Wrapper: Nicaraguan Corojo 99
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 5 x 56 “Robusto Gordo”
Body: Medium/Full
Price: $10.00

For some reason, this is a controversial cigar. Smokers either love ‘em or hate ‘em.

The shape of the cigar is beyond bizarre. It is supposed to look like plastic explosive as in Composition 4. Why? Who da’ fuck knows. This is the second Viaje to have double closed ends. The first one was the 2011 Zombie. Plus the stick has a pin hole at the foot to allow some of the moisture within the cigar to escape. The cigar is a severe box press. And the cap is a triple.

Fans of the Viaje Skull and Bones blend seem to be partial to this cigar.

The upside to this review is that this cigar has a year’s time in the humidor while the review I did for some online cigar store had only a couple of weeks and I found that amount of time insufficient to produce the blender’s intent.

I’ve read other reviews of this cigar and they all seem to have done what I did and that is, not wait long enough and strange and weird flavors were apparent to those reviewers.

So now, you get the real skinny of what this cigar is supposed to taste like. Fingers crossed.

The cigar is close to jet black. Can’t see any seams but there are a lot of veins. The triple cap is flawless. The stick is very oily and feels very smooth.

I cut the cap, and foot, and detect the exact same thing as another reviewer wrote: A-1 Sauce. Now that is strange. His review did not put this into my head. The aroma is very definitive. It smells of cedar, toast, and spice. A-1 Sauce…wow.
The cold draw doesn’t reflect steak sauce, but rather, a tart citrus flavor, and that’s about it. More strangeness.
I light up.

Now I taste steak sauce. Mainly due to the natural tobacco sweetness. Lots of toast. And, again, that’s about it.

The draw is great and the char line is perfect. The body is immediately medium. The sweetness is augmented by some creaminess that I didn’t see in the other reviews. They tasted spice which I have not at this point. The burn line is very wavy. The aging, I guess.

The cigar is very savory or meaty. It doesn’t seem the type to turn into a flavor bomb…but will stick with a savory flavor profile. We shall see. There is another flavor. Something to do with the sweetness. Damn. It’s fruity. The profile has a very long finish and I smack my lips like an idiot trying to identify this flavor. The toast turns to a yeasty bread flavor.

It’s plum. That is the sweet fruity taste. I love plums. My fave summer fruit. This is what I taste. How unusual. Half an inch in and no spice.
There is also a bit of saltiness. I don’t like salt. Since this cigar has appropriate aging on it, I expect more from this cigar. I know I just started but by the end of the first third, it better start impressing me. This ain’t a cheap cigar and A-1 sauce is cheaper.

I keep puffing away and the flavors are much muted. It is all about the body, rather than flavor. It has a very deep earthiness. I take some heavy duty puffs on it trying to get a smoky photo and in doing so bring the creaminess to the surface. Some cigars give good smoke…I don’t think this is one of them.

The burn line is unimpressive. I had to touch it up early but I am leaving it along unless it gets out of hand. But a $10 cigar should be constructed better so this doesn’t happen.

This will be close to a two hour cigar. It is just packed with tobacco and burns very slowly. I finally hit the one inch mark between 10-15 minutes. Maybe this is what plastic explosive tastes like.

The cap needs trimming as it turns to mush. Another major flaw in a $10 cigar with a triple cap.

I’m a patient man and Goll durn it, I will wait for this cigar to show me some flavor.

A year of aging should smooth out the rough edges. Not destroy flavor. I think I’ve been spoiled of late by smoking very flavorful cigars. This cigar is about richness and earthiness.

The first third ends and Halle-fucking-leujah! FLAVOR!! It arrives in small doses. The earthiness ratchets down and there is sweetness, creaminess, cocoa, coffee and plum. The burn is horrible. And I will leave it as it lies. A reminder to the Farkas people that they should build cigars that burn correctly. The second third has some flavor but I was expecting more based on the first third. The cap looks like it exploded.

I hit the halfway point and nothing has changed for the better. I can’t get the damn band off and am forced to use a sharp knife to remove it; and in the process, cut some wrapper. I grab some cigar glue and repair it.

The power of the cigar ramps up and is full bodied now. Really strong. But not much flavor…just the creaminess.

The last third begins without any fanfare. More of the same. I am really disappointed with this cigar. I guess it’s just a horse of a different color. Made to appeal to smokers that aren’t looking for flavor; just earthiness and richness.

With a couple inches to go, I never give up hope that this cigar will show me some flavors to crow about. The creaminess is a constant. If it weren’t for that, I would have put the cigar down long ago.

Two thirds of the cigar has taken me about 90 minutes. I don’t know if this was a popular cigar but since they are still available in a few online stores, I’m guessing it wasn’t. Word of mouth and reviews that didn’t go nuts praising the cigar.

Manufacturers, like Farkas, rely on their mystique of the small batch to sell their wares. It allows them to over price their cigars. And this cigar is way over priced. Based on my experience, I would say it should be in the $6 range. Farkas needs to go back and re-do the blend to make it more accessible. And a year of aging in my humidor should have presented a mighty fine stick.

The cigar finishes out without any surprises. More of the same.

And now for something completely different:

Dave the Griffgator…Continued…

1975…We spent a week, or 4 gigs, touring with Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. I thought my band mates were arrogant, holy cow…We bumped heads with them constantly. Griff was a magician in mending fences. He introduced me to Keith Emerson, the keys player. Back then, he had a full sized concert size piano. And it was on a device that allowed it to lift up from the ground and then rotate like a Ferris wheel. Emerson would only have a bar for his feet and his hands on the keys to keep him on.

I told Griff I’d like to ride it. Could he make it happen? We were doing a sound check and the headliner always went first…so we waited and watched.

They used up too much time and we didn’t get our sound check which infuriated our band leader and the chick singer. ELP were merely showing us who the bosses were.

Our band leader threw a tantrum. Beet red face and all. Griff tried to calm him down and talked to the promoter who managed to get us 30 minutes of sound check. And the concert was pushed back by half an hour. Griff told me he couldn’t get me a ride on the piano Ferris wheel. I was disappointed. Keith Emerson was very nice to me after we did our sound check because he liked my bass playing. So the wheels started turning in his head.

We did our 75 minutes and went back to the dressing room. A half hour passed before ELP came on stage. They wouldn’t let us use their lights so we had to use ours and then the roadies had to quickly remove them before they played. Pricks.

ELP does 90 minutes. And then a couple of encores. I am standing in the wings of the stage with Griff. The band comes back on stage for their third encore and Griff turns and smiles at me.

Emerson goes to the mike at the front of the stage where Greg Lake plants himself to do the singing and bass playing.

He thanks the crowd and then tells them he has a treat for them. He asks for applause for Curved Air and then for me. ??? What? He looks at me offstage and tells me to stand next to him.

Griff pushes me on stage and I stand next to Emerson completely puzzled. Keith takes me by the hand and leads me to the grand piano. He pats the bench seat as if to motion me to sit down. I look over at Griff and he is roaring laughter. Apparently, he worked this out with Keith before the concert. As a surprise.

I sit on the bench. Keith shows me where to put my feet. And then he goes back to the mike and says, “Let’s go.”
The piano lifts about 6 feet from the stage. And then starts turning with my face forward. I grab the keyboard in a panic. How can he do this with just his feet using gravity to hold him on?

It begins to spin slowly and I get completely disoriented. And then faster and I start screaming like a little girl. The huge audience howls with laughter as my fro is pushed back. Palmer starts playing the drums to heighten the excitement and I want off.

I rolled on that damn piano for about a minute which seemed like an hour and then it slowed down and stopped.

Keith helped me off the bench and I wobbled like a drunkard. Again, the audience howled. I was so dizzy, I couldn’t see straight and I stumbled off stage. The crowd started yelling, “Phil, Phil, Phil, etc.” So Griff pushed me back on to the stage where I took a bow and fell flat on my face. Keith laughed and helped me up and gave me a big bear hug.

My band wouldn’t talk to me the next day. I was a traitor. So I traveled with the roadies and sat with Griff in the big 18 wheeler. We had a much better time getting to the next gig than I would have with the band. We smoked one joint after another and laughed so hard that Griff almost peed his pants.

Someone sent me a photo of me on the piano but it’s in a box somewhere in the basement.

Griff was a magician of the highest order.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS