ApexAZ Cigar #5
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4/29/2012
Tonight I am reviewing DBall's Blind Taste Test cigar #5. It's 88 degrees so I'll be drinking a cold Perrier along with it.
Pre-light
This cigar is about 5 7/8" long and has a ring guage around 42. It has a smooth natural wrapper with small veins. It has a triple cap like the others before it. The construction appears good and the cigar is slightly spongy when gently squeezed. The smell of the tobacco is unremarkable to me. Just tobacco with a hint of manure. Maybe a little less sweet compared to the others.
The pre-light draw seems good and I get some floral and slightly minty flavors from the tobacco.
1st Third
I lit the cigar and had about 2 draws before the sneezing started. Crap. Allergies are a major pain in the butt for me here. I ran in and took a dose of flonase in each nostril in hopes of stopping the sneezing. It did help the sneezing, but now I'm all stuffy. Crap crap crap. The draw is excellent, the burn is clean, and the first ash dropped after about 1/2 of an inch. Now if only I could get some cooperation out of my nose =(. The cigar so far is very smooth, but I'm not getting much flavor from it aside from some wood and some slight sweetness. The strength and body are both mild. As I get deeper into it, the flavor starts to develop into an enjoyable sweet cream.
2nd Third
After almost 40 minutes I'm working my way into the 2nd third. I had been smoking ultra slow in hopes that the flonase will do its job, which it has to a degree and I'm able to start retrohaling a bit. The smoke is still sweet, but I'm now detecting some slight leather and other flavors that I'm unsure how to describe. As I approach the final third, I also get a little bit of spice. The spice coupled with the sweetness reminds me of a combination of cinnamon and red pepper. The strength is picking up some and it's more medium bodied. The burn needed some touching up after some tunneling, but remained very good otherwise.
Final Third
After about 60 minutes I reached the final third. I started smoking faster to prevent the cigar from tunneling and I have also been able to breath through my nose somewhat. The flavors have developed into something I am having trouble pinpointing. It's like leather, but not the same as how leather would taste in a NC stick. It's also not quite as sweet as it was in the first 2/3 of the smoke and I taste more pepper than cinnamon. The strength is more medium now and the body somewhere between medium and full. The burn remained perfect, but I did find that I needed to smoke faster to keep it alive. With a little more than an inch to go, it got hot and tasted only of tobacco smoke, so I called it quits.
Conclusion
I felt that this was a pretty decent cigar given the circumstances. I am sure that if my allergies hadn't acted up my experience would have been different and may have influenced my score. Whether it would have been better or worse is hard to say. I can say that it's pretty hard to taste when you can't smell, but I did my best. I give it a 7/10. This marks the halfway point of the blind taste test and I'm looking forward to the other 5. Thanks, Dan!
Score: 7/10
Total smoke time: 85 minutes