Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan

By Tony Casas | October 31, 2024

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone stays safe and gets all the treats on their list! I am celebrating by bringing you all a review of Alec Bradley’s Black Market Flithy Ghooligan. Fitting innit?

The Good Stuff:

It’s spooky season and we are celebrating by bringing you Alec Bradley’s latest twist on their Black Market Fitlhy Hooligan cigar, the Fithly Ghooligan. While the overall blend remains the same, the Ghooligan replaces the candela portion of it’s barber-pole wrapper with a Connecticut Broafleaf tobacco. Alongside the twitsed Ecuadorian Habano wrapper the cigar features an Indonesian binder and fillers from Nicargua and the Dominican Repuclic. The cigar is offered in a single 6 x 50 format which comes packaged in boxes of 24 running $14 per cigar.

• Size: 6 x 50
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano / Connecticut Broadleaf
• Binder: Indonesian
• Filler: Nicaraguan and Dominican
• Body: Medium
• Strength: Medium
• Price: $14

Prelight:

Let’s just get it out of the way, The Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan is a gorgeous cigar. The barber-pole is done excellently. The cigar features a very dark sliver of wrapper which is incredibly consistent in color and very dark brown. The alternate sliver is a medium brown with an awesome orange sheen to it as the light reflects off it. Both wrappers are very oily while the darker one carries much more grit and tooth and than the lighter one. The beautiful barber-pole design carries through the body of the cigar right up to the cigar’s round, double-wrapped cap. The cigar feels very well packed and has no soft spots at all located anywhere throughout the body. The cigar is polished off with a Halloween-themed white, orange and black band featuring ghosts and the Filthy Ghooligan crest as well as a secondary band with the words “Black Market” inked across the front.

The wrapper on the Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan gives off some very sweet aromas mixed with woodsy scents while the foot of the cigar has some massive earthy/barnyard/tobacco aromas. After clipping the cap the cigar releases mostly sweet raisin and woodsy flavors on the cold draw.

First Third:

I was shocked that the Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan didn’t give off even the slightest of pepper upon lighting it up. What it did offer was loads of opening cedar and musk over lots of earthiness and sweet raisin with lighter notes of espresso and pecan. Despite the cigar being very tightly packed the draw was effortless, kicking out huge clouds of thick white smoke with each puff which dissipated pretty quickly as the cigar released only minor amounts of stationary smoke while it rested in my ashtray The burnline is absolutely razor thin and dead even leaving behind a trail of tightly compacted white ash which held on for an inch before falling into my ashtray.

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan the main flavors are still cedar and musk. While the raisin is still hanging in there but fading a bit an awesome dark chocolate is sneaking in to take its place. I also taste a good amount of pecan and espresso. The retrohale is pretty much just straight wood so I don’t find myself doing it too often. The cigar is burning flawlessly and I close out the second third with nothing in terms of nicotine.

Finish:

The sweetness and raisin has now completed dropped out of the flavor profile in the Alec Bradley Black Market Filthy Ghooligan. The overall dry mixture of woodsy flavors over musk, espresso, dark chocolate and pecan make for a great autumn profile. It took me about an hour and a half to take the cigar down to the nub. I experienced no harsness, nor any extended heat. The cigar burned absolutely perfect from start to finish with no extra help needed from my torch.

Overview:

I have actually always enjoyed all of Alec Bradley Black Market releases and I look forward to each new one. The Filthy Hooligan has been high on my list however I may have just found the cigar that tops it. The Filthy Ghooligan brings a more complex, and bolder flavor profile to the line and the flavor profile matches up much more with my personal preference. The cigar offers a lot of flavors, without the cost of having a potent cigar as the strength remained in the medium realm from start to finish. This cigar is a little pricer than other, however I feel it’s worth the price of admission.