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.