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    Hi Everyone, as mentioned in my introduction post, BOTL needs quite a bit of updating, patching and whatever else I might come across. Over time BOTL may be unreachable on occasion as I do migrations or updates, etc. Just be patient - we'll be back! I'll generally try to keep these maintenances until later in the evenings.

rockets or real

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The second stick has a dark wrapper with some long thin veins but nothing too major. It is fairly uniform in color and has a very neutral pre-light smell. I cut it with a Xikar cutter generously provided to me by Headbanger in my newbie trade. I light up using matches and get a very nice initial scent of cinnamon sugar. I get a taste of orange zest, the white part of the zest and tobacco flavors that seem very faint in the background. It continued this way until about halfway through the smoke. The burn is awesome as is the draw.
I then started to pick up a sweetness like processed cocoa and the zest disappeared giving way to a light pepper. The smoke is now much more dense than at the beginning of the smoke. The burn is superb and it only went out because I left it unattended to help some guys who were pushing their car to the shop about a block away from my house.
After catching my breath I relight and the stick all of a sudden gives off a dark roasted coffee flavor to go with the cocoa, pepper, and sweetness. There is a tang that I cannot put my finger on as well. Some of the smoke from the foot gives off a slight smell of Frankensense and Myre.
This stick saved all the flavors for the end of the stick. Now the smoke is coming out of the stick like a chimney and fills my mouth with all the flavors at once. The last thirty minutes were much more flavorful than the beginning. The construction of the stick is awesome. Not once did I have to fix the burn.
Overall, a decent smoke. I would say this stick is somewhere in the 4 to 6 dollar range or at least that's what I hope. I can't pick out who made the stick with my limited experience however I would pick up another one of these at my local to see if it gets better the second time around. I was expecting more consistent flavors throughout but it was still a nice smoke.
 

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Great reviews guys! One thing I might change if I were to do something like this would be to have all the reviews emailed/pm'ed to me to be posted en masse. Reason: to keep others reviews from influencing others.

Love the concept, though!
That's a great point but I'm glad I had the first two reviews of stick 1 to warn me about the kick! If I had made the mistake of not eating prior to smoking that one, things could have gotten ugly!:barf:
I will try to avoid looking at this thread until I am done reviewing the sticks in order to not taint the experiment.
 

hdroadglide

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just let us know which stick and which round. otherwise, go for it.
i was out of bubble wrap and thought you could use some extra paper.........
 
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Sorry for taking a little bit to get this review up. Something went wrong with my SD card and I lost some of the photos I took. :frown: However, I do have most of them ready now, so all is not lost. :)

Anyway to the review. Cigar #2 from batch #1

Pre-light impressions
This is a gorgeous stick. It's large (6x52), dark, oily, dense, and has a little tooth to it. Just wonderful. If this cigar could talk it would look you directly in the eyes and in a deep, soothing voice say "Hello brothers. Look at me, now look at your stash, now back to me, now back to your stash, now back to me. Sadly, your stash isn't me, but if it were wrapped in a thick, oily oscuro wrapper it could look and smell like me"

Which brings me to the scent. I thought this stick smelled great. The wrapper smelled like spiced chocolate to me and I got a slight barnyard scent off of the foot.

There are no soft spots to this cigar at all and the pre-light draw was earthy and sweet, though somewhat faint and tight. Overall first impression is great.





First third

After cutting our mystery stick with my Xikar X8, I put flame to foot with my Jetlight and it took light easily producing tons of smoke. Awesome!... until I got a whiff of the smoke, which was decidedly unpleasant and not something I generally experience with a cigar. It simply smelled like, harsh, acrid smoke. I decided to try a few puffs to see what it tasted like and it tasted like..... smoke with spice.

At this point my heart did sink a bit because this was a rough start, but I held in there and in very short order the smoke smoothed out a lot and I started to taste a good deal of cocoa along with spice. Not sweet, but more of a dark chocolate. I considered it pleasant.

As I moved along through the first third I started picking up on a new flavor that became quite heavy and I found it difficult to put words to. It was a texture as well as flavor. The smoke is extremely thick and heavy and the best description I could come up with is doughy bread along with that underlying cocoa and spice, but that description doesn't fit as well as I'd like.




Second third
The ash held strong all the way through the first third and when it finally did fall I purged it and was rewarded with quite the plume of flame.

The start of the second third didn't bring any significant changes to start, but it is still quite good. Huge clouds of thick chewy smoke, some spice and bitter chocolate, and a slight nutty taste that has started to present itself.

Towards the end of this third I start to get a lot of leather and cinnamon along with a very earthy, meaty flavor and the chocolate has turned into more of a dark coffee flavor. This is what I've been hoping for.

The burn has been fantastic and I tried to get a decent picture of the burn line to show that it's not curving in at all, but burning just as well as anything I've ever smoked.





Final third

That flavor explosion I experienced in the last half has continued on into this. The bready flavor is gone, but the chocolate has returned and is sweeter now. There is a pleasant amount of spice present that is both spicy hot and sweet and blends perfectly with that heavy earthy flavor.

At this point, I'm loving this stick. It's fantastic. Full flavored, but it's not going to kill you with a nic kick. As this cigar comes to a close it's getting a tad hot and the predominant flavors are leather and coffee. I'm able to still nub it pretty decently and without difficulty.




Final thoughts

This smoke scared me a little at first with that initial light, but it turned out to be something I absolutely loved. It was a cigar that asked you firmly to play by it's rules, but it wouldn't force you to. Take your time between puffs to enjoy this smoke and the flavor was nothing short of amazing. Smoke too fast and, while it wouldn't get hot or burn you or mess up the burn line, it would lose a lot of that delicious flavor. I found that this cigar really encouraged me to keep a slow methodical pace with it and it wasn't difficult to do that.

This was a long smoke for me and it lasted for 2 hours and 15 minutes, but I enjoyed it and was in no rush to end it. It was actually a perfect time to sit down, unwind, and write some letters.

I would like to try a few more of these before I bought a box, but I think if that initial scare was just a fluke and that 2nd half flavor showed up a little sooner maybe, I would happily always have a good deal of these in my humidor. If this cigar was $6 I would rush out to buy a box of them. If the price were $10, I would still keep a 5er on hand.

If I were forced to guess what this was, I would want to say that it was a Liga Privada, though I might be crazy for saying that since this smoke was different from the other Ligas I've smoked, but it also had some similarities that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The whole time I was smoking it I kept thinking back to the last Liga I had. In keeping with this, my thought is that this is mainly Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco, but this is a bit of a wild stab.

One thing I loved about this cigar was how easily I was able to produce thick, cloudy smoke rings. Hard to get decent pictures of, but I tried.



And, as always, I love my lake.
 

danthebugman

BoM Nov '10
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If this cigar could talk it would look you directly in the eyes and in a deep, soothing voice say "Hello brothers. Look at me, now look at your stash, now back to me, now back to your stash, now back to me. Sadly, your stash isn't me, but if it were wrapped in a thick, oily oscuro wrapper it could look and smell like me"
Love this ^ :laugh:. Great review too...looks Liga Privadaish to me :dunno:.

Dan
 

hdroadglide

BoM x 2, BoY 2011
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group one is going great. nate is number 4 of the group and will be doing his on a delayed basis, but won't look on here to see what the sticks are. so, the answer to stick 1 group 1, the lancero........... LG lancero by LFD. dominican puro. not cheap as you can imagine!
 
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Great review. I am not part of this, but I think from your description I may know which cigar this is, so I will stay tuned to see if I am correct.
 
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Round 2 - Cigar No. 1






It was incredibly windy today so I retired to my Impala to review the following cigar.

Immediate inspection of Cigar No. 1 left me believing that this particular stogie would fall into the "rocket" category. Large veins run the length of the cigar, it's very firm with a few parts that felt under-filled; and the cigar sported large, green specks throughout the wrapper.





It wasn't until I clipped the bastard and tried out the draw that I was certain that this was in the "rocket" category. There was heavy resistance in the draw. It was like trying to drink a very, very, very thick milkshake. I had to take four or five strong puffs until I got any smoke. The damned thing was better off not smoking -- this mild cigar gave off boring flavors of wood and grass.

After about two inches the draw opened up (slightly), but there was no flavor change; that same boring, mild mixture of wood and grass. To top it all off, due to the need to contantly puff on the cigar, it began to get very hot and mushy behind the cherry. This wound up causing the cigar's boring flavors to become even more shitty by adding a bitterness.





I made it through about 4 inches of the cigar and I had to call it quits. Why you even own these, Bob, I'll never know. You must hand these out to people you hate on the golf course or something.


Prediction: "Rocket"
 
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