CigarMonkel
Alpha Silverback
So today i slept in till about 2:45ish/3 and instantly had a craving for a cigar. I was expecting the weather to be the same as the past 2 days (in the high 40s to mid 50s) and was shot down when i saw mid to high 30's but i figured... meh. So i throw on a pot of coffee to take with me (pete's coffee from CA, we have family so once and a while they send us some and man is it good! a medium bodied with earthy and nutty undertones), grabbed my gear and headed outside!
Pete's Coffee, Xikar Xi cutter, lotus lighter, make shift ashtray (don't tell my mom!), and the Cabaiguan.
he approves but is depressed since he doesn't get one, but i made up for it and gave him a dog treat and yes, i'm still the man!
The prelight draw was just a little above average nothing to complain about but nothing to jump up in join and celebrate about either. The appearance was a nice and smooth and no major veins. It had some tastes that i couldn't put my finger on and at first i was thinking... oh another mild cigar (i had known this was mild and picked it since i just woke up) I took a few sips of my coffee and sat back for a minute just to take in everything around me, kids playing on the playground, the birds and the chimes my parents have that were ringing with the wind. I then decided to toast her up!
As soon as she was lit i tasted a VERY nice smooth and mild peppery taste and what i thought was a little bit of leather? I can't swear on the leather taste since my pallet is still very new to this but either way i was quite pleased. The taboo twist had a BAM in your face of pepper and it was a little too much for my pallet since it was my first peppery encounter. This was a nice change though, very mild and smooth taste. The ash was doing a funny curling up kinda thing but i had no complaints as long as the cigar would prove itself through the rest of the smoke. The burn wasn't even but it was consistent throughout the whole smoke. At times i thought about fixing it up with Mr. Lotus but decided not to and it soon would fix itself but boarderline the edge of even and a little off.
The ash held up for about a little over an inch or so and i was happy about that, it had a darker color to it almost that of a CC. The draw was still the same as the prelight and about halfway through the taste was still the same, so far my only complaint was it was bitting my tongue a bit but that could be due to the coffee, maybe i burnt my tongue just a winsy bit? not too sure.
as you can see just below the wrapper there seems to be a bit of a problem in the making but a quick fix with some quick thinking hopefully will prevent and further damage.
VIOLA! or i hope so at least! everything still the same... not that it is a bad thing! I decided to purge it since it seemed like the taste was fading and some bitterness was coming onto the scene, FIXED! and by now my coffee is about half gone and my dog had ditched me to go inside to the more warm and inviting house. But i was too happy to even doing such a thing, i'm sure if he had what i had he would be out there still too!
some cracks that seemed to be creeping out from under the label started to concern me so i took the label off to investigate... hmm seems to me this could be a problem. And it was... By now some hints of cream started to come into play but would fade in and out between puffs and would leave me wondering if they would come back as if they were teasing me, so i did what any of us would do and puffed on!
BOOM! the wrong kind of boom that is, the wrapper seemed to have exploded on me, not sure if that was due to the heat from the cigar and the cold weather? either way this cigar was too good to be put down so early. The cream had come into play and seemed to have made itself at home right under the peppery taste. Some bitterness was trying to take over and a quick purge fixed that right up. The draw had opened up A LOT, maybe comparable to that of an Ashton VSG which made me just that much more happy with this smoke.
Right about here it started to bite lips and tongue so i slowed down the puffs which seemed to help a little bit but it would soon start to bite even harder. So i figured it was time to put this one down and move on. By now the time of this picture i had completely forgotten i had coffee still! i was so into the smoke everything else had faded out of the picture including how cold my hands where. Only after i had set her down had i realized i had coffee left and my hands were starting to hurt from the cold.
Construction: 8.5/10
Taste: 8.75/10
Draw: 7.5/10
Burn: 7/10
Appearance: 9/10
a new favorite mild smoke of mine and will definitely buy a box or two in the future. a MUST try for ANY smoker from newb to the guru of smokers.
Pete's Coffee, Xikar Xi cutter, lotus lighter, make shift ashtray (don't tell my mom!), and the Cabaiguan.
he approves but is depressed since he doesn't get one, but i made up for it and gave him a dog treat and yes, i'm still the man!
The prelight draw was just a little above average nothing to complain about but nothing to jump up in join and celebrate about either. The appearance was a nice and smooth and no major veins. It had some tastes that i couldn't put my finger on and at first i was thinking... oh another mild cigar (i had known this was mild and picked it since i just woke up) I took a few sips of my coffee and sat back for a minute just to take in everything around me, kids playing on the playground, the birds and the chimes my parents have that were ringing with the wind. I then decided to toast her up!
As soon as she was lit i tasted a VERY nice smooth and mild peppery taste and what i thought was a little bit of leather? I can't swear on the leather taste since my pallet is still very new to this but either way i was quite pleased. The taboo twist had a BAM in your face of pepper and it was a little too much for my pallet since it was my first peppery encounter. This was a nice change though, very mild and smooth taste. The ash was doing a funny curling up kinda thing but i had no complaints as long as the cigar would prove itself through the rest of the smoke. The burn wasn't even but it was consistent throughout the whole smoke. At times i thought about fixing it up with Mr. Lotus but decided not to and it soon would fix itself but boarderline the edge of even and a little off.
The ash held up for about a little over an inch or so and i was happy about that, it had a darker color to it almost that of a CC. The draw was still the same as the prelight and about halfway through the taste was still the same, so far my only complaint was it was bitting my tongue a bit but that could be due to the coffee, maybe i burnt my tongue just a winsy bit? not too sure.
as you can see just below the wrapper there seems to be a bit of a problem in the making but a quick fix with some quick thinking hopefully will prevent and further damage.
VIOLA! or i hope so at least! everything still the same... not that it is a bad thing! I decided to purge it since it seemed like the taste was fading and some bitterness was coming onto the scene, FIXED! and by now my coffee is about half gone and my dog had ditched me to go inside to the more warm and inviting house. But i was too happy to even doing such a thing, i'm sure if he had what i had he would be out there still too!
some cracks that seemed to be creeping out from under the label started to concern me so i took the label off to investigate... hmm seems to me this could be a problem. And it was... By now some hints of cream started to come into play but would fade in and out between puffs and would leave me wondering if they would come back as if they were teasing me, so i did what any of us would do and puffed on!
BOOM! the wrong kind of boom that is, the wrapper seemed to have exploded on me, not sure if that was due to the heat from the cigar and the cold weather? either way this cigar was too good to be put down so early. The cream had come into play and seemed to have made itself at home right under the peppery taste. Some bitterness was trying to take over and a quick purge fixed that right up. The draw had opened up A LOT, maybe comparable to that of an Ashton VSG which made me just that much more happy with this smoke.
Right about here it started to bite lips and tongue so i slowed down the puffs which seemed to help a little bit but it would soon start to bite even harder. So i figured it was time to put this one down and move on. By now the time of this picture i had completely forgotten i had coffee still! i was so into the smoke everything else had faded out of the picture including how cold my hands where. Only after i had set her down had i realized i had coffee left and my hands were starting to hurt from the cold.
Construction: 8.5/10
Taste: 8.75/10
Draw: 7.5/10
Burn: 7/10
Appearance: 9/10
a new favorite mild smoke of mine and will definitely buy a box or two in the future. a MUST try for ANY smoker from newb to the guru of smokers.
