Diesel Hair of the Dog

By Tony Casas | May 20, 2019

Its been a bit since my last review. I apologize for that. Work, family, and a few other issues have kept me pretty busy. Today, I really needed some time out back, relaxing, enjoying this Diesel Hair of the Dog paired with a can of Tombstone’s Imperial Milk Stout beer. 

The Good Stuff:

The Diesel Hair of the Dog is another limited release by AJ Fernandez, produces by General Cigars. This blend is created to offer the smoker a bit of a kick, without overpowering the experience all while delivering a bold amount of flavors. The Diesel Hair of the Dog features an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper over and Ecuadorian sumatran binder and Nicaraguan fillers. Procuded at the Tabacalera AJ Fernandez Cigars de Nicaragua S.A. the cigar is released in a single box-pressed 6 x 54 Toro format and is limited to 5,000 boxes of 10. Each cigar runs around $10 per stick. 

• Size: 6 x 54
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
• Binder: Ecuadorian Sumatran 
• Filler: Nicaraguan
• Body: Medium/Full
• Strength: Medium/Full
• Price: $10
• Pairing: Tombstone Imperial Milk Stout (Imperial Stout 12.5% ABV)

Prelight:

The Diesel Hair of the Dog starts off with a milky-brown/orangish wrapper. Its consistent in color whole showcasing very subtle veins and a good amount of natural webbing in the wrapper leaf. The texture on the wrapper is slightly toothy with a small amount of oils. The wrapper itself feels very dense and hard while the cigar as a whole is wrapped very firm with no soft spots to be found. The Diesel Hair of the Dog features an awesome soft-boxpressed body leading up to it’s triple-wrapped cap. The cigar is polished off with a light brown band with the words “Hair of the Dog” embossed across the front along with the Diesel logo and crest. 

The wrapper on the Diesel Hair of the Dog boasts of sweet cedar and earthiness while the foot of the cigar carries more spice and musk aromas. The cap cut clean and easily using my Xikar XO double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces a whole mess of bold pepper, spice, and sweet cedar over earthy natural tobacco flavors. 

First Third:

The Diesel Hair of the Dog starts off with a huge boost of cayenne pepper which left both my tongue and lips tingling for a good amount of time. After the pepper fades it drops out of the experience completely leaving me with loads of sweet cedar, cashew, caramel, earthiness and musk flavors. The draw is perfect and pumps out thick, white smoke with every little puff while the cigar releases a whole mess of stationary smoke as it rests in my ashtray. I have to give props to the soft-boxpressed format as I love how comfortably it fits in both my hand and mouth. The burn line is pretty thick and carries a few larger waves while leaving behind a tightly compacted trail of black and white ash which held on for about an inch before giving way. 

Second Third:

Into the second third of the Diesel Hair of the Dog and a really interesting gingerbread flavor keeps popping in and out of the mixture. I’d really like it to stick around a bit more as it would help add some much needed complexity to the experience. Outside of that the cigar carries notes of cedar, earthiness and musk at this point. Everything just kinda creamed together. The retrohale helps bring in some of the missing spice so I find myself doing it quite often. The cigar is burning beautifully at this point and I close out the second third with no real feel of nicotine. 

Finish:

Into the final third of the Diesel Hair of the Dog and not a whole lot has changed. The flavors are still a creamy mixture of musk, cedar, and earthiness with some real light cashew mixed it. The cigar has burned flawlessly and I have never once had to reach for my torch to touchup or relight the cigar. It took me about an hour and a half to take the Diesel Hair of the Dog down to the nub and I experience no harshness nor extended heat in the process. I put it down feeling only the lightest if notice kick.

Overview:

The Diesel Hair of the Dog is a solid cigar, but in my opinion didn’t do a whole lot for me. I was really hoping for something a bit more bold in both flavor and complexity. If you take my subjectivity out, the cigar performed really well. I enjoyed the flavors that the cigar offered, it burned like a dream from start to finish, and I can’t emphasize enough how much I love soft-boxpressed cigars. This is something worth taking out for a spin if you are a novice, or seasoned cigar smoker looking for a solid cigar that won’t cause too much thinking on your part, but unfortunately won’t be something found often in my regular rotation.  

Pairing:

When I was thinking about what I thought the Diesel Hair of the Dog was missing, I thought immediately if there was more sweetness and more chocolate it could take the cigar to a whole new level. This lead me to my choice of today’s pairing, Tombstone’s Imperial Milk Stout. Brewed in Tombstone, Arizona this beer comes in at a whopping 12.5% ABV. The alcohol is undetectable as the beer leads with a whole ton of sweet chocolate, cream, roasted malt, soft vanilla and caramel with a very heavy mouthfeel before finishing even sweeter with sticky toffee, chocolate, and more vanilla. This tastes like melted down chocolate. The pairing really helped kick the cigar into something that made me sit back and appreciate it more.