prominent veins. Cold smell is very mild like the other two sticks in the collection. A little manure and barnyard, tobacco. Construction seems good. No soft spots, nicely packed. Cutting it gives a perfect draw with just a little resistance.

On lighting you get a lot of pepper and a huge waft of creamy smoke. Like the other two cigars so far, the construction stays perfect all the way to the last inch. No burn corrections, thick creamy smoke, perfect draw all the way. This says a lot about the factory making George’s cigars. The blends might come out good, bad, or in between, but every one of these has exhibited perfect construction.

The pepper on this one is bright and stays that way throughout the cigar. It doesn’t drop out or get stronger as it goes, but it’s always there and out front. In the first third I also get some baking spice (like cinnamon), leather, balsa wood, burning hickory, and some nutty flavors. Somewhere in the second third the sweet overtones fade back and I get hay and other barnyard notes. The wood changes a bit to a cedar. Pepper stays forward. As the second third ends I get a little spearment and nut. Most of the sweetness is gone (perhaps covered up by the pepper) but other flavors keep coming and going. In the last third all the flavors fade back while the pepper remains always.

But the flavors never completely disappear. As I finish the cigar there is still a little flavor in the last 2 inches, even down to 1 inch where I let it go. Total smoke time was one hour and ten minutes. This is a mild cigar to begin with and turns medium as it smokes down. All in all a very good experience, especially as concerns smoke production and other construction elements. The flavors are not as rich, sweet, and distinct as the cigar in the prior (Sumatra Ecuador Piramide) review, but they were certainly present throughout.

Pairing this time was a Costa Rican coffee. Coffee works with all cigars!

Another good cigar from the Rodrigo Box. This one not quite as good as the Piramide, but much better then the Arapicara toro. More to come…

Rodrigo Box Cigar Review: Sumatra Ecuador Piramide

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
Binder: Dominican
Filler: Dominican

Format a perfecto variation, 6″ x 50 at the foot but tapering smoothly to about 44 just before the perfecto-style cap. George tells me this shape is called a Piramide, a very interesting looking cigar. There is a visible network of very fine veins giving the wrapper a distinctively translucent look. Even a few more prominent veins in the wrapper seemed there for artistic effect. Evenly packed, no soft spots. Smell was vey light, tobacco and a little barnyard. Salty to taste. Perfect cold draw and some pepper in the wrapper itself.

Initial light had a little pepper and salt, but within the first quarter inch I began to get hits of sweet wood, leather, something like roast pecan, and sugared peppermint. Draw is perfect, no corrections in the first third, in fact this stick burned perfectly down to the last inch before I had to make a slight correction. Flavors stayed in too! In the second third something like cinnamon makes an appearance, and the sweet sugars become brown sugars. The retrohale is spicy with pepper but also leather, and burnt sugar all very well balanced throughout the first half. Smoke output all the way along has been fantastic. Somewhere in the second half something like roast portabela mushroom comes up once in a while. The brown-burnt-sugar never leaves the cigar, and the pepperment turns warmer into wintergreen! Pepper also comes up steadily in the second half. At the end the pepper dominates everything. The cigar has been medium in strength all the way along until it kicks up a bit in the last third. Flavor and creamy smoke stay with the cigar down to the last inch and beyond. At 1 hour 30 mins., I called it quits. The cigar still had a little flavor but I’d had enough pepper at that point. Nice cigar! Perfect construction, slow even burn, tons of smoke, and lots of flavors, even noticible transitions. I have 3 more blends to try, but I’d say George hit the nail on the head with this one.

What about the rum? I did pair this, both with water (separate) and Mocambo 20, a very dark rum reviewed by me at this link. I made sure to smoke the first half inch or so without sipping any rum, so all those cigar flavors were there for me from the beginning. The rum did make a difference. A hit of the rum brought out deeper burnt-brown-sugar notes in the cigar. I also made sure that I had a little water and a quarter inch of cigar (at least) between sips. These two make a good pair actually, but the cigar’s richness stood out on its own too. I hope George will put this blend into production! It’s really good!

Rodrigo Box Cigar Review: Arapiraca Ecuador Claro

Vitola: 6″ x 52 toro
Wrapper: Arapiraca Ecuador Claro
Binder:
Filler:

The largest cigar in the Rodrigo Box, a vitola I do not smoke very often. But it was a nice day out on the porch and there was nowhere in particular I had to be so I allowed myself the luxury of a very long smoke.

From the picture you can see the cigar is a light brown. I can’t find any seams in the wrapper and there are but a few small veins. The pack is very even and firm. Not a heavy cigar for its size but not a lightweight either. The cold smell is a mild grass and barnyard, neither very strong. The wrapper tastes distinctly salty. A straight cut revealed a very open draw, a little too open for some of my friends, but fine for me if the cigar doesn’t smoke too fast. As I got into the second half of the stick, the draw tightened just slightly, perfect!

On light there is a little pepper, but it isn’t at all a peppery cigar until the last third. The initial flavors are sweet, wood, leather, and flowers, but all very faint. Smoke output is great. As the cigar progresses other flavors come into it. I get something like wintergreen, and maybe cinnamon along with a light brown sugar. Pepper is minimal, but the flavors are not at all prominent. Mostly I get thick creamy smoke with only a light touch of flavors. I’m pairing this with English Harbour rum at the moment my lightest rum which I hoped would go with the lightness of the smoke. It does OK, the rum brings out a little more leather in the smoke. In the first third the cigar is on the mild side of medium. As I get into the second half of this, the flavors are all still there but they never become prominent, always just hints. Burn line stays straight, and the cigar smokes very slowly.

As I get into the last third the pepper comes up a bit but the other flavors fade back. They pop in once in a while, but mostly its smoke though still creamy, thick, and cool. This is a long smoking cigar. I had to let it go at about an inch and a half as I just wasn’t getting any more flavors, but that was an hour and forty five minutes after I started. The cigar never rises above about medium in strength, but it’s bigger than what I normally smoke and I was a tad dizzy at the end.

All in all a superbly constructed cigar with a distinct sweetness to it especially in the first half but always mildly in the background.

The Rodrigo Box

George Rodrigo of Rodrigo Cigars has released a sampler box, 5 cigars of his own blend. George was kind enough to send me one of these samplers and I’m going to review them one by one here. When all 5 are finished, I will link the separate reviews into this post.

Alas none of these cigars is for sale! George sent these samplers out to his customers for feedback. He tells me he will look into producing one or two that his customers like best.

Here are the reviews. Along with the link I’m going to put my bottom line!

Arapiraca Ecuador Claro (not very good).
Sumatra Ecuador Piramide (fantastic!!!)
San Andreas Mexican Robusto (good but not fantastic)
Habana, Dominican Puro (lots of Dominican twang if you like it)
Corojo Fino, Dominican Puro (good but not fantastic)

That’s it, I have completed the Rodrigo Box! 4 out of 5 cigars had perfect construction! All of them were slow smokers lasting a long time. A great experience. Appreciate George sending these to me.

Cigar Review: Drew Estate Papa’s Fritas

I’ve been remiss not reviewing one of my go-to smokes the Papa’s Fritas from our friends at Drew Estate.

Made from the same tobaccos as the Liga 9 series, this stick has a mix of short and long fillers. That is, I suppose, part of how they keep the price down, using leftover leaf from the larger, higher priced, cigars. The cigar is 4.5″ long by 42 ring. Nice and firm all the way around. Dark slightly oily wrapper with some dark/light color variation that shows the seams. Cold smell gives off earth, a little barnyard, and tobacco.

Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf maduro

Binder: Brazil Mata Fina

Filler: Nicaraguan and Honduran

The cap has a prominent tail. I’ve noticed when I cut these the cap tends to come off and the wrapper starts unrolling. It seems the best way to open these is to look at the direction of the twist in the tail, grip it, and twist in the same direction while holding onto the cap. You get a neat little hole giving a perfect draw. Sometimes the cap comes off as you smoke, but the wrapper doesn’t unroll. It helps to moisten the cap before you do this.

The smoking experience is nothing short of wonderful. Medium in strength, full in flavor. So many flavors come in and out. There is only a little pepper and lots of earth, wood, leather, some coffee, and roasted nut. As you smoke along the earth tones down and a sweetness like brown sugar comes up. Pepper stays mild throughout. The cigar produces lots of creamy smoke and the burn line stays even. I’ve rarely had to correct one of these. I think having some short filler actually helps here. Draw is perfect for me and stays consistent throughout the smoke which goes a consistent 55 minutes, sometimes more. The stick stays flavorful down as far as you can smoke it without burning your lips. While their appearance is a little rough I like that, and there is nothing rough about the way it smokes.

The Papa’s Fritas originally retailed around $6/stick, but these days, if you buy at the box level (50 cigars/box), you find them around $4.50 even without any discounts. Using some of the standard discounts from places like Famous, you can get them for about $4.15/stick. Although this is not my absolute favorite cigar it’s up there in my top 10, maybe even my top 5. As goes bang for the buck I can’t think of a single stick that beats this one. This is one heck of a great cigar for its price. Highly recommended!

Process, Substance, Time, and Space

If we examine the cosmos and its history we face what appears to be an amalgamation of process and substance. Substance refers to the objects and types of things that appear to comprise the physical universe, all the objects that occupy space from gas molecules to galaxies and everything in between including ourselves. Substance might also include such abstract objects as numbers and ideas. Process is what animates this collection, the transformation of substance into other substance or into new arrangements of substances. There has long been a dialectic in western metaphysics between philosophers who take substance and those who take process to be the foundation of reality.

“Radical monism”, a substance view, argues there is really only one substance, the universe taken as a whole. Apart from certain Eastern religions, radical monism has been out of philosophical vogue for many centuries. Substance ontologists today, the Western ones at least, are pluralists. They may argue as concerns the particulars that comprise the foundational “furniture of the universe” but most accept that the furniture is plural; the universe has more than one real thing in it.

Substance-first ontologists all accept that substance participates in processes. No philosopher today accepts the Parmenidian idea that the universe is fundamentally static and all the dynamics are illusion. Process philosophers, by contrast, argue that process is not only fundamental, but that all of what we commonly take to be substance is, under the surface, nothing but process nested in other process. Substance is, if not an illusion, nothing more than the way process external to observing minds manifest to the processes that comprise those minds. They defend this view on the grounds of parsimony. Process “all the way down” is said to be simpler than an ontology of both process and substance.

But simpler does not automatically better represent of the world. Nicholas Rescher is a contemporary process philosopher and pragmatist as concerns such things as the progress of science. He believes that scientific progress is measured in the control it gives us over the world. In Rescher’s view, to the extent that control has been purchased with implicit substance-grounded ontologies (from quarks to galaxies) there is nothing wrong with a substance viewpoint. It has obviously (that is pragmatically) been useful. But Rescher maintains that while useful heuristically, substance is not fundamental while process is. He notes that process cannot be derived from a purely substance view of things, while substance can be derived from a purely process view. Substances, at least what we ordinarily think of substances are, metaphysically speaking, only nested processes.

Although the concrete particulars of the world might perhaps be envisioned from a purely process-centric viewpoint, I do not think this view encompasses everything as Rescher intends that it should. In what is, in my opinion, one of the seminal examinations of cosmology in the 21st century, “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time” Roberto Unger (philosopher) and Lee Smolin (cosmologist, quantum-gravity physicist) have offered up what they call a “proposal in natural philosophy”. Centuries ago “natural philosophy” was a phrase meant to encompass all the sciences as science was understood in those days. Today the phrase is not much used, but Unger and Smolin invoke it deliberately because in principle the work encompasses all of science although the book’s focus is cosmology. Their argument leans heavily on process.

To summarize the outcome of their view (not the arguments for it), time is real. In fact time is the only brute and non-emergent reality in the universe and must therefore go back (prior to the big bang) and forward indefinitely. Everything else, space, the cosmological settings, even the laws of physics (descriptive and not antecedently controlling) evolved to their present values in time. To be sure some of these evolved in the earliest moments of the universe and have remained quasi-constant ever since, but it remains true (for Unger and Smolin) that the regularities and constants of the universe emerged as they did through a process of evolutionary change and might have fallen out having other values. This all means that process cannot occur in the absence of time even though, at universe extremes (the opening Planck times of the big bang for example), process might be entirely lawless and irregular.

Compare this to Rescher’s answer to the question “what is process?” from his book “Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues” (2000 U. of Pittsburgh digital books collection)

“A process is an actual or possible occurrence that consists of an integrated series of connected developments unfolding in programmatic coordination: an orchestrated series of occurrences that are systematically linked to one another either causally or functionally. … A natural process by its very nature passes on to the future a construction made from the materials of the past. All processes have a developmental, forward-looking aspect. … The inherent futurition of process is an exfoliation of the real by successively actualizing possibilities that are subsequently left behind as the process unfolds.”

This quote fits rather well into what Unger and Smolin believe concerning time. Rescher does claim (elsewhere in the same book) that process always takes place in time, but he also claims, somewhat contradictorily, that time, like space, is emergent. That would make time dependent (emergent from) causal process (in the manner of Michael Tooley’s “Time, Tense, and Causation” (1997) Clarendon Press). But something has to be real and non-emergent unless the universe is a case of emergence from nothing. Rescher points to quantum mechanics as an example of a physical realm that appears to be nothing but process. David Albert (“After Physics” (2015) Harvard Univ. Press) would seem to agree with him arguing that the Schrodinger wave (a process) is a sort of holographic fundamental source of substance and not the other way around.

In her book “Understanding our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles” (2015 Imperial College Press) Ruth Kastner offers up another possibility. Her transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that the solution to quantum riddles lies in quantum phenomena occurring outside spacetime. This is not some supernatural realm, it is still physical, causal but not deterministic. Instead, it is fundamentally random. But the measurement problem and the mystery of action at a distance fall out easily from her idea that at the quantum level, process lies outside spacetime. No energy is exchanged in quantum “virtual transactions” until they become “real transactions” and emerge into spacetime subject to measurement. In exchange for an expanded ontology, timeless and spaceless physics, Kastner’s idea fully resolves quantum riddles without explaining them away. For example, action at a distance seems faster than light, in fact infinitely fast from a temporal perspective because the effect is atemporal.

If Kastner is right, then for Unger and Smolin time can’t cover everything. In particular it doesn’t cover the quantum realm of virtual transactions. But Kastner doesn’t claim that time (or space) are emergent from the quantum realm, only that virtual transactions emerge into spacetime becoming real transactions in which energy/information is exchanged. Unger and Smolin are safe because in their view the present universe did not begin with an infinite singularity. For their part, infinities belong in mathematics, but not in physics. “There are no infinities in the physical universe.” The big bang proceeded from some fantastically dense, hot, pressured, tiny region, but not literally a mathematical point of infinite density. Something proceeded the big bang in time, but not in space, or at least not in our space.

So long as we limit ourselves to the spacetime realm, time can “go all the way down” and remain non-emergent. It is conceivable that the same quantum realm (Kastner likens it to the underwater part of an iceberg, much larger than what sticks out above the surface) underlies all of indefinite time. That is, this universe along with its predecessors and successors rest on the same timeless and spaceless quantum realm. What about Rescher? As concerns spacetime he is unaffected by Kastner, but he must abandon his idea that quantum process is necessarily temporal. It seems reasonable to anoint it with the ‘process’ appellation, but it becomes atemporal process.

I think Rescher gets into trouble if he tries to apply his system to such notions as the cosmological constants. The proton/electron mass ratio (1836.15267389) is nothing but a dimensionless number, certainly not a process and perhaps does not belong in a catalog (ontology) of the physical. But it does represent a fixed physical relation. It is not just any arbitrary number. Its value is absolutely vital to the composition of all the substance (if any) and the way all causal process unfolds in the universe.

If we try to substitute process language for substance language as concerns mass we cannot make sense of the notion of ratio. Rescher has not to my knowledge shown us how to reduce something as substantively fundamental as mass to process. Functionally speaking we can measure mass by its effect on spacetime and this effecting is a process, but a thing’s effect is not the thing in itself only a proxy for it. Rescher has not given us an example of a process that is input, sequence, and result simultaneously; atemporally. By his own definition a process requires time.

This brings me to Edward Jonathan Lowe. Lowe is my favorite philosopher not because of what he says but because he writes so clearly and unfolds his arguments so well. Alas he passed away a couple of years ago at the young age of 54 with many books yet to write. Lowe is a substance ontologist but his aim is much narrower than that of Unger, Smolin, and Rescher. He is not trying to formulate an ontology that covers the historicity of the universe, but rather a simple way of dividing up what we find in the universe now so we can talk about it consistently.

Lowe’s best known book “The Four Category Ontology” (2006 Clarendon Press) is an effort to find a minimal description with which we can relate (to one another) the qualities of what we find in the present universe including both substances and processes. Lowe does not deny that there are processes. The point of the Four Category Ontology is not to find the fundamental substance of the universe but rather to develop a simple scheme by which we can characterize what seems to be the case about the substance and process of the universe as this is reflected in mind. All the categories of the scheme and the relations between them are not a part of the ontology itself. A crucial point with which Lowe avoids set-paradoxes. The categories as such are mental constructs. This is not to say that mental constructs, for example concepts, cannot be fit into the ontology. Lowe’s goal was to find a scheme that works under various views of what is real.

The four categories and some of the relations between them are sketched crudely below. [I could not get this drawing to come out right, so imagine there are vertical lines between the four corners so forming a square] Objects are the stuff of the physical world, but they can be abstract like sets, particular concepts, or processes. Note that objects can be particular instances of various kinds. A particular cat is an instantiation of felines, mammals, and animals. Similarly objects can have many tropes. A particular green apple has a specific shade of green, a certain mass, size, shape, etc.

Kind/Type ————- Attributes

Universals
——-
Particulars

Objects ————- Modes/Tropes

Kinds –> Characterized by Attributes, instantiated by objects
Objects –> Characterized by Modes, instantiate kinds
Attributes –> Exemplified by Objects

Material objects fit the scheme easily. A green apple is an object. It instantiates the kinds apple, fruit, and plant. It’s attributes include mass, size, color, while its modes are its particular mass, color, and size, etc. What about that proton/electron mass ratio? The number is not particularly a problem. It is, for Lowe an abstract object in this case a set of one member, that number (1836.15267389). It is an instantiation of the kind/type/class number which, in turn, is characterized by the attribute property magnitude. It’s specific mode (property) is the proton/electron mass ratio. But Lowe has a problem with non-intrinsic relations being in the ontology.

That Mo is three inches taller than Joe is a relation and there is even a dimensionless number that is the ratio of their two heights. But the relation’s properties all belong to Mo and Joe as such. Nothing is “added to the universe” by noting the Mo/Joe height ratio. The relation isn’t intrinsic to the pair. Lowe doesn’t think this kind of extrinsic relation belongs in the ontology at all. But imagine the continuation of life on Earth was dependent on the Mo/Joe height ratio. If Mo grows taller or shorter, the ratio would change and all life on Earth would cease. Suddenly this extrinsic relation is no longer arbitrary and its value, in the cosmological case, depending on the mass of the proton and electron is a lynch-pin in our physics without which the cosmos would unravel. Something is added to the universe by this ratio, namely the capacity of process to generate stars, galaxies, and everything else with which we are familiar. Surely such a lynch-pin belongs in our ontology and clearly it is not itself a process! As goes process, Lowe says:

“A process, then, might be thought of either as being a temporally extended trope, or as being composed by a temporal succession of different momentary tropes, depending on whether or not the process is a qualitatively unvarying one.”

One of Rescher’s examples (of a process) is evaporation. Evaporation occurring in a certain puddle would be the specific process, our particular object. It is an instance (type) of evaporation which might have the attribute property of phase change, and a mode of evaporating.

Alas, I cannot ask Dr. Lowe his opinion of my use of the categories. But Lowe is open to the categories being used in various ways depending on the nature of the particular being characterized. Again his goal is not to identify the fundamental stuff of the universe, but to find a way to classify it all as it manifests particulars and their properties to mind. That Lowe is open to the fact that his scheme may not be the “last word” on the subject is another reason I like him. He is unafraid to pursue lines of reasoning that might lead him to “change his mind” as concerns some of his core commitments. He notes this possibility in several places of the aforementioned book as concerns events, processes, concepts, and other particulars that are not physical.

By contrast, I think Rescher commits an inductive error that might be called “the fallacy of abstraction”, the tendency, having discovered some aspect of truth to say that it encompasses the whole truth. Clearly Rescher identifies process as something that belongs in our ontology. But just as clearly, not everything that exists-as-such is a process. The cosmological constants are not processes though they certainly could be the outcomes of processes as they emerge into substance. The mass of protons (all baryons) results from the energy of quark/gluon interactions. Mass is therefore the result of process. Is the outcome of that process, mass itself, also a process? The values of the constants cannot be processes and yet they are not arbitrary either. If any of them varied by much there would be no cosmos, or at least not one within which we could evolve.

An ontology that includes both processes and substances is more complex than an ontology having only one or the other. But as Einstein famously noted “A theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler”. I am quite willing to accept (along I believe with Unger and Smolin) that every substance in the universe emerged from process at some point in history beginning with the big bang. But having emerged it becomes past-fact and thereby perduring, if yet mutable (by process), substance. To assert that every such substance can be (theoretically) traced backwards in history to its emergence from process might be true. But having emerged it is substance now.

Cigar Review: Island Jim #2

This cigar, the “Island Jim #2” by Oscar is a 6.5″x50 Torpedo. Or it would be a torpedo if not for the black-wrapped open “pencil tip” of a head that, along with the artwork on the band (a portrait of Jim himself) makes this cigar distinct. There is no information on the composition of the tobacco in the blend or the binder/wrapper. This review from Stogiepress says that’s deliberate. The cold smell is sweet, light manure, hay, and barnyard. The head is open, the cigar can be smoked without cutting, but the draw is very very tight. If you cut the head as you would a normal torpedo the draw gets lighter.

On the other end, the cigar has a shaggy cut foot. I like shag cuts, they light really easily. No need to toast the foot, the shag is self toasting. A soft light is best. The shag lights easily and then lights the cigar itself at just the right temperature. Construction is great. The cigar looks rough, some prominant veins, a few lumps, but the pack is firm all the way around and the cold draw is right in the middle between too easy and too difficult for me. Given the rough look I expected some problems smoking, but the burn stayed even all the way down with one minor correction needed in the second half. Draw stayed even all the way along too. Good smoke output, nice, thick, creamy. This is a rough looking cigar on the outside, but very well constructed on the inside!

On lighting and letting it get into itself, you notice just a little pepper, a sweet woodiness, some leather, and maybe some grass. About one inch in flowers flit in and out along with some hay, brown sugar, and cedar. Later in the first half I sense some minty-chocolate which hangs around for a while. Roasted nut comes in in the second half and all these flavor layers are really good as I get to the last third of the cigar. They are not very deep flavors, but they do present themselves. For a 50 ring-gage stick it’s burning really well. Slow and even. I am an hour in as I cross the two inch line and at this point the flavors begin to fade back slowly leaving only the pepper as I get to the last inch. I let it go here.

Overall very nice, a solid medium-strength cigar with complex flavors although none really punch their way out. Smoked about an hour and twenty minutes to the last inch. Not bad. I got these on a deal at Rodrigo Cigars so they were under $5, and they are very good for that! They compare well with other good sticks in the $5-$6 range, but the vitola is larger than I like. I’m glad I tried them though. Those of you who favor bigger vitolas should certainly give them a go. I do recommend you get on Rodrigo’s mailing list (see link above). He carries only a few lines including his own shop-brand. He doesn’t send out many emails but there are often generous discounts and free samplers in his deals. Definitely worth checking out.

I’m pairing this stick with a Mocambo 20 year rum I’ve reviewed before.

Smoke hardy BOTLs & SOTLs

Cigar Review: Carnage by Nestor Plasencia

The Carnage is a new cigar from Nestor Plasencia. It is also an exclusive at famous smoke! The price is certainly good, about $3.75 and that’s without any of Famous Smoke’s common discounts. I have a mixed relationship with Plasencia cigars — counting those made at his factories like Rocky Patel. None make my top 10 list, but a few are decent, the Obsidian (Padilla), Casa Magna (might be in my top 10 at a lower price), and the 5 Vegas “Cask Strength” are examples. So Nestor set out to make a really good yet really inexpensive cigar in a deal likely opened by Famous Smoke. Not only inexpensive, Famous must have asked for something strong because this cigar will give you a buzz!

The cigar I’m reviewing was the first of a fresh batch so pretty much right off the truck. All the reviews rave about it especially for the price. A few are linked below. I have the Robusto, a classic 5″x54. There are 3 other vitolas. 7×50, 6×60, and 6×52.

Filler: Nicaraguan Seco, Viso, Ligero
Binder: Honduran Connecticut
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano

My construction grade is “A” (at least for my sample of 1). The cigar is smoothly wrapped with small lump or two here and there. It’s decently capped, evenly packed, but not dense. It isn’t a heavy cigar, but it isn’t a lightweight either. There are seams that you can see because the wrapper is a light brown and they show up, but they all look good and there are but tiny veins. Wrapper has a nice sheen to it, looks healthy and a color I’ve come to know as a “Colorado”. Straight cut was fine, draw perfect for me just a little resistance. Cold aroma had manure, hay, barnyard, and leather. Cold draw salt and cedar. A very good start.

I paired this cigar with black tea because I’d heard about its strength. I didn’t want rum to add alcohol to a first crack at a strong cigar. Strong cigars rarely make me ill, but it has happened, and I still get to a “too much of a good thing” point now and then.

When you light the cigar you can feel its strength almost immediately. A quarter inch in and I could feel a buzz. Nestor succeeded in giving this one strength. Smoke output is excellent, thick and creamy. This is a very peppery cigar and that starts right away but strangely it waits to a sort of finishing flavor. You take a puff, retrohale, pretty smooth, but 5 seconds later the pepper comes up on you mouth and nose with a little hint of brown sugar behind it. The pepper stays with the cigar all the way to the end and gets stronger and more “up front” as you smoke. By the last inch it’s pretty much all pepper. Coincidence that I recently reviewed another peppery cigar the Asylum Lobotomy, but in that one, the pepper mingled with lots of other flavors. In the Carnage, the pepper starts out underneath flavors of leather, burning oak and some earthy barnyard but moves forward as the cigar smokes. I didn’t sense any fruit in it as this reviewer did, and the flavors were pretty subtle.

Basically the flavors were ok, but light and they didn’t change much throughout the cigar. A little mint came in and out from time to time and perhaps fresh hay or flowers made an appearance. At their strongest near the end of the first third, flavors faded more into the background as the pepper came forward in the second half. I can usually smoke a flavorful cigar down to a half inch at least, but this one I had to let go at one inch. There was still a little sweetness in the retrohale, but mostly there was pepper. The burn line stayed even all the way down and the cigar smoked slowly and evenly for an hour and ten. It would have gone another ten easily if the pepper hadn’t already trashed my palate. The strength stayed with it as well. I felt pleasantly buzzed all along this cigar but it never got overwhelming. I smoked it slowly and I didn’t take it past the last inch. When a cigar does get me, it’s usually in that last inch!

It is possible that more flavor will emerge with a little rest, and it might be great in a few months, who knows? I’ll keep trying them though. Meanwhile this is by far the strongest cigar I’ve ever smoked for $3.75 and construction was great so I’m not complaining. A great cigar? Probably no, but a very good cigar for the price! I look forward to seeing how these do with a little time.

Here are two other reviews, one from Tiny Tim and one from the Stogie Guys. Smoke hardy my BOTL & SOTL!

Cigar Review: Room 101 Namakubi Ecuador

Namakubi Ecuador in the small petit corona is at this time my single favorite cigar. I’ve smoked three vitolas of the same blend. The one smoked here is the largest “toro sized” perfecto at 6.5″x52 in the middle. The one I’m smoking today is the last of a box of 10 now about 18 months old. It’s taken me that long to go through 10 as these things smoke slowly for 2.5 hours! I like the little petit corona (4″x42) much better. The flavors in the corona are sweeter and smoking for 45-55 minutes I can get all the way to the nub without washing out my palate. The little one is called the “Papi Chulo” which, I am told, in Spanish is a kind of slang for a “daddy’s girl” if you know what I mean! The picture has images of both.

Wrapper: Ecuador Habano
Binder: Honduran Corojo (the binder on the papi chulo is said to be a proprietary “Generoso”)
Filler: Honduran and Dominican Vuelta Abajo

The wrapper and binder in particular come from the OSOK. There is supposed to be a “regular” Namakubi blend, same filler but with a different binder perhaps. A quick google search doesn’t turn up anything definitively different about it.

The wrapper on the perfecto (there are 3 perfecto sizes. I’m smoking the largest one today, but I’ve had both of the smaller as well) is a dark brown color. The corona is a little less dark but this is probably only box variation.

Construction of the parejo is superb. The cigar is heavy and well packed, but the draw, is good. A little tigher than I like, but only a little. The draw on the little corona is always perfect but the wrapper and cap can be a little rough as you can see in the second picture. Both cigars produce lots of smoke, very creamy, earth, hay, barnyard, leather. Occasionally roasted cashew and other sweet burning wood flavors come in and out. As I mentioned earlier, the parejo was a 2.5 hour cigar and by the time hour two rolled around my palate was somewhat dulled to it. But it never completely lost its nuttiness on the retrohale. I didn’t find a lot of pepper here. A little, but subdued all the way along the stick. These do keep flavors down to the end they just weren’t as strong to my palate at that point. That’s one of the reasons I like the papi chulo better. Maybe the bigger wrapper/filler ratio makes it even sweeter and the flavors stick around to the last 1/4 inch while you can still taste it.

But I have to say the perfecto smoked evenly all the way down. These are a pleasure to smoke. The perfectos go for $7 to about $9 depending on the size while the papi chulo go for $6 each. That is a stretch for me in a petit corona, but how can I be without my favorite cigar?

Ruminations

"And a woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke" Kipling. "The Betrothed"