Wednesday, March 21, 2007

CAO Gold Corona

5.5" X 42, Natural

One might have noticed that over the life of my Blog so far, I have generally reviewed Medium to strong cigars, both in strength and body. Well for a change of pace I thought I would hearken back to the days when I smoked mild cigars, and review a CAO Gold, a rather popular Natural Wrapped Cigar. Here goes:

Appearance:
Smooth and tan, not much in the way of veins, and pretty firmly packed. Overall a pretty nice looking stogie.

Prelight:
Despite a hiccup by my normally dependable Xikar (needs sharpened maybe?), I was able to correct this stick to a nice clean cut. The prelight draw was acceptable, with tangyness and sweet honey as prelight notes.

Burn/Draw: fabulous. burned razor straight, nice easy draw with just enough resistance to prove worthwhile. The ash was medium grey and mottled and held for a bit more than an inch. Burned just like a well constructed cigar should. See the telling illustration below.
Flavor: there was much more flavor than I expected in this cigar. It was dominated by sweet and tangy notes. Woody notes like maple, sweet ones like honey, and nutty notes like toasted almonds and pecans. Over the last third of the cigar some spice crept in, cinnamon, and way toward the end some pepper. This is a cigar on the mild side of medium, in terms of both strength and body but definitely provides plenty of flavor. Overall this is a fabulous example how being a mildish stogie does not mean you have to be a bland one. Recommended.

TomC

Stogie Time!


No fancy Review for this one (I already reviewed the Don Lino Africa, anyway). Just some pics of enjoying a good cigar. This is The Smoking Lounge after all.

TomC

Dice-K

I know I haven't really talked about them much to date, but I am a big Boston Red Sox fan (growing up in Massachusetts and all), and it will become a regular part of my blogging once the regular season starts in earnest. I am watching the Sox spring training game this afternoon (on ESPN) against the pirates, and its my first real look at the Japanese phenom we have all heard about over the winter.

Former Seibu Lion Pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka's adventure in coming to Boston has been told many times, but for those who haven't heard it yet the Wikipedia Version should provide a nice primer. I am more interested in the game today because this is the first time I got to see him pitch in a game situation (since the '06 WBC, where I wasn't looking critically at what he could do to help the team I root for). I got to say, he looked pretty sharp today. From what announcers said today its really the first time he's cranked it up. Hes got a 93-96 fastball that sinks or rises, an 85-88 changeup that moves all over the place (Adam LaRoche called it a "Fog Ball", and said he couldn't even see it), a curveball with a pronounced drop to it and a slider slurve thing. I didn't see any gyroball pitch, but add the rumor of that and I gotta say that he looked downright intimidating. It this is what the Sox get from him on a regular basis, Look Out!

Matsuzaka 5 2/3 IP 1ER 1H 6K

In an unrelated not, Mike Timlin will start the season on the DL with an oblique strain. Hopefully it will not linger.

Go Sox!

TomC