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Blind Cigar Review Thread #2

MichaelD said:
Great review. I wonder if you would have gotten it had you used only 8 ice cubes. 9 seems excessive and may have limited your placebo palette powers.
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I'm itching to see your review....don't be such a teaser....
:D
 
It's coming. I won't have a chance to do it until this weekend. No cigar time until then. My target date is Saturday.
 
It’s time for another misadventure in cigar reviewing with Michael. This is where I desperately try to put into words what I think I taste, all the while taking blind stabs at what I think the thing may be.

In this week’s episode we find Michael camped out on the deck in the wooded hills of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. There isn’t a cloud in the bright blue sky as I pour myself a ginger beer and set up under the big sun umbrella. It’s around 80 degrees with no signs of the oppressive humidity that will coat this area later in the summer.

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The cigar from Scap is a beauty – a lightly toasted brown cigar, its wrapper is smooth as silk with almost no veins and seams. The cap looks like a high-end triple cap and the body is hard and dense. I have to practically shove it up my nostril to pick up a light barn, nutty scent. I don’t have any measuring tools with me but it looks to be around a 6 ½ x 48. Right off the bat, I have no real clue who made it as I don’t think I’ve smoke a cigar that looks like this before.


Time for the cut, toast and light. I’ve been partial to using a v-cutter lately so out comes the Xikar I keep out here at the country house. The blade snips right through the head. The draw is firm, very firm, too firm for my liking, so I take a second snip to create a cross cut. This helps a little, but I’m a bit worried. Hopefully things will loosen up once she’s burning for a bit.

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Lighting is easy and the first flavors of a warm barn, grass and hay wash over my palate. Tasty. In hindsight, it is at this point that I start to get into my head that it has to be Cuban in origin. The flavors are what I consider to be classic Cuban. It doesn’t help that Scap has been posting a lot about his recent deep dive into the CC world.

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The light grass flavors continue with maybe a touch of honey sweetness. I would rate this as a medium bodied, medium strength cigar. The smoke isn’t as thick as I would like, but the draw improves to a solid firm.


At this point I’m willing to risk attempting a retrohale. The cigar is pretty devoid of any pepper so hopefully I won’t regret it. Yep. I still suck at it. My eyes water and my nose still stings all the while not noticing nor being able to describe any different flavors. The ash is white.

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Moving into the second third a lot of the earlier flavors remain although it seems to get more woodsy and less honey-like. It’s still a solid medium flavor wise but I’m feeling the nicotine a bit more. Or is that the bourbon I just poured into my second ginger beer? Fuck it. I don’t care. Both taste great!


Onto the last third I’m really feeling the nicotine levels rise more into the full-bodied range. The flavors don’t seem to change much, but I find myself lost in what has turned into a very good Euro Championship soccer match – Iceland is desperately holding onto a single goal lead as Hungary is setting up chance after chance. The cigar goes out, but it’s easy enough to light back up and enjoy to the nub. Iceland scores an own goal and the game ends in a disappointing tie. Sadly too the cigar ends. It was excellent and in my opinion box worthy.


Now it’s time to guess what it might be. I know I’ve never had this cigar before and the flavors and construction have me believing that it’s a high end Cuban. So maybe a Cohiba. I haven’t had any of the siglos, and don’t know the measurements of the line, but since I have to guess, I place my bet on Siglo III.

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And boy am I ever wrong - Ilussione ECCJ. Well, isn’t that a special cigar! I’m going to have to hunt down more of these for sure. Many thanks to Scap for passing this one to me; a fantastic experience.

edit: fixed a stupid typo. It would help if I called the ciagr by it's actual name. Now I'm getting Napa's joke. /slaps forehead

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Succubus said:
Nice review! Can't say I've tried that one. Must be good if it can be mistaken Siglo III :D
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Call it ignorance on my part since I don't know what a Siglo tastes like. I had to guess, but I was guessing blindly. I would have never guessed that it was an ESSJ either though. But that is what makes this pass so much fun. Now I just need a volunteer to take it off my hands.
 
MichaelD said:
Call it ignorance on my part since I don't know what a Siglo tastes like. I had to guess, but I was guessing blindly. I would have never guessed that it was an ESSJ either though. But that is what makes this pass so much fun. Now I just need a volunteer to take it off my hands.
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What's this ESSJ?

:p
 
Scap said:
Also, your autocorrect made Scap turn into Scrap.

:p
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I thought I caught all of those and fixed them yesterday? Keep this shit up and we're going to scrap. :p Just be happy it didn't turn it into Crap.
 
MichaelD said:
Call it ignorance on my part since I don't know what a Siglo tastes like. I had to guess, but I was guessing blindly. I would have never guessed that it was an ESSJ either though. But that is what makes this pass so much fun. Now I just need a volunteer to take it off my hands.
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That's what makes this whole thing fun. It's exciting opening up the envelope at the end to find out!
 
MichaelD said:
I thought I caught all of those and fixed them yesterday? Keep this shit up and we're going to scrap. :p Just be happy it didn't turn it into Crap.
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Ain't it fun when a day later you're proof reading a post you made while drinking. :)
 
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