Flor de Camaguey Figurado, Spanish Rosado

[macpappy]

I picked up two of these at Havana Dreams, a new cigar lounge located in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The felt a little dry to touch when I purchased them so I put the baggie in my humidor (65% RH) for a week to let them rest and maybe absorb a little moisture. The next morning I went into my humi and the RH was down to 55%. Coincidence? Moved them to a cooler I keep at 70% and let them sit in it for the past week. The RH had dropped to 65% in it.

Anyway, since today is my birthday I decided to quite work early and try one of them.

The prelight aroma was decent. Didn't smell as good as some but didn't smell like elephant dung at the zoo either. The construction is rough with heavy veins not only in the wrapper but the whole cigar felt bumpy. Clipped the end and tested the pre-light draw and it was like sucking through a straw. Blew through it with my other hand in front and I could felt the wind. My first thought was this thing is going to burn hot and fast.

Lit it and took a draw. I was surprised that it didn't burn my tongue and while I couldn't get a handle on the flavor, it wasn't bad just non-descript. This was around 15 pm. It put out a nice amount of smoke and the burn looked fairly even to start. As I smoked it I started picking up a little pepper and a slight earthiness. Overall I had the impression of a mild flavor cigar.

After 30 minutes I started to get concerned because the wrapper just didn't seem to have burned down as much as I had expected. It was still smoking pretty good though. About 10 minutes later it was out and I had to relight. I knocked what little ash was off and saw that it had tunneled a little.

An hour into the smoke it was still an okay smoke but nothing to get excited about. Still didn't seem to be burning hot, the spiciness was a little stronger but not anywhere close to a Pepin. My thought was the earlier relight was a minor construction problem. Continued smoking.

At 3 pm, 1-1/2 hour after starting, it went out again. Knocked the ash off and saw a serious tunnel. Decided not to relight.

While I didn't really get a definitive flavor profile from this cigar, it wasn't an unpleasant smoke and it was stronger than I had expected. I started to notice a little nicotine buzz towards the end.

Don't know if I'll buy another one with the Spanish Rosado wrapper, but I might give it another chance with the Maduro.