The Evil Dr. Moki's Group Blind Taste Test #2

[Seanholio]

A quick suggestion to people reading this thread who are not involved, if you find this interesting then repeat it! Grab a friend and trade 5 cigars with numbered bands, smoke through them and exchange the answers. Me and matt(42) did such a trade a little while back( I still haven't smoked them all, hehe) and have been enjoying the surprises. It really opens your eyes.

So, you're playing the role of Grapes? :laugh:

At least 42 isn't getting all bromantic like Souldog would! :sign:

 

[IBQTEE1]

Sean,
Didn't you smoke this right around the time you HERF'd with IBQTEE1?...........I'm just saying. :whistling:

Hold on a second!!!! It should have enhanced the cigar if anything!! :thumbs:

 

[Seanholio]

Sean,
Didn't you smoke this right around the time you HERF'd with IBQTEE1?...........I'm just saying. :whistling:

Hold on a second!!!! It should have enhanced the cigar if anything!! :thumbs:

Yeah, but you wouldn't wear the outfit, so no bueno. :sign:

 

[IBQTEE1]

Sean,
Didn't you smoke this right around the time you HERF'd with IBQTEE1?...........I'm just saying. :whistling:

Hold on a second!!!! It should have enhanced the cigar if anything!! :thumbs:

Yeah, but you wouldn't wear the outfit, so no bueno. :sign:

Ok, I am blonde. I read it wrong. Should I jsut say thank you and leave it at that?!?!?!

 

[Seanholio]

Sean,
Didn't you smoke this right around the time you HERF'd with IBQTEE1?...........I'm just saying. :whistling:

Hold on a second!!!! It should have enhanced the cigar if anything!! :thumbs:

Yeah, but you wouldn't wear the outfit, so no bueno. :sign:

Ok, I am blonde. I read it wrong. Should I jsut say thank you and leave it at that?!?!?!

Do what you like; it really won't help you around here. :sign:

 

[jfields]

Sean,
Didn't you smoke this right around the time you HERF'd with IBQTEE1?...........I'm just saying. :whistling:

Hold on a second!!!! It should have enhanced the cigar if anything!! :thumbs:

Yeah, but you wouldn't wear the outfit, so no bueno. :sign:

Ok, I am blonde. I read it wrong. Should I jsut say thank you and leave it at that?!?!?!

:laugh: :laugh: Went right over your head Kristen.

I was trying to say............. Oh nevermind.

 

[moki]

Cigar #7 review

ELittle said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 1/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 1/10 - Last 1/3rd: 0/10 - Overall: 0.6/10

Price: $2.00

Review: Wow, what can I say. It's not Cuban! The wrapper on this cigar is really rough and has a lot of veins. The cap looks like it has been applied by a chimpanzee, its got ragged pieces poking out from the cap. The wrapper is very dark and not very oily. The prelight draw tastes of dirt. Not earthy flavors that are sometimes pleasant, but actual dirt. I pick up on no discernable flavors but dirt.

Second third: Wow, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. Horrible, acrid, more dirt, and bad all around.

Final third: I couldn't bring myself to do it.

This one was the worst so far by a long shot! If the goal of this cigar was to mimick the taste of eating a dirt clog, then they nailed it.

This is a $2 cigar.

.....

insight said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 1/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 1/10 - Last 1/3rd: 0/10 - Overall: 0.6/10

Price: $1.00

Review: This cigar was horrible to me. It tasted so acrid in the first third it was making me feel nauseated. I had to chuck it in the second third to maintain my sanity and dinner. I chucked it.

.....

Kingantz said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 5/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 5/10 - Last 1/3rd: 4/10 - Overall: 4.6/10

Price: $6.00

Review: I find the dark brown wrapper somewhat oily and very coarse with prominent veins throughout the boxed shaped cigar. There’s a slight sponginess when squeezed, and as I do, can very easily feel stems just underneath the wrapper. It has a good weight, and a good tobacco smell. I punch the cap and the draw is loose, not much by way of flavor.

Beginning 1/3
I toast the foot, puff a couple times, and take my first draw. The smoke is medium to full bodied with an immediate blast of strong, black pepper spice on the back of the throat. I’m getting cocoa with dark earth, worn leather, and a decent finish on the palate after exhaling. The burn is sharp with a very loose ash that falls on its own just after a quarter inch. About a half-inch in the black pepper spice smoothes out and the smoke remains medium to full bodied.

Middle 1/3
Towards the middle, I started having a hard time keeping the cigar lit, and after ashing my thoughts are confirmed. There are three holes going down into the ash, one fairly nice sized one. After puffing for a few minutes, it gets back to a point where it’s burning good again. I’m still getting pepper spice, however the flavors are starting to get slightly muted. There’s more of a straightforward tobacco coming through and the finish short. Still not a bad smoke though.

Final 1/3
Heading towards the end of the smoke, I’m finding it is again wanting to go out. I continue to puff on the cigar and then try to let it rest, and then go back and it’s almost gone again. There are fairly large holes down in the ash, which is what I attribute to this issue. I unfortunately get nowhere with keeping it lit and finally put it down as I’m getting a fairly acrid taste from all the puffing.

Summary: The cigar started out good with a nice pepper spice and decent enough flavor of cocoa and roasted nuts. Not much by way of a finish on the cigar however. The burn was decent enough, however with the issues towards the end and not so good flavor coming through, I just couldn’t finish it.

.....

bfisher88 said:

Rating: n/a - I screwed up and sent him this cigar with a band on it

Price: n/a - I screwed up and sent him this cigar with a band on it

Review: n/a - I screwed up and sent him this cigar with a band on it

.....

enerjay said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 7/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 7/10 - Last 1/3rd: 7/10 - Overall: 7/10

Price: $8.00

Review: First 1/3rd: 7 Cigar seven, was well aged with good construction plenty of draw, however there was no flavor in the fist 1/3

Middle 1/3rd: 7 Once again the cigar is burning perfect, yet I can not taste the cigar past my morning coffee.

Final 1/3rd: 7 Finally in the last third of the stick I can pic up some flavor, nothing to speak of however I am reminded of ligero.

Summary: Cigar number SEVEN, look really good. Inspection of the foot led me to believe the cigar had been kept for a while, along with the square sides.
pre-draw was very easy, wrapper looked good. The first 1/3 of the cigar burned great. Plenty of smoke with no or not much flavor to speak of.
Second 1/3 of the cigar much the same. I decided to smoke this one with my morning coffee and the cigar just could not pull past my moceado.
I was really disappointed. On the last 1/3 of cigar number seven I was picking up a little ligero flavor. However at this point I was all ready
some what disappointed in the cigar and was no longer being very objective.,
All in all it burned well and had great draw. Thats really all I can say about this one.

.....

Napa_Smokes said:

Rating: n/a - has bowed out of the blind taste test

Price: n/a - has bowed out of the blind taste test

Review: n/a - has bowed out of the blind taste test

.....

jfields said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 7/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 7.5/10 - Last 1/3rd: 8/10 - Overall: 7.5/10

Price: $4.50

Review: 1st: Very smooth medium cigar with plenty of creamy smoke on a great draw. Leather and cocoa are the flavors that jump out at me. This cigar taste very familiar. (7)

2nd: Cream increased around this point and mocha/cocoa flavors become more pronounced as well. Excellent complexity. Seems to have what I consider to be a signature Padron 1k series "sectioned" flaky ash. (7.5)

3rd: All mocha, earth, spice, and leather. (8)

Summary: Very nice cigar, performed flawlessly. If my mind and taste buds aren't playing tricks on me, I'm going to guess it was a Padron 3k.

Price: $4.50

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grateful1 said:

Rating: n/a - did not submit review

Price: n/a - did not submit review

Review: n/a - did not submit review

.....

BlindedByScience said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 5/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 5/10 - Last 1/3rd: 6/10 - Overall: 5.3/10

Price: $8.00

Review: Summary: A Maduro this time..!! Interestingly enough, right out of the zip lock the wrapper had some very strong aromas, but after sitting on my desk for 20 mins or so….not much at all. Did my nose quit working? Maybe. In any event, the pre light smells are all about earthy, maybe borderline moldy smells. Perhaps some very dark carmel, chocolate or molasses notes. Pretty standard stuff for most Maduro smokes. Mechanically, the smoke has a slight box press and the draw is very open, perhaps too open. Let’s find out….

Like many guys, when I started smoking quality cigars, I smoked a lot of maduro wrapped smokes. Over time, I began to smoke less and less maduros for the simple reason that most of them seemed to lack much in the way of complexity, other than the taste imparted by the maduro wrapper. Now, if that is what you are after, that’s one thing but for me, they just didn’t offer up the range of tastes and complexity that other cigars have. This one was like that.

Off the bat, it was a MADURO smoke, and the tastes were pretty much that and that alone. Lots of earthy, dark, perhaps even burnt chocolate tastes….a very typical maduro. Very little taste change for the duration of the smoke. A very overpowering salty taste showed up at roughly the halfway point, which thankfully subsided as quickly as it appeared. The back third was perhaps the best as the wrapper flavors subsided a bit and the smoke offered up some cinnamon, maybe some light clove notes. The bottom line for me what that this was a decent, if rather one dimensional smoke. It reminded me a lot of a Padron 2000 or 3000 maddy; not a bad smoke by any stretch of the imagination but perhaps lacking in the more subtle tastes and flavors I find in smokes that aren’t overwhelmed by the taste of a maduro wrapper. A decent but not memorable cigar, IMHO.

.....

Seanholio said:

Rating: First 1/3rd: 5/10 - Middle 1/3rd: 6/10 - Last 1/3rd: 6/10 - Overall: 5.6/10

Price: $10.00

Review: The cigar started out with a spicy leather for the first 1/2". This quickly faded to a taste that I could not place; it was not entirely pleasant, but not fatally unpleasant. Cocoa crept in, and then transformed quickly into coffee. The cigar held a line about as well as the French Army, which is to say not at all. Several touch ups were required, but no purges. The coffee faded in the second third, to be replaced by a woody taste, which then transformed into a grassy flavor. Several points during the final third were the opposite of sweet spots: the cigar would sour, and then recover just before I was about to toss it. The ash was flaky, but very very white.

I would guess from the complexity that this is a $10 cigar, just not to my taste. I don't think this is Cuban.

.....

Lowest rating: Insight & ELittle 0.6/10
Highest rating: jfields 7.5/10
Average rating: 4.5/10

5 - okay cigar, enjoyable enough, but nothing special
4 - not my thing; it didn't make me want to barf, but I didn't enjoy it either

Lowest price: Insight $1.00
Highest price: Seanholio $10.00
Average price: $5.64

.....

Cigar #7 is actually a...

Padrón 3000 Natural (2008) - price*: $3.76

Commentary: I wish we had a larger sample size for this cigar; only 7/10 reviews came in for it... one of which was my fault, I sent the cigar to bfisher88 with the band on it. d'oh! Sorry about that Ben.

I will admit that my plan with this cigar was somewhat foiled. Like some of the other more "humble" cigars I put into the blind taste test, I had hope that this would score very high, and people would be shocked that such an inexpensive cigar scored so well. Alas, perhaps in part because of the youth of this cigar (I think these need some downtime), that didn't happen.

I wish I had an old box of these laying about that I could have put into the taste test; I think the results would have been quite different. In any event, while some people seemed to really like this cigar, the consensus was that it was middling... and Insight and ELittle absolutely hated it (but they were probably holding hands smoking it together in a hot tub at the time).

This cigar was actually a Natural, but I could see how you might think it was maduro; it was rather dark for a natural. Two people, jfields and BlindedByScience nailed this cigar exactly. Well done folks! Let's hope the next few cigars fare a bit better in the reviews!

Some hated this cigar with a passion, others seemed to enjoy it... some thought it had no flavor, others thought it had exceedingly strong/nasty flavor, and still others enjoyed it. Did they all smoke the same cigar? Yes they did.


.....

* Denotes the price I paid for this cigar, not necessarily the MSRP

 

[ELittle]

LOL, wow. It was putrid. I have a box of these in the humidor that i'm aging which makes me kind of nervous now. But overall, it was really bad!

 

[BlindedByScience]

This cigar was actually a Natural, but I could see how you might think it was maduro; it was rather dark for a natural. Two people, jfields and BlindedByScience nailed this cigar exactly. Well done folks!

".....nailed it...." other than I thought it was a maddy and it was a natural..... :laugh:

It wasn't "horrid" but this one was all wrapper. Not much going on with any complexity or interesting variety of flavors.

Truth is I keep a slug of 2K's around and I usually smoke one a week. When I order, I always ask for a box that's 50 / 50 in regular and maduro. Once they get dumped in the singles drawer, I more often than not can't tell the difference. And, the honest truth is they probably smoke about like this one did. Not great, but not horrible. I find the regular wrapper smokes to be the better of the two, but this one clearly fooled me.

Thanks for the curve ball, Moki - we're having fun now....!!

Cheers - B.B.S.

 

[insight]

Mehhhhhh not totally surprised but a bit disappointed. I don't really like the Padron thousands with the band on despite the anniversary and 1926 being two of my favorite lines. Oh well.....

 

[Seanholio]

[...]and Insight and ELittle absolutely hated it (but they were probably holding hands smoking it together in a hot tub at the time).[...]

Thank you for sparing us the picture this time, Moki.

 

[insight]

[...]and Insight and ELittle absolutely hated it (but they were probably holding hands smoking it together in a hot tub at the time).[...]

Thank you for sparing us the picture this time, Moki.

Moki is just in a bad mood because his pony is on the rag.

 

[jfields]

I liked it! :laugh:

I even thought mine was an aged sample with the complexity it seemed to have. It actually started out kind of slow and got better.

I guess I'm all alone here, or maybe I got the one Jorge had laying around on a table for a few years just to make it a full box. :sign:



Insight & Elittle...................you're both sick!!!!

 

[grateful1]

Shoot...

I apologies for missing this one. I didn't look at the info...and will submit a follow up for acceptance.

 

[moki]

Worst rated cigar of the blind taste test thus far... by a pretty decent margin. I blame Evan and Phil for this. Jorge will not be amused.

Edit to add: cigar #8 is due this coming Friday guys... we only have 4/10 reviews in, so let's get going!

 

[Seanholio]

Worst rated cigar of the blind taste test thus far... by a pretty decent margin. I blame Evan and Phil for this. Jorge will not be amused.

Edit to add: cigar #8 is due this coming Friday guys... we only have 4/10 reviews in, so let's get going!

Jorge should offer to hand-deliver aged replacements, along with la Familias to make up for the inconvenience.

 

[bfisher88]

Way to ruin it for me Andrew

 

[stlboarder]

Wow... talk about two complete opposites of the spectrum. From a .6 to a 7.5! I'm sure if the cigar was aged it would be a little more even rating.

Edit: Spelling

 

[enerjay]

This cigar was actually a Natural, but I could see how you might think it was maduro; it was rather dark for a natural. Two people, jfields and BlindedByScience nailed this cigar exactly. Well done folks!

".....nailed it...." other than I thought it was a maddy and it was a natural..... :laugh:

It wasn't "horrid" but this one was all wrapper. Not much going on with any complexity or interesting variety of flavors.


Thanks for the curve ball, Moki - we're having fun now....!!

Cheers - B.B.S.

I could not agree more this cigar just had no legs.

 

[insight]

This picture explains better than my words ever will.