Thursday, June 26, 2008
Alec Bradley Tempus Short Review
Allright, I'm going to step on some toes here, but I'm going to come right out and say it. I tried an Alec Bradley Tempus robusto cigar two weekends ago, and I'm going to say this: Its not a 94 Cigar. I Don't care what CI says, this is the blandest cigar I've ever tasted. Which, considering that my first smokes were Factory 57 Rejects, is saying something. Pending another review, my initial thoughts on this cigar are pretty sad. Now two of my business partners tried the lancero and thought that it was a pretty decent cigar. Maybe I just got a bad one, Maybe its just the robusto shape that changes the taste. But there was nothing special about the cigar, I Likened it to smoking what we called back on the farm 'pig weed', a particular brand of fireweed that will grow anywhere, and has the nastiest sap smell I have ever come across. My personal rating on the Tempus is a 75, and thats pushing it. The entire cigar was bland from start to finish, there was no tobacco taste, there was no intricacy, hell, there was no strength. Even the MAXX was better than this, in my opinion, and I didn't like that one either. Alec, You disappoint me, you really had a chance to make your first really good mainstream cigar, instead you shuffled a different kind of tobacco over to CA, and they gave you a stupidly high rating in return.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Padilla Habano Review
Padilla Habano Torpedo
Lighting Taste: 8
Smoke Texture: 7
Smoke aftertaste: 8
Band Design: 8
Ash Coloration: 6.5
Ash Density/Viscosity: 7
Nicotine: 9
Tobacco Taste: 7.5 ~ 8
1st Quarter overall: 7
2nd Quarter overall: 6.5
3rd Quarter overall: 9
Last Quarter overall: 6
Yay! First Review! OK, 'nuff that. I went with this as my first review smoke mostly because my roommate owed me a cigar, so I grabbed it out of my review humi last night. The initial appeal was kinda lost because the tip of the torp was a little off kilt, but the initial smell of the tobacco was still good, I was kind of afraid it had a blowout like my Sol Cubano maduro Churchill, but thankfully it wasn't. The initial smell of the wrapper threw me off a little, and I had to get a consult from my roommate, Cognac was the response, who would have thunk it! first thing I noticed after cutting the cigar is that the flavor had sunk into the tobacco, don't quite get that, but ok. The actual tobacco taste was very mild and extremely flavorful, had a strong flowery taste, but didn't have the tar content that I expected it to have with that amount of flavor, maybe I'm just missing something. For all the tobacco flavor that this cigar produced, I was expecting a REALLY strong smelling smoke, Not so! The smoke was actually very tasty, I was a little confused as whether to smoke it or eat it, this is a very tasty, very light smoke, this could very easily be an all day smoke if you could afford it. At roughly the start of the second quarter the cognac flavor disappeared, but about halfway through that second quarter the cognac taste came back, strangely enough, it wasn't quite the same, and left an aftertaste kind of like those candied orange slices only sans the orange. About this time the neighbor kids sounded like they just stabbed their little dog that could pass as trout line bait, and prolly should be used for it since the little bastard shit on my back porch. BLAGH! Off subject, back to the cigar! Back the the 2nd quarter of this Cigar, the tobacco's flavor started to come through in a big way, I'm thinking that the Cognac flavor was there for this purpose, mostly to scare the beejeesus out of first time smokers, Because all of a sudden, this just turned into a REAL cigar, the tobacco flavor was insidiously complex and demanded that you smoke it NOW, because its soooo damn tasty! pretty much for the first two quarters of the cigar you couldn't really taste the tobacco because of the cognac taste, but now the full flavor of the cigar came through, fairly decent apple wood taste hidden back behind the stronger hazelnut taste, hints of chocolate and maybe a hint of rye, but that may have been my taste buds playing tricks on me because this went from being a light 'Occasional all-day' smoke to a 'I Need a glass of port to go with this Cigar because I'm done for the day!' smoke, roommate had a good choice in smokes. The third quarter of cigar did not disappoint, strong flavorful tobacco, with all the beauty of the ash and smoke of the first half, the tar was still very light and didn't make me haulk it up and try and puke the tar out, Most cigars seem to switch to filler after the first third, but this cigar seem to be a surprise waiting to happen, about this time I took the band off, and noticed that the wrapper was a little crackly where it had been, don't know if this was because of something due to humidity, or the sealant that they used to put the band on, the band did however slide off rather nicely, so I'm thinking that it was a humidity issue, I may have to recalibrate the hygrometer in the review humi. AHHH! They let the little demon of a dog outside, it hadn't noticed me for a little while, but just when I stopped typing the little bastard noticed me and started squeaking, but I gotta give the dog credit, it at least waited till I paused in my typing to smoke some more. Ach, now the roommate shut the damn light off, what the heck is with these people and their distractions! Anyways, back to the cigar. Due to the distractions I ended up having to relight, but the flavor didn't change at all. After about two sixteenths into the last quarter of the cigar the draw got tight, not gradually tight, but just all of a sudden taaaiiiiiight, horribly monstrosly taaiiiiight! felt like I was sucking on a piece of medical tubing that was tied at the other end, dunno what caused it, if it was the band that had caused it, or if it was a rolling issue, or if it was because I had been holding it near the end, but Damn! I took this as a sign to end the smoke, so I set it in the ashtray, and let it be. Overall, I think this was a delicious smoke, kind of a surprise in the middle, which I think gave the cigar a rather pleasing character. Definatly a repeat smoke, if for nothing else to see if it was just that one, or if that was the way that line was designed.
Lighting Taste: 8
Smoke Texture: 7
Smoke aftertaste: 8
Band Design: 8
Ash Coloration: 6.5
Ash Density/Viscosity: 7
Nicotine: 9
Tobacco Taste: 7.5 ~ 8
1st Quarter overall: 7
2nd Quarter overall: 6.5
3rd Quarter overall: 9
Last Quarter overall: 6
Yay! First Review! OK, 'nuff that. I went with this as my first review smoke mostly because my roommate owed me a cigar, so I grabbed it out of my review humi last night. The initial appeal was kinda lost because the tip of the torp was a little off kilt, but the initial smell of the tobacco was still good, I was kind of afraid it had a blowout like my Sol Cubano maduro Churchill, but thankfully it wasn't. The initial smell of the wrapper threw me off a little, and I had to get a consult from my roommate, Cognac was the response, who would have thunk it! first thing I noticed after cutting the cigar is that the flavor had sunk into the tobacco, don't quite get that, but ok. The actual tobacco taste was very mild and extremely flavorful, had a strong flowery taste, but didn't have the tar content that I expected it to have with that amount of flavor, maybe I'm just missing something. For all the tobacco flavor that this cigar produced, I was expecting a REALLY strong smelling smoke, Not so! The smoke was actually very tasty, I was a little confused as whether to smoke it or eat it, this is a very tasty, very light smoke, this could very easily be an all day smoke if you could afford it. At roughly the start of the second quarter the cognac flavor disappeared, but about halfway through that second quarter the cognac taste came back, strangely enough, it wasn't quite the same, and left an aftertaste kind of like those candied orange slices only sans the orange. About this time the neighbor kids sounded like they just stabbed their little dog that could pass as trout line bait, and prolly should be used for it since the little bastard shit on my back porch. BLAGH! Off subject, back to the cigar! Back the the 2nd quarter of this Cigar, the tobacco's flavor started to come through in a big way, I'm thinking that the Cognac flavor was there for this purpose, mostly to scare the beejeesus out of first time smokers, Because all of a sudden, this just turned into a REAL cigar, the tobacco flavor was insidiously complex and demanded that you smoke it NOW, because its soooo damn tasty! pretty much for the first two quarters of the cigar you couldn't really taste the tobacco because of the cognac taste, but now the full flavor of the cigar came through, fairly decent apple wood taste hidden back behind the stronger hazelnut taste, hints of chocolate and maybe a hint of rye, but that may have been my taste buds playing tricks on me because this went from being a light 'Occasional all-day' smoke to a 'I Need a glass of port to go with this Cigar because I'm done for the day!' smoke, roommate had a good choice in smokes. The third quarter of cigar did not disappoint, strong flavorful tobacco, with all the beauty of the ash and smoke of the first half, the tar was still very light and didn't make me haulk it up and try and puke the tar out, Most cigars seem to switch to filler after the first third, but this cigar seem to be a surprise waiting to happen, about this time I took the band off, and noticed that the wrapper was a little crackly where it had been, don't know if this was because of something due to humidity, or the sealant that they used to put the band on, the band did however slide off rather nicely, so I'm thinking that it was a humidity issue, I may have to recalibrate the hygrometer in the review humi. AHHH! They let the little demon of a dog outside, it hadn't noticed me for a little while, but just when I stopped typing the little bastard noticed me and started squeaking, but I gotta give the dog credit, it at least waited till I paused in my typing to smoke some more. Ach, now the roommate shut the damn light off, what the heck is with these people and their distractions! Anyways, back to the cigar. Due to the distractions I ended up having to relight, but the flavor didn't change at all. After about two sixteenths into the last quarter of the cigar the draw got tight, not gradually tight, but just all of a sudden taaaiiiiiight, horribly monstrosly taaiiiiight! felt like I was sucking on a piece of medical tubing that was tied at the other end, dunno what caused it, if it was the band that had caused it, or if it was a rolling issue, or if it was because I had been holding it near the end, but Damn! I took this as a sign to end the smoke, so I set it in the ashtray, and let it be. Overall, I think this was a delicious smoke, kind of a surprise in the middle, which I think gave the cigar a rather pleasing character. Definatly a repeat smoke, if for nothing else to see if it was just that one, or if that was the way that line was designed.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Undead Kittens
So yeah! Its been a while since I posted last, I realize that it's not good for a blog to go inactive like this but its been a rough couple of months. We'll be back in business shortly pumping out reviews for ya'll.
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