601 La Bomba Sake Bomb Quick Draw

601 La Bomba Sake Bomb is the newest edition to the ever popular La Bomba line. I apologized by not getting a review up last week and slacking it with a quick draw this week, I caught a real bad cold from the wife and haven’t had too much to smoke lately. The Sake Bomb is the 7th La Bomba release by Espinosa Premium Cigar Company. The other six releases are the Atom (5.5 x 46), the Napalm (5 x 52), the Nuclear (6 x 50), the Atomic (6 x 60), the F-Bomb (7 x 70) and the Warhead (6.5 x 54). The Sake Bomb is a 4.5 x 42 corona that will be released mid-May 2014. The blend carries the same Nicaraguan Habano wrapper and Nicaraguan fillers are the other La Bomba releases (with the exception of the warhead). The Sake Bomb will be manufactured a the La Zona factory in Nicaragua, comes in boxes of 10 running $6.75 a stick and will be a regular production release. The Espinosa team was kind enough to send a few pre-release samples of these our way to test drive. I only smoked a few, so I kept the pairing simple with a glass of water as to not upset the flavor profile.

Size: 4.5 x 42
Wrapper:  Nicaraguan Habano
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Body:  Full
Strength: Full
Price: $6.75
Paring: Water

Prelight: the 601 La Bomba Sake Bomb is an absolutely beautiful stick. The cigar starts out with a very thick, consistently medium brown wrapper. The wrapper carries an incredible amount of tooth and oil. It almost looks like someone too a layer of clear coat to this thing. The wrapper sports a few medium, webby veins and a round triple cap. Keeping with the bomb theme the cap actually has a small piece of tobacco that is carefully laid about halfway down the cigar to give it a fuse-like appearance. The Sake Bomb is polished off with the standard yellow 601 La Bomba foot band.

Flavors: One word sums up the majority of this cigar’s flavor profile. Pepper. The black pepper was dominant from the first puff to the last. In all the other formats the pepper was dominant, but took a back seat at some point in the experience. With the Sake Bomb, the pepper really never stood down. It was a bit difficult to pick up the underlying flavors but I was able to pull out some cedar, spice, and even this interesting pine that would pop in and out. I just really wish the pepper wasn’t as so potent.

Burn/Draw: The 601 La Bomba Sake Bomb actually burnt a bit crooked as it started off. The more I smoked it, the more waves started to form. Even with these waves I never once had to touch up or relight any of the samples I smoked. Just keep in mind that the burn can be a bit of a wild one. The draw was absolutely beautiful. One reason I like coronas so much is the draw is very plentiful and each little puff pumped out very thick smoke. Along with the smoked from the draw, the stationary smoke from this cigar was ridiculous. You can see the oil just melt off the wrapper off this cigar producing so much lingering smoke.

Thoughts: I am a big fan of the La Bomba line and even a bigger fan of corona sizes so this should be an easy call. Not so fast. It’s been said time and time again that not all blends translate well in different sizes due to the amount of each tobacco contained in the formats and the Sake Bomb is a perfect example of this. While I did enjoy the cigar, the black pepper was just too much for me and there wasn’t another flavor in the mixture that wanted to take over the reigns during the experience. I am no expert, but I would only imagine that it would be due to the corona format’s restrictions on the blend as any of the other sizes I smoked didn’t encounter similar characteristics. That being said, if you are a pepper fiend, then this cigar is a must have in your rotation. If you aren’t you may want to stay away from this. And if you are unsure where you fall and you are a fan of the La Bomba line or any of the 601 blends in general this cigar is definitely worth a try especially at the modest price point.