Wrapper: USA/Connecticut

Binder: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Size: 5.5 x 52 Belicoso

Body: Full

Price: $5.40

This is a cigar sold exclusively by Holts Cigars. They’ve been around for a while but the mug of their dear departed dog on the band kind of creeps me out. So I never tried it even though I am a big fan of Pepin Garcia, the blender. I bought a box during one of their specials.

Holts says it best:

“Handcrafted in Esteli, Nicaragua by the Garcia family, these cigars feature beautiful, dark and luscious Maduro wrappers. These wrappers are cultivated in the Connecticut River Valley and come from the highest primings of the tobacco plant. After extensive exposure to direct sunlight and many months of rigorous fermentation, these precious, velvety wrappers are teeming with rich, oily flavors and ready to roll. Pepin uses only the finest aged Nicaraguan tobaccos when blending these cigars. The strength is robust and medium to full-bodied and the flavors are bold and complex. A beautiful bouquet of spices, leather and oak marry mouthwatering notes of coffee bean, dark chocolate and vanilla. Available in five sizes, these are some of the finest cigars for the coin you are going to find anywhere!”

The cigar is extremely rustic looking. Extremely toothy. Huge veins. Seams aren’t bad. The condition of the caps differs from cigar to cigar. The wrapper is a very dark brown. And the cigar is very firm in the hand.

I sniff away and detect lots of cinnamon and loads of cocoa. (Diet Coke). Very, very earthy. Nutmeg. Baking spices all in all.

I “V” cut the cap (I have one of those stand-alone 4 cigar cutters made from stainless- I love it) and off we go….

Here comes the Garcia blast of pepper. Woo Hoo! Cocoa arrives immediately and my libation of Diet Coke was a wise choice. The ash is almost snow white the first half inch.

This already reminds of the Garcia Black Label. I have a box of those simmering for the last 6 months and very familiar.

The draw is perfect. I’m getting some of those baking spices as well. If in fact, is very much like the Black Label then this is a swing to the fences. The Black Label costs considerably more than Old Henry and if you don’t mind a bulldog on your cigar band…Schwing!

I tried one when I got them a few months ago and decided to put them away until today. Wise move for Yoda here. This is a purty’ good stick right now.

The first third comes to a close with cocoa and red pepper and a bit of creaminess leading the charge. There is some espresso…but not really that much. Might be wishful thinking.

The halfway point is pretty much more of the same….cocoa, more creaminess, very earthy, and a very high end medium body.

Now that’s fine. It isn’t that complex but it’s a $5 stick. One doesn’t expect deep complexity from a $5 stick.

I am thoroughly enjoying this cigar for what it brings to the table. A more expensive cigar than its price point.

The last third gets really interesting. All of the aforementioned flavors get very intense. The creaminess just oozes. The cocoa mixes with the Diet Coke as planned. The spiciness is sliding into third. Safe!

There are some ancillary flavors but it’s the cocoa and creaminess and spiciness that make this cigar what it is. And that’s just peachy with me.

The cigar is smooth as my tush. Wanna’ see? No? OK.

Giving the cigar 2-3 months or more really bring out Garcia’s intent. It is most definitely the little brother of the Black Label. So if you are looking for a great bargain on a really good stick, well my brothers and sisters, this is it.

Note: Holts has this thing called “Six Packs to Go.” They sell a 6 pack of a lot of their cigars. And if you buy 4 of them, you can save on the cost of buying a box by quite a bit.

And now for something completely different:

Back to the “rock god” days we go…..

The very first tour of Curved Air’s reunion (Sept. 1974), I shared a room with Sonja the singer. Good looking chick…a rock goddess. Mainly, it was so I could babysit her while she went through morphine withdrawal. But as a nice door prize, she fucked the shit out of me every night. And after a concert, she was a wild cat. No. Really. She made weird animal sounds that freaked me out and made me laugh sometimes.

After about two weeks, she was sitting on top of me…it was around 2-3am…I was bushed from the 2-1/2 hour concert. And out of nowhere, she says to me, “You know Katman, you can do anything you want to me….purrrrrrrr.”

So I threw in a few things we hadn’t done and there we were again with her sitting on top of me and she said, you guessed it: “You know Katman, you can do anything you want to me….purrrrrrrr.”

Oh Fuck!

I can’t think of anything else. What could she be thinking? She was definitely worldlier than me as she was the star of the musical “Hair” in London, etc. And the band had 3 albums before the Live one we were to record on this tour. I even heard she gave a bunch of BJ’s to get a fix of morphine once.

I finally told her I don’t know what she meant so she told me. She wanted to pee on me while I lay on the floor.

)(^^^RY)($#@@&_+)(^%#@#(___!!!!!!!!!

“No thank you, Sonja.” She continued to cajole me by talking dirty to me, but she could have the Dallas Cowboy cheer leading section in the room naked all taking turns and I would not have said yes….??….Well…..

It was now way past 4am. The nice thing about touring Europe with roadies is that they work late packing and they get up early to get to the next gig 500 miles away in a different country, but the band could sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

I shoved her off of me and told her enough was enough. My penis looked like a cherry Popsicle. And my skinny little body’s pelvic bone felt like it had been hit with a sledge hammer.

While she was yammering, I rolled over and fell asleep.

This went on pretty much for 2 months on the road. By the time of the next tour, a couple months later, she had already taken up with Stewart Copeland, our drummer and the pressure was off. Whew.

And when the teen boys went nuts pushing against the stage while we performed reaching to touch the hem of her sexy dress, I thought to myself: “Yeah. I did that.”

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS