Excuse me for trolling up long ago forgotten posts, but I thought you might enjoy a review posted some time ago by a friend of mine (Even if he is a Gator.....)
"
Phillies Blunt Strawberry Review (Author SeanGar/ ~11/2005)
My last foray into "blue collar" cigars got me interested, so last night when I was getting gas I bought a 5 pk of Phillies Blunt Strawberry.
Now, I know these aren't cigars that typically get reviewed here. And technically this review will fall under the contest [Redacted] is running for an '80s Dunhill. Not really fair, is it? I mean really, Phillies sells thousands of these cigars a day .... how many 80s Dunhills are sold at gas stations nationwide? I'm willing to bet zero.
Now you're probably smacking your foreheads saying "why strawberry, you ass, everybody knows that the grape ones are the best". I was attracted by the pink package. Sue me.
Being slightly cautious, I decided to dissect one of these first.
The binder looked exactly like brown paper and was bound up the middle, the wrapper was homogenized tobacco leaf. The filler was short and looked like tobacco. So far, so good. Now the sweet smell had me thinking I could smoke this in a pipe.
But just as I was packing the pipe, I got a strange call from the SPCP ... Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Pipes. How did they know I was about to torture my Savinelli? In any case, I ceased and desisted. No need to ruin a perfectly good pipe.
Went out on the back porch as I made my wife lunch. I can smoke and cook at the same time, just popping inside to turn things over.
I cracked the cello and lit it up. Hmm .... very sweet tasting, strawberry is there but muted, definately different but not disgusting a la Cremosa.
I was actually impressed with the ash for a short filler, I knocked it off after this picture.
Taste remained sweet, slight taste of tobacco from time to time, I found this much better than the Swisher Sweets that I had reviewed months ago.
The burn stayed perfect, like a cigarette of course, and the taste remained decent but sweet all the way. Having smoked a few flavored pipe tobaccos in the past month definately helped me with the sweetness and aroma, which otherwise would not have gone over well.
All in all a solid D+ ... I would smoke one of these again without problem. "
So get your brother some strawberry cigars.......
