Don Fernando’s cigarblog

I was really looking forward to this year’s LE as I am a big fan of the Cuban brand Bolivar and this year one of the 3 LE’s would be a 4.9 x 52 Bolivar petit belicoso. The first ever Bolivar LE.

The petit belicoso has a nice sharp looking point with a nice light brown colored wrapper. The cigar feels hard, but isn’t over packed as the predraw is a bit loose. The predraw leaves a wood and raisin flavor in my mouth. The aroma of the cigar is hard to detect and smells a bit like cow poop.

Yuck, I taste a bitter, pungent and unpleasant coffee flavor. After a centimeter the worst harshness has gone, but I still get a harsh flavor in the back of my throat. After an inch some wood shines through the bitter harshness, but unfortunately some ash flavor joins the party too.

After reaching the middle of the cigar I lost the wood and ash and I can even taste some nuts beneath the harshness. At the 2/3rd point the harshness gets less but the cigar still isn’t pleasant to smoke

The as is almost white and very dense. The ash broke halfway and I got some crooked burn after that, which I didn’t have to correct though. Before the breaking of the ash the burn was straight. The draw was fine. I get a lot of thick white smoke. This cigar is obviously way too young to be smoked.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, and rest them for at least 5 years before I smoke another one. Hopefully they are great by then and otherwise I will give them away.

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 4 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 5 / 10
Aroma (last part) 5 / 10

Recently I stated in my review of the Rocky Patel Edge Sumatra that I hadn’t found a Rocky Patel that I liked and Jaime (RPguy),  replied that “we will have to find you a Rocky Patel that you will enjoy” in the topic on cigar asylum. That got me worried and a few days later the mailman brings be a package all the way from Florida with 5 different Rocky Patel cigars. This is the first of the five reviews and guess what? Cigar number one is a winner.

This cigar is a looker too, with just a small band at the foot to recognize the blend, but no big band where you would expect it. This cigar has to sell itself and it does quite well with the very dark, smooth and oily wrapper. The wrapper has a silky feel to it and feels well constructed. The cigar has a distinct aroma that reminded me of the horse stables where my sister was riding horses when she was a kid. The predraw gave me the right resistance and left a peppery chocolate with raisin flavor on my palate.

I get a sense of coffee, mild bitter and a light chocolate flavor on the background. The flavors are quite full. The chocolate flavor slowly grows in strength but the coffee is still the dominant flavor. The coffee loses some of its strength after an inch, the bitterness disappeared and the chocolate becomes a bit sweet. Half an inch later I taste a pleasant flavor which I cannot describe as I didn’t recognize it.

A bit later I get some of the coffee and chocolate again and halfway some wood and hay accompany the coffee and chocolate. The last flavors disappear and a hard to describe dry hay flavors replaces them. As this flavor fades away I get some of the mild bitter coffee again, just like at the beginning which is replaced by cedar towards the end of the cigar.

The draw is a bit on the light side but not too much to bother me. I get a lot of smoke, which is quite thin. The smoke is a bit gray but turns white the further the cigar progresses. I get enough smoke to blow smoke rings, which I like. The ash is a bit dark but firm, it grew to 4 inch before it decided that my shirt was a nice spot to drop on. The burn is phenomenal, razor sharp and the cigar doesn’t die easy. I would rate this cigar medium/full flavored and medium bodied.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, I put it on my “have to get a box of these” list.

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 9 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 7 / 10

A few weeks ago Volt bombed me a very nice (and expensive) Avo punch

2 days after I got it, my dad comes over, decides to take a closer look at it. He didn’t know it was a twist mechanism and pulls on the puncher. He didn’t even pull hard, but the plastic in the mechanism breaks.

I asked Michael (Volt) to get in touch with the dealer to see if there was warrenty, and the answer from Davidoff was no. They even had the nerve to ask if he needed to know the nearest Davidoff dealer. What were they thinking? That I’m gonna spend money on a company with such a crap customerservice?

FUCK Davidoff & Avo. I have some Avo cigars in my collection, they will be bombing material, I refuse to smoke them anymore.

This 5 x 54 Spanish Galleon corojo robusto has been in my humidor for a couple of months and I hesitated to smoke it due to the mixed reviews I heard of it. This cigar has Dominican and Nicaraguan filler and a Dominican Cubano 98 binder with a corojo wrapper, as the name suggests. The wrapper is quite dark and has a big vein running over it.

The packing is quite nice, I really like the band with the old style map. The cigar is wrapped in cedar that has a band on the foot and the cigar and cedar are packed in cellophane. The predraw is fine and the construction feels good. The cigar has a dry grass aroma.

I taste a mild acidy kind of coffee with a mild sweetness to it. The strange sweet flavor keeps noticeable until I reach the mid of the cigar. There is also a musty feeling to the flavor. At the 2/3rd point the cigar gets a bit bitter.

I had a bit of a crooked burn. The smoke is a bit thin and there is not a lot of it. The ash is light colored and firm. They claim this cigar is medium bodied and they are right, but they don’t advertise that it is mild flavored.

Would I buy this cigar again? Nah, there are better cheap sticks out there

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 6 / 10
Burn: 6 / 10
Aroma (first part) 6 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 6 / 10
Aroma (last part) 5 / 10

The Ashton VSG series is blended by Carlos Fuente Jr. for Ashton with some 4 to 5 year old Dominican tobacco and the wrapper is grown on the Oliva estate in Ecuador where they grow this wrapper exclusively for the VSG series. The sorcerer is a 7 x 49 sized cigar with a fine construction, a beautiful dark & oily wrapper with a silky feeling to it. There is a minor barnyard aroma noticeable. The predraw gives the right amount of resistance and leaves me with a dry feeling and a hard to describe flavor in my mouth.

I taste a full coffee flavor with a mild but enjoyable bitter taste to it and after half an inch I also get some chocolate, but the mild bitter coffee is still the main flavor and the chocolate disappears quickly. After a while the flavor goes stronger and the chocolate reappears and is quite sticky, it sticks in my mouth.

The flavors are consistent, pleasant, comforting and ‘warm’. Halfway the chocolate gets stronger and the coffee loses some of its strength and slowly fades away to the background. At the 2/3rd mark something mild salty and peppery show up but disappears just as easy. At the end the pepper makes a temporary comeback.

I get a lot of smoke from this cigar, but the smoke is a bit thin. The color of the ash is quite light gray and the ash is pretty firm. The burn is great, sharp as a razor and I don’t have any complaints about the draw.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, I like the Ashton VSG series a lot

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10

I got this Opus X belicoso XXX with a date sticker of May 2006 in a trade and decided to light this well praised 4 5/8 x 49 Dominican puro tonight. The cigar is packed in cellophane and has a red ribbon on the foot. The wrapper looks nice dark and oily but has some big veins. Usually a vein isn’t anything to mock about, but when you spend top dollar for a cigar you can expect something that looks a bit better.

The aroma of the cigar makes me think of chocolate, pepper and something sweet. It is a unique aroma and I can even smell some cinnamon. The construction feels good and the fine predraw gives off a peppery flavor.

The first flavor is wood, I don’t know what kind of wood, but it is a specific flavor which I only tasted in Opus X and Liga Privada #9 before. I also taste some sweetness and mild chocolate. The flavors are rich, deep and complex but not overpowering. Halfway some pepper accompanies the wood, the sweetness and the chocolate, although the sweetness is disappearing slowly. At the same time the chocolate and wood are getting stronger. The finale is that typical Opus X wood again.

This cigar produces a lot of pretty smoke. I had terrible burn issues with this cigar, I had to light it over and over again which made the cigar bitter at some points. If it wasn’t for a review I would have tossed the cigar due to the burn issues, I never had a cigar burn worse than this top shelve stick. The ash is dark and frayed. Due to the flash the ash looks light colored on the picture, but in real life it was dark, ugly and frayed.

Would I buy this cigar again? I still have a few and they are very nice without the burn issues, but are they worth the money? Don’t think so

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Burn: 4 / 10
Aroma (first part) 8 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 8 / 10
Aroma (last part) 8 / 10

I found this 7 x 48 Double corona in my humidor and thought “well, I have some time to kill, why not smoke a large stick today” so I clipped it with my Palio and lit it. The wrapper of this Cuban cigar was pretty light colored and had lots of veins. The construction felt a bit under filled but the predraw was fine and left me with a very peculiar flavor of chewing gum, something I have never experienced before. The cigar didn’t have a lot of aroma. As it was a single I don’t know the age of this stick.

I could taste leather, dry leather, typical Cuban leather though, just dry and a mild creamy feeling in my mouth with a hit of chocolate. After an inch I get some pepper too, but leather seems to be the main and strongest flavor. At 1/2nd the cigar gains some power and at 2/3rd some nut flavor joins the party. I could also taste something fresh, but can’t describe what it was.

The smoke is thin but there is enough of it. The ash is frayed and light gray. I would rate this cigar medium bodied medium flavored.

Would I buy this cigar again? Possibly yeah.

Appearance: 6 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 6 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Aroma (first part) 7 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 7 / 10
Aroma (last part) 7 / 10

This perfecto has a dark, rough Connecticut broadleaf wrapper with some veins, a Dominican binder and filler from Brazil, Dominican Republic and Cameroon. The 5 x 54 cigar feels hard but the predraw is fine and gives me a dry but peppery feeling in my mouth. The aroma is a mild hay and barnyard smell.

I can taste coffee and some leather, both very bitter and not really pleasant. After an inch the flavor changed to a creamy chocolate with pepper as supporting flavor. Soon the leather returns and the creamy chocolate becomes the aftertaste. Unfortunately the cigar also has a moldy flavor for a while. The finale is mild chocolate and pepper again.

The amount of smoke is quite low, and it is thin. The ash however is firm and pretty. This is a medium bodied, mild to medium flavored cigar

Would I buy this cigar again? Nah.

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 6 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Aroma (first part) 6 / 10
Aroma (middle part) 7 / 10
Aroma (last part) 7 / 10