cuppajack
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Messages
- 741
DPG Black Label Belicoso:
I smoked this stick about a month ago and never got around to writing up a review. This was my first DPG Black Label, but I’ve smoked and enjoyed all his other DPG branded sticks, as well as many different Tatuajes and a few Padillas. This blend quickly shot to the top of my list of Don Pepin sticks after the rich and robust experience of this Belicoso.
The Beli was from the Tatuaje/Don Pepin 6-cigar gift set from around the 2006 holidays and I believe this is the “1970 Belicoso” size from the Black Label line. The cigar was a little rough; I think it may have had a tough trip from Georgia as it has a split in the wrapper at the foot, as well as a small ‘knick’ near the cap.
This didn’t effect ignition at all and the initial puffs held that pepper-kcik that I’ve come to expect, and look forward to, in Pepin cigars. By the time I was ½ inch in it was producing voluminous clouds of pungent smoke. The draw was perfectly firm (“like drinking milk through a straw” I once heard a FOG say,) and the mouth-feel was luxurious and dense. The flavor had hints of pepper and a pronounced woodiness, but the profile was positively dominated by an exquisite straight-forward tobacco flavor. It was somewhat reminiscent of an ISOM Monticristo, but fuller with less earthy notes. It was really a wonderful and burly flavor that I greatly enjoyed.
The smoke was unremarkable in its combustion; no runners or touch-ups required even with the split. I was really enjoying the Belicoso, and taking my time with it. I had paired it simply with ice water. At around the mid-way point the wood-notes really asserted themselves and this is when the smoke really captivated me. For a few brief moments the flavors of the burning leaf were perfectly parallel to the smell of a humidor. That unforgettable scent of fermented tobacco and Spanish cedar, the magic and promise of an unexplored walk-in, the flavors of the smoke belied the cigars origins in a way that amazed me. It is hard to describe, but those flavors are what I always thought a cigar should taste like as a child. It was fantastic.*
With 1/3 of the smoke remaining the wrapper began to split and curl but I wasn’t about to put this down. And even though the ‘humidor’ flavor was all too fleeting the profile reminded heavily woodsy and picked up more of that DPG ‘twang’** and richness that brings me back to his sticks. I polished off the nub and very nearly searched for my trusty Missouri meerschaum to smoked even the soggy end. Within A week I purchased a box of the Petite Lancero 1977 vitola and burned my way through the better part of that box in a couple of weeks.
The Black Label is easily my favorite of the DPG-banded blends, striking a very fine balance between the punch of the Blues and the subtleties of the JJ, and gives the Brown Label Tatuaje’s a run for their money (for considerably less money.) The most striking element to the blend to me (apart from the whole “tastes like my childhood conceptualization of a cigar” thing) is their very assertive tobacco flavor. Nothing overly fancy or too subtle, just expertly crafted tobacco.
*Ive had a similar experience with rum that might help convey my point. As a child we think of rum as a magical spirit that pirates and adventures relish. Reading Treasure Island at 9 or 10 the way I imagined this liquor in my mind's eye was a dark and sweet nectar reminiscent of molasses and spices. I don't know where I came up with that idea but it is obviously not the first thing you think of when you have that first shot of Bicardi at 17... Many years later I discovered a rum, Gosling's Black Seal, that actually does tase of molasses and spice and I felt somewhat vindicated by the experience.
**I’ve used the term “twang” to describe the flavor-note that I find to be a signature of Pepin in past reviews, and seen it used in conjunction with Pepin blends by other posters, but I suggest we need another term to differentiate this flavor from the more well-acknowledged ‘Cuban Twang’ (to which the Pepin flavor resembles.) I suggest ‘pong,’ or alternately the DPF (Don Pepin Funk.)
I smoked this stick about a month ago and never got around to writing up a review. This was my first DPG Black Label, but I’ve smoked and enjoyed all his other DPG branded sticks, as well as many different Tatuajes and a few Padillas. This blend quickly shot to the top of my list of Don Pepin sticks after the rich and robust experience of this Belicoso.
The Beli was from the Tatuaje/Don Pepin 6-cigar gift set from around the 2006 holidays and I believe this is the “1970 Belicoso” size from the Black Label line. The cigar was a little rough; I think it may have had a tough trip from Georgia as it has a split in the wrapper at the foot, as well as a small ‘knick’ near the cap.
This didn’t effect ignition at all and the initial puffs held that pepper-kcik that I’ve come to expect, and look forward to, in Pepin cigars. By the time I was ½ inch in it was producing voluminous clouds of pungent smoke. The draw was perfectly firm (“like drinking milk through a straw” I once heard a FOG say,) and the mouth-feel was luxurious and dense. The flavor had hints of pepper and a pronounced woodiness, but the profile was positively dominated by an exquisite straight-forward tobacco flavor. It was somewhat reminiscent of an ISOM Monticristo, but fuller with less earthy notes. It was really a wonderful and burly flavor that I greatly enjoyed.
The smoke was unremarkable in its combustion; no runners or touch-ups required even with the split. I was really enjoying the Belicoso, and taking my time with it. I had paired it simply with ice water. At around the mid-way point the wood-notes really asserted themselves and this is when the smoke really captivated me. For a few brief moments the flavors of the burning leaf were perfectly parallel to the smell of a humidor. That unforgettable scent of fermented tobacco and Spanish cedar, the magic and promise of an unexplored walk-in, the flavors of the smoke belied the cigars origins in a way that amazed me. It is hard to describe, but those flavors are what I always thought a cigar should taste like as a child. It was fantastic.*
With 1/3 of the smoke remaining the wrapper began to split and curl but I wasn’t about to put this down. And even though the ‘humidor’ flavor was all too fleeting the profile reminded heavily woodsy and picked up more of that DPG ‘twang’** and richness that brings me back to his sticks. I polished off the nub and very nearly searched for my trusty Missouri meerschaum to smoked even the soggy end. Within A week I purchased a box of the Petite Lancero 1977 vitola and burned my way through the better part of that box in a couple of weeks.
The Black Label is easily my favorite of the DPG-banded blends, striking a very fine balance between the punch of the Blues and the subtleties of the JJ, and gives the Brown Label Tatuaje’s a run for their money (for considerably less money.) The most striking element to the blend to me (apart from the whole “tastes like my childhood conceptualization of a cigar” thing) is their very assertive tobacco flavor. Nothing overly fancy or too subtle, just expertly crafted tobacco.
*Ive had a similar experience with rum that might help convey my point. As a child we think of rum as a magical spirit that pirates and adventures relish. Reading Treasure Island at 9 or 10 the way I imagined this liquor in my mind's eye was a dark and sweet nectar reminiscent of molasses and spices. I don't know where I came up with that idea but it is obviously not the first thing you think of when you have that first shot of Bicardi at 17... Many years later I discovered a rum, Gosling's Black Seal, that actually does tase of molasses and spice and I felt somewhat vindicated by the experience.
**I’ve used the term “twang” to describe the flavor-note that I find to be a signature of Pepin in past reviews, and seen it used in conjunction with Pepin blends by other posters, but I suggest we need another term to differentiate this flavor from the more well-acknowledged ‘Cuban Twang’ (to which the Pepin flavor resembles.) I suggest ‘pong,’ or alternately the DPF (Don Pepin Funk.)
