Sunday, January 13, 2008

Bundelo Havana Rose






It's Friday night at Mike Kelley's Westsider in Kansas City. Eddie Delahunt, Gabe, and another fella are churning out the terrific traditional Celtic tunes. I have my lady by my side as we enjoy a night off. Above you can see my Boulevard Pale Ale, my "indoor lighter" (it has a mellow flame that isn't too hot at resisting wind), and my Bundelo Havana Rose cigar. Never heard of this one, never seen it before, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try. It is quite possibly the thickest stogie I can remember ever putting in my mouth.

Using my not-yet-patented rating system, I delivered the following category ratings as my puffing experience wore on:

  • Appearance - 6 \ Its huge ring gauge is impressive, as is its traditional shape and rich brown hue.

  • Draw - 3 \ Pretty tough throughout.

  • Burn - 3 \ With its thickness and poor draw, lighting this bad boy from the get-go was challenging and led to burn problems. But even with frequent lighting maintenance, the uneven burn never really corrected itself satisfactorily.

  • Plummage - 2 \ The amount of smoke plumes this stogie produced were underwhelming on the whole.

  • Flavor - 3 \ The flavor never really drew my attention, although it was doable.

  • Overall - 3.5 \ I enjoyed the full-bodied nature of this tobacco truncheon (especially the pleasant little buzz at the end), and actually noticed a nutty aroma to the smoke (although I never tasted that.) It was a muy macho stogie with the novelty of its girth alone, making you feel like you were smoking a golf ball. But generally, my key categories (flavor, burn and draw) were lacking.

So, I can't say I'd recommend this stogie, other than for the novelty... But I enjoyed myself nevertheless. Just look at this monster!

1 comment:

Big Sexy said...

Dude! I love your photos. I am going to steal and modify your review system as well, improving it as only I can!

Michelle says that you might have been raped with that cigar prior to you smoking it...it's quite the monster.