All right here we go; Was gonna start with my old buddy the A-Crop, but
@Opie talked me into Preacher's revenge right out of the gate.
Psalm 22:19 seems appropriate. .I ain't skeered, but every little bit helps
Talking this out of the ziplock I'm immediately hit with Oregano again. My Mother-In-Law is convinced that oregano tea is a cure all for colds,flu, etc. Every time one of the kids gets sick she comes over and brews up a batch of the horrible stuff. She used to just use oregano leaves, but the last couple of years she's added oregano oil to make it “better” and this thing smells just like it.
Inspecting it a little closer I also pick up some slight mint and/or a bit of eucalyptus from the foot.
Never mind the above image. I was just trying something...
Anyway, back to the story:
I really didn't mean to, but I dropped this thing twice (onto concrete) on the way out, but looking at it there's no damage at all. Let me try that with a $10 cigar though, and it'd explode. Something to be said for cheap and tough.
Lighting up, the first taste I'm getting is soap. Not overwhelming, but definitely there. The oregano makes itself known in the background after a few puffs, mixing with the soap into a sort of unpleasant Italian bathroom-sanitizer sort of combination.
Immediately I shared with Bob. He was overjoyed with my latest adventure, as always. Just look at how happy he is:
As I'm puffing away at this beast, the same two flavors keep building. No tobacco or cedar (or mint), just soap and oregano. The overall effect makes me feel like I just licked a kitchen sink after a chef named Luigi washed his hands with that pink liquid soap you find in old gas station bathrooms.
I poured a bit of Wild Turkey to pair with this baby, but am holding off for now. Trying to get what flavor I can from the cigar before imbibing.
No strong in-your-face flavors here. Everything is sort of an aftertaste, but one that keeps building. There's less and less “down-time” between puffs. The aftertaste is becoming a solid layer of soapy Italian spices.
The smoke is still putting off a slight aroma of mint, but not tasting it at all.
Oregano and other Italian spices with a slightly bitter oily taste...with a minty smell. The effect is off-putting, because there's a complete disconnect between aroma / taste.
The soap is building up in layers. No longer an aftertaste, it's now ever-present
Thanks Tim. You're a swell guy.
More and more bitter, sort of a rancid/spoiled vibe that keeps pace with the soap.
Another way of saying this, is that it's tasting like GLORY!
... after glory got dragged across the kitchen floor of an Olive garden.
Still sticking with it, I'm trying to imagine what the Macanudo underneath all this glory tastes like.
There's zero chance of that though... I think it'd be like trying to taste a rice cake underneath a coating of moldy cheese. There's no chance; the cigar is simply lost in whatever it was infused with.
The aftertaste build up has shifted/morphed/transfigured itself and coated my mouth with a "dirty sock" sorta taste. So oregano tea, steeped in dirty, soapy sock-water is the result.
Interestingly, I do get some very slight pepper and cedar on retro.
After retrohaling, I consulted my olfactory elves to see what their take is: Turns out they have contacted their HR department and filed a grievance. I won't relate the whole thing, but it begins:
“Let it be known that our employer is a masochistic a-hole. That hereafter and forthwith this dude can go jump in a lake full of elderly piranha, who will slowly gum him to death. It is our position that he can perform auto-fellatio with a mouthful of fire ants while angry bees fly up his nose. We firmly demand he suck rotten eggs out of the ass-end of a sick hippopotamus while angry children beat him with nettles...”
I stopped reading, because at that point they just got carried away.
Seeing that my elves had abandoned me, I turned to ask Bob if he'd like another puff.
Turns out he wasn't as enthused about DRP 2019 as I was. I tried to get him to come back, but when asked Bob yelled at me in Javalinese. He spoke really fast, but what I managed to get was something about “me nibbling upon the end of his manhood” before trailing off in a barrage of unintelligible aspersions upon my boil afflicted ancestors and making wild threats, most of which involved physically improbable and morally questionable acts I should perform with diseased animals and elderly male porn stars.
Told him I'd consider his offer
Not sure if it's of any importance, but when I came outside there were a couple of flies lazily circling the area. They are gone now. Perhaps dead.
FYI, the band does not help the taste.
Interestingly though, doesn't really change the flavor much.
Well into the last third I got sudden slap in the face of bitter / hot / acrid smoke
I decided it was a good time for the Wild Turkey, and was rewarded with butterscotch-y, caramel-y, sugary salvation. No dram of Weller or Stagg ever tasted as good as that WT just tasted folks. It was rapturous.
Down to the wire, it's getting hot.
For the first time I got a little eucalyptus, along with bitter Italian oils, and a bit of cardboard.
What's funny, is even after two drops and smoking right off the mail truck, the burn has been completely flawless:
No relights, no touch-ups
Great draw.
Go figure.
At this point I feel like I'm smoking something designed to punish addicts and get them to stop. Tim has come up with a stop-smoking miracle that schools everywhere might love him for, and the tobacco lobby will pay him to bury.
At the end, for the first time I'm sort of tasting the mint that I've smelled all along. Combined with the heat, and the Eucalyptus, it's giving me a tingling sensation; sort of makes me feel like a frisky real-estate agent showing
@Pennywise827 around a condo. Kinda exciting, really.
Done.
Hot and harsh at the end. Thoroughly awful and bad in ways that should buy one a few years in purgatory.
You did good @preacher. This was glorious.