Thanks to Brandon(bfreebern), I was able to sample a 2001 WOAM today.
I was finally feeling recovered from another grueling night shift Saturday, so I chose this afternoon to enjoy this fantastic birthday gift while I read "The God Particle", by Leon Lederman. My camera is the lousy webcam type so I won't waste my time trying to capture the beauty of this cigar. The deep, black luster of this wrapper leaf wouldn't translate through a it's coarse diode array.
Lederman shared a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988 for his contribution to our understanding of subatomic particles. But this book is great because of his sense of humor and his ability to make these arcane subjects seem as tangible as a quark or boson can be made. No mean feat considering they have no dimensions! So it was in this somewhat mystical yet scientific frame of mind that I fired up this cigar.
It starts out missing the characteristic sweetness of a WOAM. I thought that maybe this was a cigar that age didn't improve. They are already damn good, after all.
This was sweet but not as intensely as a fresh one. But as the burn continues it more than makes up for this loss with a complexity normally lacking in a WOAM. It alternates between tart and sweet and leather throughout most of the burn. I enjoyed it more than the fresh one I had a few weeks ago. That being said, I still think the fresh WOAMs are a fantastic smoke. But, IMO, the extra five years did improve this cigar. It does beg the question, "How the hell do you not smoke a box of WOAMs for FIVE YEARS!!"
Thanks again, Brandon, for this rare and enjoyable smoke!