So, it appears that I'll be the first one to get a review up. I must admit, I'm really excited about this little experiment and I want to say thanks again to Bob for putting this on!
Anyway, on to the review.
Cigar #1 is a Lancero that appears to measure in at 7x38. Maybe a tad longer than 7", but it was definitely thinner than the Holy Lance that I briefly held it next to. It isn't the most attractive stick I've ever seen, but the smell is fantastic. The cigar is a solid brown with a caramel tint to it. It has some noticeable veins and the wrapper is toothy. Not ugly by any means, but it's not that typical silky beauty that we (or I at least) often look for. It did have a marvelous little pigtail on top that I rather enjoyed. The aroma, as I mentioned, was quite powerful. I had a difficult time nailing down exactly what I was smelling, but it had a spicy smell mixed with an earthy sweetness.
I cut the cigar with my Xikar X8 and tried the draw, which was quite tight, but did offer up a taste of very sweet leather. I noticed that there was one stem in it that was staring me down, but I didn't have any good way to grip it and didn't want to risk damaging the cigar, so I left it and lit up with a Ronson Jetlight.
I tried to get a decent picture of the toothiness.
The cigar lit easily and that first draw produced more smoke than I had anticipated it would. That first puff was also filled with a good amount of spice, again, more than I had expected it would. It wasn't a black pepper type of spice, but something more akin to cayenne, which was more subtle and left a long lingering tingle in the back of my throat. It was a pleasant taste, but it did overwhelm anything else in there at first. It didn't take long, however, for the spice to fade away. Gradually, a sweet note crept in along with earthiness and hay. It seems that this first third took a while to burn, but that may be in part because of the tight draw.
The second third didn't start off too much different from the first. It eased its way into a different flavor profile. something I found interesting about this cigar was that the flavors didn't just come and go. They were introduced slowly and left with a long goodbye.
When the flavors did start to change, they were milder. The hay remained and was joined by a nuttiness and a creaminess that was quite pleasant. There were some underlying sweet notes, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. The spice has never truly gone away. It's definitely in the background here, but it still leaves that tingling sensation.
The construction up to this point had been pretty great, but shortly after the start of the second third I had it almost go out and I ended up purging it and making sure that it was going strong again.
The final 3rd started off quite relatively mildly after doing my second purge and getting the cigar going again. I attribute this one to just not being very mindful for a moment. This cigar needed to be puffed slightly faster than I was used to in order to keep it going strong.
The spice has picked up a little bit again. Every time I got a little through the nose I noticed an increase in a heavy earthy/meaty flavor. A nice, heavy coffee flavor shows up for the last bit of this cigar. It was very enjoyable and all of a sudden very full of both flavor and power. It took me off guard.
Final thoughts:
I really enjoyed this cigar, but holy smokes did it come back and bite me in the rear. I didn't see it coming. This smoke hit me harder than anything I've smoked in a while. It left me with the spins and I sweat a bit because of it. Maybe it's because I've not had much chance to smoke lately or because I hadn't eaten anything yet that day since I had to rush off to work and never got a lunch break, but it definitely made me into a little girl for a while.
My word of advice to my other brothers is to at least make sure you've eaten something beforehand. It's quite possible that I'm just being a wuss, but I did enjoy this cigar immensely.
The lancero vitola is a relatively new thing for me. So far, I've never had one that came close to being as strong as this. If I was to guess, I think that this was a La Flor Dominicana, though I'm not sure line exactly. LFD isn't a huge presence in my humidor, but I do have their cabinet series, and double ligero, and an occasional Reserva Especial. I don't believe it was any of these. If someone was to make me guess, I would say that I think it could be an Air Bender, but I've never tried that line and only heard about its strength. It had some similarities I thought with the Double Ligeros that I've smoked, but it wasn't the same. My guess is that this probably has Dominican and Nicaraguan leaves in it.
Price point:
I would happily pay for this cigar. It's not the type of stick I generally reach for in my humi, but if this was $5 or less, I would probably have a constant little collection of them in there. Most likely pick them up as 5ers. If it was marketed at around $7 I'd pick them up occasionally when I wanted something different to smoke.
Personally, I doubt I would make a box purchase of these. While I thought that this cigar was delicious and I truly enjoyed it, it's not something I would crave everyday and my collection is still small enough that any box purchase I make is something I know I'm going to love smoking every single time I reach in there.
I just want to send my gratitude out to hdroadglide again! This is very much fun and I've loved the stick I've had so far.
