Warning: This review may not be suitable for all viewers. This cigar met a tragic and violent end.
Here's the setup...home brew, warm New Year's Day (50 degrees F), and the sole survivor of the ill-fated La Joya Endeavor. Let me explain...
It was late in 2008 when my bargain hunting eye discovered what I believed to be a good deal on La Joya Nicaragua Celebracion cigars. My research had indicated that the cigars would be one that my brother Eric and I would enjoy and thus I created a perfect plan-We would split a box of these stogies and both be better for it.
But like many brilliant plans, the Devil is always in the Details...
The cigars arrived from Cigarbid at Eric's Kansas City location dry and broken. He gave me half of these sad sticks. I examined them and I had to toss all but one of the units-they had been savaged by low humidity, rough shipping...who knows? The one I saved had a tiny crack but I hoped that it would still prove to be a decent smoke...and since it was the New Year, I thought I'd embrace hope and go for it! After all, the stick had been loving cared for for over a month in my humidor-now was the time to see what it was made of!
This is how the stick started.
But almost immediately after lighting, this crack developed and worsened. I was worried but the nice peppery flavor kept me going at it.
Towards the end, this is one of the many horrors I endured while trying to brave this doomed cigar. Numerous lickings did not save it. I spent much of the hour long smoke plugging holes with my fingers and trying (to no avail) to keep this p.o.s. together.
As for the review...it tasted peppery and was consistant (if not dynamic) all the way through. It was medium body and medium strength. My review...this stogie would have been decent and possibly an enjoyable $2 smoke-had it not arrived to us in shitty shape (with cigar leprosy). I cannot give it a numeric rating given the circumstances but I do not think I'll tempt fate and try another. One thing that I did like was the shape-a tapered tip for the lips and a big ring gauge on the rest. Great form factor.
I will say that I had a Joya de Nicaragua Antonio the other day and it was very, very strong and very good. I think I'll stick with that line in the future.
Here's my boy, taking a break from playing with his little sister and buddy George.
1 comment:
Sounds like a noble endeavor that fell through. However, I will say that I for one have braved the storm on a few of these now, and after some months of humidification, the stogie flavor is good enough to make up for some of the modest intra-smoke wrapper flakings... No doubt this would be an exponentially better experience if we hadn't gotten cracked and dried-out smokes, but the ones I've had so far were still good if you kept in mind built-in deficiencies we were dealt pre-arrival. Plus the size and shape is a pretty unique form factor -- like a fat bomb with a round-tapered head (unlike the sharp-tipped torpedos). Also, I'll have to let you know what comes of my cigar glue -- I've applied that to all the rest of this batch that had the slightest cracks (which is most of them).
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