Blind Cigar #11 from Brooks at Smoking Stogie

So I am finally off my hiatus. I had my surgery last week and while under the knife they found a second hernia all the way at the top of my abdomen. 9 incisions later, I was sent home. I’m still recovering but I finally felt well enough to smoke so I headed outside to finish off the last cigar in the set in my Blind cigars sent over to me from Brooks, at Smoking Stogie. Again, check them out. Some of the best reviews on the net!

Prelight: The obvious story in this cigar is the shape. You don’t come across so large, extended pyramids too often. The cigar starts with a slightly box-pressed style foot which slowly tapers into a nice, small, round, double cap. The wrapper is a bit rough looking, but the construction is dead on.  The wrapper is a nice, deep, medium brown with lots of darker spots where the wrapper has texture. It’s not the heaviest cigar, but the off-balance nature of the vitola makes it a bit uncomfortable to hold. It keeps wanting to tip forward. All together the cigar is slightly mushy, but there isn’t any stand-out soft spots.

The wrapper gives off a very slight barnyard style aroma with small hints of spice. The foot smell ridiculously good with just a ton of spice, and a really clean tobacco smell.  The foot really had a curious scent to it.  The cigar cut clean and easy using my double bladed Palio cutter. Wow, this thing has a really strange cold draw. It’s like citrus, and spice, mixed motor oil? No joke. Hopefully that oil type flavor doesn’t come through once the cigar is actually lit up.

First Smoke: The cigar lit up with ease using my triple flame butane torch. Right off the bat the cigar starts off with a very burnt, oil type flavor. It tastes a lot like extremely charred chicken skin or something. Underneath that is a really mossy, dirt type flavor with just a bit of that badass spice I got in the prelight coming through. I really hope that some of these flavors start dropping off as I get deeper into the cigar. The draw on this cigar is perfect. Each little puff gives me tons of thick smoke. The burnline is slightly wavy, burning deeper on one side of the cigar than the other, but nothing too concerning. The ash is nicely compacted and bright grey with some deep, darker grey stripes. They almost look life fish gills in the ash. The ash held on for almost and inch and a half before giving way.

Halfway There: The oil/burnt flavors are finally beginning to subside a little bit. The mossy flavors are still there though and finally there is a bit more breathing room for the excellent spice notes this cigar carries. Hints of citrus, clove, and cinnamon make up the underlying flavors on this cigar, and if they were stronger, and the oil/burnt flavor wasn’t masking all the potential, this cigar would be dynamite.  Just as I wrote that, this really crappy, minty, grassy flavor came in. It tastes how I would imagine rotten grass would taste. This cigar is all over the place.  The retrohale is awesome though. It basically primes with all the cedar and spice flavors that I wish this cigar would show more of.

Finish:  The Burnt flavors are just about gone at this point, but the mossy flavors are still so strong they are masking anything else that really could have enhanced this cigar. The cedar and awesome spice was there the whole time, but never reached it’s prime which is really sad. The cigar took only about an hour to take down, burning a lot faster then I though it would. Despite the speed of the burn there really wasn’t any harshness, even into the final inch. The cigar remained mild/medium all the way producing only the slightest hints of nicotine. The burnline was a bit wild the entire time, but I never had to relight or touch up the cigar.

Overview: I think my thoughts on this cigar were pretty obvious. The potential for a good cigar was there, it was just masked by so much bad taste that it never got it’s chance to shine. The starting of this cigar was bad, but it progressively got better, but not to a point where I would say this is a cigar I would smoke again.

What did I think it was: This is yet another cigar that could go both ways. It could be a Dominican/Ecuadorian/Honduran style cigar, or another Cuban. The call is tough. The wrapper made me believe that it wasn’t Cuban, while the tart flavors, and ash make me think it was. So I’ll split my guesses. My first guess would be some sort of AVO/Davidoff medley. Simply being as they are one of the only cigars that I get such a strong moss flavor from. I don’t know what it is, but they seem to be the kinds of dirt. Second guess? Maybe a Hoya de Monterrey Cuban. It had the really mild and one dimensional flavors that I have picked up in the brand before.

And the Reveal: A Padron Anniversary 1964 Piramide circa 1999. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. I smoke the hell out of 1964 and love the hell out of them. This does explain that awesome spice and cedar that was buried underneath. Usually that’s the main flavors in the 1964, but age didn’t do this cigar well. This also shows just how much age can change a cigar experience. Brooks even made the comment that he didn’t think these cigars aged well and recommended smoking them within 3 years. I’m glad I’m not the only one.