Punch Black Prince

[Roy R. Frush]

An eight year old Punch Black Prince is next up for review.

This particular box caught my attention when I noticed the plume all of the 7 or 8 cigars remaining in the box had on them. Date code was ORSC, and factory code was LRO, but I have found nothing online that could tell me the identity of this factory. If anyone knows which factory this is, I’d be happy to hear about it.

The cigar I selected looked and felt excellent. The wrapper showed the nice matte brown color of a cigar that has some age on it, rather than an oily sheen. As mentioned before, there was a fair amount of plume evenly spotted all over the wrapper. The weight felt right as did the firmness. The bunching at the foot was very even. The scent was pretty mild, but I was sitting outside on the balcony of the hotel room, so I wasn’t in the best environment to get very analytical.

I used a double guillotine to clip the cap and checked the draw. Ugh, not good. I clipped off almost another 1/16”, but to no avail. I was just going to have to hope the draw opened up after lighting.

Toasting and lighting were standard, and uneventful. I could taste some nice flavors of roasted nuts and cocoa, but it was awfully frustrating not being able to get the proper payload of smoke. Gently squeezing and rolling the cigar between my fingers did nothing to loosen it up. Predictably, I found myself drawing too fiercely on this cigar which I believe contributed to all the touchups required to keep the dark grey ash even. The burn tended to wander up one side and leave the opposite side trailing badly. I can’t provide much of a description of the flavors, as I was too busy cursing the poor draw. About midway through, the burn evened out, but the draw never improved. I smoked it down to about the 2” mark and then gave up on it.

I probably should not have even bothered reviewing this cigar without at least having smoked another one before passing judgment, but considering the price (I think I paid around $15), I wasn’t in the mood to give this particular cigar another try.

APPEARANCE AND CONSTRUCTION
(15 of the possible 100 points)
14. Needed no improvements here.

FLAVOR
(25 of the possible 100 points)
22. The flavor was there, I just had limited access to it.

SMOKING CHARACTERISTICS
(25 of the possible 100 points)
Yuck.

OVERALL IMPRESSION
(35 of the possible 100 points)
Ah, what could have been!

TOTAL
If a cigar could be a person, this cigar would be Terrell Owens. On the surface, it appeared to have all the right stuff to be truly great, but there was something unseen inside its head that was fundamentally crippled…

 

[lucasbuck]

Interesting review. In the future you might try putting a tight stick like that back in the humi. Often they will open up over time. Or you can try dry boxing it for a few days. Recently I had a Trini RE that was completely plugged. When I tried it a few months later it had opened up nicely and smoked like a dream.

 

[Ginseng]

Ouch! I'm sorry to hear about the pluggage. That is by far my greatest peeve with cigars.

I've tried all the things you did to open up some channels and only the most recalcitrant sticks never gave up the air. This sounds like one of them. You didn't by chance break it open to see what the innards looked like did you?

Craig,
Interesting suggestions. I'll try dry-boxing the next time I get a plugger. I've never been one to use a poker.

 

[cigardawg]

I have never smoked the Black Prince. I have smoked the Punch Punch and I am a big fan of the Royal Selection No. 11 and the Super Selection No. 2. I feel the Punch Punch is good fresh, but, of course improves with age. The RS 11's that I am smoking are from '00 and are smoking great. The SS 2s are from 01 and are still too tannic for my tastes.

According to MRN, the Black Prince should be milder than the other three. In the real world, how does it compare?

 

[Roy R. Frush]

You didn't by chance break it open to see what the innards looked like did you?

[snapback]271857[/snapback]​

Nah. At the time, I wasn't up for any detective work. :angry2:
At least the weather was beautiful...

 

[Roy R. Frush]

I have never smoked the Black Prince. I have smoked the Punch Punch and I am a big fan of the Royal Selection No. 11 and the Super Selection No. 2. I feel the Punch Punch is good fresh, but, of course improves with age. The RS 11's that I am smoking are from '00 and are smoking great. The SS 2s are from 01 and are still too tannic for my tastes.

According to MRN, the Black Prince should be milder than the other three. In the real world, how does it compare?

[snapback]272323[/snapback]​

I haven't smoked any of the cigars you mentioned, so I'm afraid I can't give you a comparison. I have only fairly recently gotten back into smoking cigars, and even when I was smoking regularly several years back, less than 5% of the cigars I smoked were isoms. The trips to the LCDH shop were an opportunity to broaden my background a bit in order to make purchases in the future.

 

[The Master]

The date and box codes do not make sense. There is no R in Nivelacuso and the factory code of LRO doesn't exist for a cigar that is 1998 or earler.

 

[Roy R. Frush]

The date and box codes do not make sense. There is no R in Nivelacuso and the factory code of LRO doesn't exist for a cigar that is 1998 or earler.

[snapback]272826[/snapback]​

your post left me scratching my head for a bit. i thought you were saying that a factory code couldnt have an "R" in it, until i saw that my notes had ORSC as the date code. i can only guess that what i took to be an "R" was a poorly stamped "E", "N", or "A"(no other letters are even remotely close). any substitution of those letters still sheds no light on which factory this could be. thanks for pointing this out, though!