Here's Everyone's favorite "Ultra premium" cigar maker
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I got 5 of these Torpedoes courtesy of my purchase of Cigars International's, "Ultimate Brown bag sampler." It was advertised as a 50 cigar sampler but it was more like 40 regular cigars plus 5 petite coronas (4 x 38) and 5 cigarillos. It was basically 5 of the regular "brown bag samplers for like $69.99. I can't find the sampler at CI anymore so it seems they ran out of ultra premiums like the Bahia signatures/icon, King havano, Romeo y Julieta Viejo, Signature collection vintage 2005 maduro, A. Turrent, etc. They also threw in 5 Cohiba red dot robustos to put it over the top.
Well enough with the history and on to the star of the show, The Gurkha Status in Maduro.
Here's it out of the Cellophane and cut:
Here's it light up and the fragile wrapper partially self destructing:
In all seriousness the Gurkha Status is really a great looking cigar and the constructions is spot on even when its overfilled with tobacco. The draw is slightly restricted due to how densely packed the cigar is. The only downside is how fragile the wrapper is. Word of warning do not remove the bands until you absolutely have to because the wrapper is prone to self destructing.
The flavors are super consistent and quite mellow. Its basically a low medium bodied cigar with just a hint of nicotine. Right off the bat i got some wood, earth, dried fruit, with just a hint of sweetness and cream.
After about 15 minutes the flavors reach their climax with leather and a little coffee joining the predominate flavors of earth and wood. The dried fruit, cream, and sweetness are just ghost of themselves but will occasionally resurface every now and then. The body and strength remain slightly above mild. The finish is moderately long but clean for the most part. The flavors are pretty mellow and you should avoid strong beverages.
45 minutes later its basically leather, earth, wood, with light coffee in the background (the flavors are quite nice but are on the delicate side). The cream and sweetness completely disappear while the dried fruit flavor is the only background flavor that makes a reappearance every now and then. I'm quite bored to death and this cigar is so densely packed that you can actually smoke this for 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Its a nice enough cigar but quite frankly 1 hour and 15 minutes is all i can take of the same flavor. Basically a mild-medium cigar that is basically a a delicate combination of leather, earth, and wood that last way too long. Reminds me of a Oliva G Maduro but smoother and much more subtle. btw, i dislike the Oliva G since it bores me to death within 25 minutes. The Gurkha Status on the other hand i can actually smoke for an hour before i want to blow my brains out.
The Ghurka Status is a great newbie cigar since the flavors are nice and mellow while there is zero risk of it overwhelming them. The construction is quite good but the wrapper is complete trash since its way too delicate. Think of it as a slightly more flavorful Romeo y Julieta.
Here's the burn progression with the wrapper disintegrating up until it hits the band where it somehow manages to turn things around and stop self destructing. The wrapper basically self destructing interestingly enough has no negative impact on the cigars burn or flavor profile.
.I got 5 of these Torpedoes courtesy of my purchase of Cigars International's, "Ultimate Brown bag sampler." It was advertised as a 50 cigar sampler but it was more like 40 regular cigars plus 5 petite coronas (4 x 38) and 5 cigarillos. It was basically 5 of the regular "brown bag samplers for like $69.99. I can't find the sampler at CI anymore so it seems they ran out of ultra premiums like the Bahia signatures/icon, King havano, Romeo y Julieta Viejo, Signature collection vintage 2005 maduro, A. Turrent, etc. They also threw in 5 Cohiba red dot robustos to put it over the top
.Well enough with the history and on to the star of the show, The Gurkha Status in Maduro.
Here's it out of the Cellophane and cut:
Here's it light up and the fragile wrapper partially self destructing:
In all seriousness the Gurkha Status is really a great looking cigar and the constructions is spot on even when its overfilled with tobacco. The draw is slightly restricted due to how densely packed the cigar is. The only downside is how fragile the wrapper is. Word of warning do not remove the bands until you absolutely have to because the wrapper is prone to self destructing.
The flavors are super consistent and quite mellow. Its basically a low medium bodied cigar with just a hint of nicotine. Right off the bat i got some wood, earth, dried fruit, with just a hint of sweetness and cream.
After about 15 minutes the flavors reach their climax with leather and a little coffee joining the predominate flavors of earth and wood. The dried fruit, cream, and sweetness are just ghost of themselves but will occasionally resurface every now and then. The body and strength remain slightly above mild. The finish is moderately long but clean for the most part. The flavors are pretty mellow and you should avoid strong beverages.
45 minutes later its basically leather, earth, wood, with light coffee in the background (the flavors are quite nice but are on the delicate side). The cream and sweetness completely disappear while the dried fruit flavor is the only background flavor that makes a reappearance every now and then. I'm quite bored to death and this cigar is so densely packed that you can actually smoke this for 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Its a nice enough cigar but quite frankly 1 hour and 15 minutes is all i can take of the same flavor. Basically a mild-medium cigar that is basically a a delicate combination of leather, earth, and wood that last way too long. Reminds me of a Oliva G Maduro but smoother and much more subtle. btw, i dislike the Oliva G since it bores me to death within 25 minutes. The Gurkha Status on the other hand i can actually smoke for an hour before i want to blow my brains out.
The Ghurka Status is a great newbie cigar since the flavors are nice and mellow while there is zero risk of it overwhelming them. The construction is quite good but the wrapper is complete trash since its way too delicate. Think of it as a slightly more flavorful Romeo y Julieta.
Here's the burn progression with the wrapper disintegrating up until it hits the band where it somehow manages to turn things around and stop self destructing. The wrapper basically self destructing interestingly enough has no negative impact on the cigars burn or flavor profile.
and AND they manage to find 25 year old tobacco for their SUPER PREMIUM cigars!