Well, here i am, friday night with nothing to do, so its time to smoke some cigars! Laurie is gone tonight doing some stuff with her mom, and my plans fell through for the evening, so i figured i would smoke a cigar (or 2) and do some tasting notes.
I am starting with a cigar called the Nub. Yes, stupid name. Ive only had one nub before, the habano wrapper. The one im smoking tonight is the Connecticut, which i was a little hesitant to light up, as im not a big fan of this wrapper. The Nub is a very odd cigar from the get go. This size is 4 inches by 64 ring gauge (ring gauges are done on a 64th of an inch scale, so this one is one inch thick). The filler and binder are Nicaraguan. I really dont like a cigar with a ring gauge bigger than say a 54, but i figured i would give this a shot. This particular cigar is a torpedo, which makes the obsurd ring gauge a little easier to handle, as it tapers at the head. Other than the odd size of this cigar, its got a nice light connecticut wrapper that is visually appealing with no major veins on the leaf. The draw is very good, which is always a worry with a cigar this thick (thicker cigars can tend to draw too loose, burning hot and bitter). Im drinking a Dead Guy Ale , which may be on the heavy (flavor, not body) side for this particular cigar.
As far as the flavor goes, this is on the light side for my taste, especially for an evening smoke. This is a very creamy cigar, with notes of honey and a toasty flavor. The finish is on the dry side with a little bit of grassyness For me, this is much more of a cigar to have with a cup of tea in the morning or early afternoon, not with a beer like im having now. Oh well. This cigar is producing ample amounts of smoke, not surprising with the amount of tobacco crammed into such a small package. The ash is on the flakey side and the burn is relatively even. The odd thing about this smoke is that when you look at it and see how short it is, you think its going to maybe last for 30-45 minutes, when in reality these little guys last for about an hour and a half! It has about as much tobacco as a churchill (average around 7 inch by 47-49 ring).
Overall, not bad smoke, but not a favorite. This is too light for my palate, but might be ok with a cup of tea early in the day. I might have to revisit this one down the road.
The second cigar of the night is one of my absolute favorite smokes, the Tatuaje Cojonu 2003. Tatuaje is in my opinion one of the best non cuban cigar company on the market. This is blended by Don Pepin Garcia for Pete Johnson, who owns Tatuaje. Im pairing this cigar with Pyrat XO rum. This is a Nicaraguan Puro with a Nicaraguan corojo wrapper. The Tatuajes are rolled in a Cuban style, with a triple cap and bunched by an expert Torcedor in Garcia's factory in Miami. These are made in very small batches which keeps quality very high. This is a very complex cigar right from the start, with loads of spice, leather and a signature underlying flavor i find in most of Pepin's cigars that is hard to describe, but anyone who smokes Pepin's smokes knows what im talking about. This is definitely a full bodied cigar, not for everyone. The sweetness of the rum works well with this peppery cigar, a nice contrast of flavors on the palate. This cigar builds in strength as smoked, with the spiceyness changing from a black pepper to almost an allspice type flavor and an earthy note underneath the spiceyness. At about the halfway point there are some sweeter notes, but not too sweet. This is definitely a cigar that would go great after a big meal. The nice thing about Tatuajes is that they are full bodied, but not overpowering like alot of the other full bodied smokes on the market. Its strong, but still very balanced and complex, which is not an easy feat for cigar blenders. This is hands down one of the best cigars available, and if i could only smoke a few cigars for the rest of my life, this would be on the list.
