First Remix: AF Anejo wrapper on a Tat J21
Prelight - The cigar was rewrapped a year ago. The scent has changed dramatically from when I rolled it and smoke it fresh. It has gone from sour milk to more of a sweet milk chocolate aroma. I'm looking forward to revisiting this one.
Smoking Experience - Lots of dry cocoa right from the first puff. Black pepper coats the tongue. Perfect draw for me. Nice tight ash and the burn line was surprisingly good. Most of my rerolls have not burned very straight and required a lot of touch ups. Moving into the first inch the cigar has been very one dimensional. Tons of bitter dark chocolate. The flavors are a muted and it was a bit flat. Retrohaling offers some mild spice but without doing so leaves the cigar lacking in complexity. Towards the 2nd half and on, some sweet hay comes through. The smoke is light and the strength medium. It was not what I was expecting. I would have thought the cigars combined would have been more of a powerhouse. Overall, the cigar was decent. If I had to put a number to it I would say it was a 86. Smoking it makes me wish it did one thing really well. Like an overwhelming amount of creaminess or interesting spice. It offered neither. I've had more luck with the Anejo wrapper on other cigars. On the Opus PL it was quite good. It was knock me on my ass strong but at least it had a personality. Hopefully the next cigar in the lineup will have a more favorable review.
2nd Remix: Cojonu CBL on J21
I recently separated my NCs from my CCS so I could adjust the RH for both. Before I was running at about 62% RH for both and noticed that my NCs were not smoking the same as I remembered (For the worse). Now I have been running my CCs at 62% and my NCs at about 66%. The flavors from my NCs have been coming back around. On to the review...
The wrapper on the Cojonu CBL is just beautiful. You can tell this is the best CBL Tatuaje uses. I have used a lot of CBLs off of the My Father line of cigars and this one has the least amount of flaws and the color was a beautiful shade of a Snikers bar. The smell of it wrapper reminds me of chocolate covered raisins.
Right off the bat the cigar gave off a wonderful sweet chocolate and roasted nut flavor. I'm surprised by the lack of spice and pepper. The standard J21 was more in your face and this one tasted like it was tamed by the CBL. A faint sour note popped up for the 1st inch that I wished it would have disappeared a lot sooner. After the 1st inch the sour note disappears completely and it is replaces with a nice numbing red pepper spice on the finish. The great flavors keep building up and by the halfway mark it was hitting on all cylinders. The sweetness, spice, chocolate melded together perfectly and it provided a hint of mint chocolate right at the end of each exhale. When it was "ON" this cigar reminded me so much of the Pork Tenderloin. I ran off to grab my wife in my excitement because in my mind I really thought smoking this cigar was pure happiness. I shared my first Pork Tenderloin with her when we went on vacation in Spain and she agreed, it's as close as I've got to the flavors of the P.T. She then took the cigar away from me and it was the end of my wonderful smoking experience. She did look quite lovely smoking while the sun was setting with a glass of Jefferson Whiskey in her other hand...
