Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano Seed

Binder: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Size: 6 x 52  Toro

Body: Medium/Full

Price: $6.15

A big shout out to the folks at Rocky Patel for sending me samples of three blends to review. This is my last of the third.

This is the first Nicaraguan puro in the Edge line. It has a Habano seed wrapper with the binder and filler coming from Esteli, Condega, and Jalapa.

Construction is solid with the right amount of give. It is a little bumpy in places giving it a bit of a rustic look. Seams are tight and there are plenty of tiny veins. It also has a nice oily sheen. There is also a bit of toothiness on the wrapper.

The sniff-o-rama produces hints of pungent cocoa, cedar, and leather.

I punch the cigar and light it up.

Pepper. Sweet. Loads of cocoa. Yeasty. Creamy. A very good start.

Right this instant, I can say this is my favorite Edge. Period. Very rich. Very earthy.

The char line is good, but not perfect. And it starts off with a classic medium body.

Yum. This is good and I expect good things to follow. This is the first time I’ve smoked the Habano.

After an inch, the ash disintegrates. The draw is dead nuts perfect.

What a surprise. Usually, I have to allow my Edge sticks to rest for a month or two to get where this stick is from only 4 days in my humidor.

The first third is all about the cocoa, the spiciness, the creaminess, and some leather.

As I burn into the second third, more flavors show their heads.

I get a nice cappuccino flavor. Creamy coffee mixed with cocoa. The creaminess really ramps up while the spiciness reaches its peak and stays at a nice background component.

The second third makes the flavor profile complex. Flavors mingle. The strength is rising. The cocoa, coffee and creaminess; with the spicy background make this a dynamite cigar. With a couple months on it, it will be two sticks of dynamite.

The last third is more of the same. The leather profile gets stronger. And the other flavors are finessed and nuanced. This blend is just great. While only mildly complex, the flavors compliment each other so nicely that it doesn’t matter…and again, I am smoking this stick with only a few days on it in my humidor. But it shows enormous potential.

The cap is nicely constructed. No spittle or detritus and tobacco bits that need to be spat out. While it is only a single cap, the torcedore did a nice job.

The cocoa and creaminess are so strong that I run to the fridge and grab a Diet Coke….That’s right…my famous chocolate phosphate experience while smoking.

It takes me back to my younger years growing up…my father kept seltzer bottles in the garage and for a treat he would make us an egg cream…something New Yorkers know about more so than the rest of the country. No egg. No cream. Seltzer, milk, and chocolate syrup.

The seltzer is the hard part.  You can’t just can’t grab a bottle of club soda. It doesn’t squirt out under high pressure, and that pressure is needed to make the creamy froth that tops every good egg cream.  It doesn’t taste right, either.  In the old days, seltzer was readily available in siphon bottles.  We’d have them delivered weekly to our homes by the soda man, who would pick up the empties for refilling.

You need the right chocolate syrup, the thin kind.  “Fox’s U-Bet” works well, and is not that hard to find. You can Google the rest of the recipe.

The last allows the spiciness to get stronger. My tongue tingles and my sinuses are all clear. The creaminess is just wonderful. Add the cocoa to the mix and the cigar just doesn’t need more than this.

In summary, I think the Patel folks blended a new generation of The Edge with this stick.  At at this price, everyone can afford it. Smart marketing plan. I thoroughly enjoyed this cigar for its boldness in flavor and body. Go get some.

And now for something completely different:

The 1960’s was a great time to be a young man. And in So. Cal., everyone worked part time at Disneyland in Anaheim. I applied but was told I’d have to shave my moustache. The Horror. Ooh The Horror!

So my friend, Skip, who already worked at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, got me a gig there. There were two parts of the park. We worked across Beach Blvd at the Independence Hall part. This was the kiddie area. We had a merry-go-round, a lake, row boats, a miniature train, and the Cordelia K….a miniature steamboat that sat around 50 people. And I was the captain.

No, it was not on a track. I got that question every time new passengers got on the boat. My reply was that the water was on a track, which got quizzical looks.

The boat’s trajectory was twice around the lake….First a tight circle around the small island in the middle of the lake, and then one taking a wide berth.

It was a horrible job. The paddle wheels worked hard forcing huge torrents of water out their back side but it was really a diesel engine forcing that to happen, not a steam engine. I stood right in front of the engine, behind the wheel and man oh man, it got hot. Imagine having your back right against a huge diesel engine….Summers were torture.

Driving the boat was a one man job. I took the tickets, pushed the boat away from the dock, climbed in, and gunned it. If a lot of people were on the boat, making that first turn out of the dock was really difficult and I had to lean on the wheel so as not to ground it.

No one who ever rented a row boat knew how to row. They were all idiots. And since there were so many boats, they constantly got in my way. I would get on the bull horn and tell them to move which panicked them all.

I pulled on the loud steam whistle as I got closer and the boat people would yell at me to go around. I laughed and aimed for the row boats. Sometimes, I would ram them causing screaming and fainting…..other times, I would cut back on the engine and walk on to the bow of the boat, with a gaffe, and push them out of the way, get back in the boat and continue the ride of ecstasy.

People thought that their 25 cents got them a tour. A narration of some sort. I was there to drive, that’s it.

On a busy Easter, the boat was swamped with people. Mid-afternoon, I had too much weight and couldn’t make the turn. I slammed the engine into reverse while turning the wheel. And then the wheel spun like a roulette wheel in my hands. The cable, controlling the steering, broke and I had no control.

I drifted right on to shore.

Thousands of people started taking pictures as I hit the emergency whistle alerting other employees that I was in trouble.

Several of my compadres lined the shore and I yelled that the steering was broken. Two of them shook their heads and waded into the horrible black water they called the lagoon.

I couldn’t believe this. This water had absolutely no filtration system and in the Summer, residents for miles around would complain about the stench. During those hot days, at least one employee would go home sick.

I jumped into the water and stood in 3 feet of muck from the ducks and God knows what else.

I moved my way to the back of the boat and met one of my fellow employees. We pushed the boat while another pushed at the bow. At one point, I lost my balance and went down….completely submerged in that stinky water. I came up to see tourists in the boat laughing and taking my picture.

We got it to the dock and I pulled myself out and rolled on to the wood slats like a beached whale. Totally exhausted. The applause was deafening but I was in no mood for taking bows.

The three of us had personally saved the Cordelia K from major harm and the owner of the boat rewarded us with a trip across the street to the main park. And then to its men’s store, where we were bought new jeans and shirts. No new shoes of course. And then sent back to work. So for the rest of the day, I stunk to high heaven for the rest of my shift.

On my last day there, I decided to pull a prank. I gunned the boat at an unsafe speed with people on it. Then I turned it around and went the wrong way around the island. I turned it around again and at max speed, I drove it right through the dock missing the edges by inches. A crowd gasped.

I brought her home and went into the ticket office and clocked out. Our manager heard about it and told everyone that if he ever saw me again, he would kill me. LOL!

A couple years later, my girlfriend who worked at the “Pitcher Gallery” where you could dress up and have a tin type photo taken….took me to employee night at the park. Everything was free. We got on the log flume ride and as I got in, I saw my old manager as he helped us into the log. By this time, my looks had changed and I had my huge fro. I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me.

As it took off, he leaned over and said, “Make sure you drive it the right way.” I burst into laughter and off we went.

This photo was taken in 1967 and that’s me at the wheel. Clearly, they adjusted the color of the water for the photo; because it is blue (instead of the real color: black) in the photo. It was a post card they sold at the gift shops.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS