Sunday, September 20, 2009

Legends Nestor Plasencia Maroon Label (5.7 x 54)

Legends Nestor Plasencia Maroon Label (5.7 x 54)



I had a good relationship with Cigars International's "Legends" series of smokes when I first started lighting up stogies. They were thick, made by well-known makers, and CI's marketing juggernaut made them so darn cool sounding. Plus the "color coding" branding made the confusing world of cigars so much more accessible. At the time, I really gravitated towards the thick stogies and these bad boys were all right up my alley. I enjoyed the red label (Perdomo) white label (Camacho), the Orange (Rocky Patel), the Yellow (Don Pepin Garcia) as well as a few Blue (Matasa) and Purple (Graycliff)...

As time went on, I found myself less enchanted with them. The White label didn't seem to age well. The Red was good but kind of one dimensional. The Yellow seemed to vary a lot in flavor (some were too damn peppery even for me!). I enjoyed the Orange but I recall it having issues with it staying lit. The Black and Purple never did it for me and the Blue smelled like perfume!

So when the Maroon label by Nestor came out, I was curious but enjoying my other smokes too much to try them out...

...And that's where my little brother rides in on his white horse (Red Buick) and offers me this thick black log of a smoke. Since I had just finished an Oliva G and he was on the phone with me, I figured I'd try out the Nestor...glad I did.

Here is what Cigars International has to say about them on their website:

Legends Nestor Plasencia - Maroon Label: Nestor Plasencia was a natural fit for the Legends Series. He is one of the world’s leading tobacco growers, owning fields throughout Central America and beyond. In fact, most of the cigars you enjoy on a regular basis contain tobaccos grown by him and his father, Nestor Senior. His supply and variety of fine tobaccos is limitless, granting him the potential to blend masterful cigars, which he has down with the Maroon Label. Dressed in a rich, redolent, and oily broadleaf maduro wrapper from Honduras, this fine cigar utilizes a long-leaf mixture of aged, Nicaraguan-grown ligeros bound by a dark Nicaraguan leaf. The result is remarkable, a medium to full-bodied array of flavor, including leather, earth, and coffee delivered throughout the smooth, chewy core. A pleasant sweetness finishes each savory puff, completing an eventful and memorable smoke.


The wrapper is dark and uniform-and feels like a well-packed, solid stick. The stick took the flame well and burned like a champ. The flavor was a mild to medium maduro type flavor-not too complicated but very enjoyable. It lacked the pepper that so many maduros that I enjoy possess but I enjoyed the absence. The best thing about this stogie is the really pleasant and sweet aroma-I kept finding myself pausing and enjoying the fragrance.




These run around $3 apiece right now on CI-not sure what Eric paid. For that price, the cigar is a great deal, especially if you like thicker stogies like this. I'd rate it a 2 (which, on my 4 point scale is a good and enjoyable smoke). It almost edges its way into a 3-keeping it down would be the lack of flavor transitions and the the thick ring gauge, which I'm not always appreciative of-and the band. Damn it, I hate to be that way, but the Legends band is a big part of the "2" rating instead of the "3". The band is gawdawful and has no...character. I may buy a five pack, pull the bands, smoke another and rereview it to see if it slides into a 3!

I think that this cigar would be a good one to keep around-for my own enjoyment and also as a relatively affordable "hospitality" cigar to hand to an infrequent smoker-they'll enjoy the mild to medium flavors without having their butt kicked!

Damn good cigar, Bro. Thanks!

2 comments:

Eric J. Reid, Open Road Communications said...

Glad you dug it. Like I say, I've had a bit of consistency fluctuations with my appreciation of this one myself, but some of the good ones are great in my opinion. The others, well, all smokable, just not that wowing.

Big Sexy said...

Yeah, ideally I'd smoke two or three before posting a review but since I only had one, I figured I'd give it a whirl.

As always, your mileage may vary, right?!?!