Sunday, June 24, 2007

2001 Partagas Lonsdale

Origin: Cuba
Manufactured: Hand Made
Gauge: Medium
Length: 165 mm.
Vitola: Cervantes
Ring: 42
Weight: 10.80 gr.
Size: 6.5" x 42

Appearance: Pretty smooth looking like cinnamon hued cigar. No real noticeable imperfections, a generally nice looking stogie.

Pre - Light: clipped easily and perfectly. Pre light Draw smelled of that beautiful damp organic earthiness of a habano, also some tangy tobacco notes.

Burn/Draw: This cigar lit easily, and the burn was quite straight and even the whole way down. For the first inch or so this cigar's draw was rather tight, but with patience and time it opened up quite nicely and by the halfway point it was free and easy and produced a quite good amount of smoke. Overall it was not a big deal, and the actual act of smoking was a quite pleasant experience.

Flavors: this one seemed like a pretty straight forward pleasant smoke to me. There were tangy notes of tobacco and earthy leather at first. the whole length of the cigar was underpinned by a nice rich earthyness. Over the last third or so the flavors ramped up a bit, and some woody cedar and black pepper notes creeped in. This cigar was a solid just north of medium at its strongest. Pretty tasty.

TomC

Cabaiguán Imperiales

7" X 47, Natural

Construction: What a beauty! As you can see in the pic above its a luscious looking ligt brown vitola of decent length, nicely packed and clearly expertly rolled. It seems to me I saw a triple cap which generally means of cuban origin, or a Fuente Opus X, though it did not have the rosado hue of the latter. No soft spots, not veins to see, not one blemish at all!

Pre-Light: Rich and tangy smelling, with a host of earthy smells, this cigar did a good job of highlighting the flavors to come. Clip was easy and the pre light draw was fairly easy, just restricting enough to ensure what was going to be a long languid experience. the Pre-draw yeailede more of the the tasty notes experienced in the intial smell.

Burn/Draw: You can see how fine the construction is in the burn of this stogie. Long and slow, cool and straight, this stogie did not need a single touch up after the initial light. Did I mention how slow it burned. This cigar burned languidly for well over an hour and a half! And not once did it burn hot, allowing its marvelous flavor profile to shine through. The Draw while it burned was just perfect, restrictive enough as not to burn hot, but yielding a plethora of fragrant smoke.

Taste: What a lovely rich cigar. Amazingly smooth and round on the palate, this cigar abounds with earthy and rich notes. I dont wanna pin down the sweetness with a specific I dentifier, except to say it si natural (molasses maybe?). Also notes of wood like standing in a whiskey aging room, and a field on a farm after the rain (you know, that wet earth rich smell. The thing that stuck me most is that it had all these rich flavors while maintaining that incredible smoothness. Almost the epitome of what a medium bodied medium strength cigar should taste like. A genuine EXPERIENCE, not just a cigar to smoke.

TomC