Wrapper: Mexican San Andres (Otapan Negro Ultimo Corte)
Binder: Connecticut Habano
Filler: Brazilian Mata Fina, Nicaraguan Cuban seed
Size: 7 x 54 “Corona Doble”
Body: Medium-Full
Price: $8.50

I haven’t reviewed many DE products. No reason specifically. Just haven’t. No one sends me any, I suppose.

Onward…the story of the UC is like so many other good cigars. The torecedores use leaves they like and roll their own cigars. Management frowns on this because they are using good leaves. So a cigar is born. From the leaves of the Liga Privada cigar.

The UC uses a lot of the same tobacco as the LP but is a mixture of different things such as the aging may be different or the location of the farm may be different or the leaves from the plant are different. Sort of a mish mosh. And Voila. So really, this cigar is not even close to being a LP.
Otapan Negro Ultimo Corte…now that is an interesting mouthful. It is a strain of leaves that come from the San Andres leaves. Sort of kissin’ cousins.
The cigar made its debut at the 2011 IPCPR Trade Show. And never looked back. This is one of the most popular DE cigars out there.

It comes in six sizes: Robusto, Belicoso, Corona Doble, Corona Viva, Gordito and Gran Toro. So; 5 x 54, 6 x 52, 7 x 54, 5.6 x 46, 6 x 60 & 6 x 52. The prices average in the $8 range but can be higher.
I will be smoking and reviewing, the Corona Doble today. This is a big honker and will take up most of my morning. So a big bowl of cereal is in order.

Construction is beautiful with one of the oiliest wrappers I’ve seen. Some seams are visible and there are lots of spider veins. It has an excellent triple cap. And feels sandy and bumpy so lots of tooth. The cigar band is nice and simple.

Due to the length of this cigar endeavor, I feel a rock n roll story in my bones that I will write in between the reviewing. Please remember that all these stories are true and the names have not been change to protect the guilty.

I clip the cap and search for aromas….there is a big natural tobacco sweetness, some spice, hay, cocoa and nuts…with some lemon zest.

I should add that this cigar was a gift from a man who is able to allow all of his cigars to age to perfection. From six months to two years. This is in the middle of that time span so it should be interesting to see how the mellowing of age has affected it.

Time to light up.

The first puffs are nutty. And very toasty. Some natural sweetness. And a couple of elusive factors that I will denote soon.

I have had very few UC’s because they take a long time to age properly in the humidor. And people on budgets don’t buy cigars that need a lot of time. Or they do, and smoke them before they are ready. Or they have no palate and couldn’t discern a Dutch Masters from a Paul Stulac.

But, I am truthfully, enjoying the start of this cigar. It has a meaty quality to it and very woodsy. The char line is close to perfect with its almost snow white ash.

This is a huge cigar and will take hours to complete. I will have to take restroom breaks, breakfast breaks, and heroin breaks to get through this to the end.

The woodiness tastes like a campfire. With a roasted pig above it. I know that is a strange analogy, but hey, Shakespeare, I ain’t.

I’m surprised that there is not a lick of spiciness. I am half an inch in and no trace of ha-cha-cha!

Time to start on the rock n roll anecdote while I give this log a chance to burn down a bit.
At the one inch mark, spice does show up; although, very gently. And the ash falls down.

The flavor profile finds the one inch mark too soon to show off…and it is something short of what the very beginning tasted like. It’s a bit blah now.
Halfway through the first third, the cigar is the same. A little woodsy, a little nutty, some sweetness, the spice is gone already, and again, just blah. Now this cigar has had its chance by being aged properly so I won’t take any excuses from it.

A little closer to the end of the first third, flavors perk up. Creaminess arrives which always helps bring out the best in flavors. The tobacco sweetness is very strong. So is the nuttiness. These three flavors are it. But they make a nice combination.

And as the first third ends, some sweet cocoa shows up. And none too soon. Strangely, the cigar is bereft of any spiciness again. Methinks the aging may have beaten it out of the stick.

I can say that while I had my doubts, the cigar is pleasant. It is nothing to shake me up over yet, but as the second third begins, it is a pleasant cigar. I must admit, I expected some more oomph from it. But C’est la vie.

The second third shows no sense of being a power house cigar. In fact, it is almost mild bodied. Again, the aging may be at fault. Flavors have not changed. And I’m getting bored. There is zero complexity. At the moment, this cigar tastes like a $3 stick.

The halfway point is upon me. Nothing has moved. Flavors are the same and it continues to be a “pleasant” cigar.

While the online stores are able to sell this cigar for under $9, go into a B & M and see what you will pay for it. Double figures.

I am really disappointed at how mild the body is. Does the last third hold some sort of surprise for me? The draw has been perfect. The char line has been dead nuts. And the flavors have been a muted denomination of three.

This is why I don’t like big cigars. A much smaller version may have popped. It probably would be all over the place. But these giant logs are nothing more than something to hang from your open maw for two hours waiting for the dénouement.

I begin the last third with no expectations. This is one expensive blah cigar. Fortunately, it was a gift and I didn’t have to shell out for it. LOL. I am always surprised by the huge numbers of smokers on Face Book that proudly show off a photo of them smoking a UC.

And then I get a little jolt. The strength begins to hit medium. The flavors begin to rise like a phoenix. The last third is the money shot. The cocoa, creaminess, nuttiness, the woody component, and now a bit of black pepper are standing up in their chairs.

Finally! After over 90 minutes of smoking this behemoth: Flavor! Now this cigar might be great in a robusto size. But I am not smoking a robusto. I am smoking Godzilla. The cigar is available in six sizes. I wish I had the opportunity to smoke a smaller one so my criticism of this cigar would not have been so harsh.

Still, there is a complete lack of complexity.

The strength hits classic medium body with about 3” to go. I can feel the nicotine now.

The flavors kick into medium gear. The pepper has disappeared again. I like a cigar with some kick to it and this stick had none.

It will take another 20 minutes to finish the cigar so I am hoping for a happy ending. This is two hours of my life I won’t get back.

The last two inches sees the black pepper returning and the power of the cigar getting stronger. It is just shy of full bodied.
Unfortunately, the flavor profile has not improved. The last part of the cigar enjoys a small uptick in boldness but it is the same flavors that have been present throughout the cigar. And again, no complexity.

I finish the cigar with great disappointment. All the brouhaha made over this cigar must be for the smaller sizes. It cannot be said that this stick did not receive the proper aging in a humidor. So, all I can say is that next time I try one, it will be a robusto, or smaller.

And now for something completely different:
1975

We made a bet. That whoever could piss off Darryl the most. within the constraints of one two hour concert. would be showered with lots of hashish. Since Mick, the guitarist was a stick in the mud; he wanted nothing to do with it. He was always such a coward when it came to Darryl. Darryl was the Napoleonic tyrant of English bands; right behind Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

The usual Three Musketeers were Stewart, Griffgator, and me. We spent an afternoon playing cards at Stew’s and my flat in West London. We weren’t gay..not that there is anything wrong with that. (I love to quote Seinfeld. Now I have to come up with something about “shrinkage.”)

We spent the afternoon playing poker with another good roadie by the name of Beric Wickens. Now if that isn’t a name right out of Dickens, I don’t know what is.

We drank lots of English ale, smoked hash, and laughed a lot. What could we do to this man that would piss him off but not put the blame anywhere near us?

And then the Griffgator won the hand and said quietly, forcing us to lean in; “Why not put acid in his beer. He always insists on closed beers and drinks. He never did drugs and was deathly afraid of them because someone once slipped him acid a long time ago at a party. So we grab a beer, carefully open it without crimping it, drop a tab of acid in it and then close it carefully. And we make sure it is the first available beer for him. We will have to work that out. Whatcha’ think?”

We erupted in laughter. “Huzzah! Huzzah!”

Now, which gig should it be? We had a new tour coming up in a few weeks. We would first do England, then the Continent. Hitting Holland, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria.

We decided to play it on the cuff. The tour was to last about two months.

It turned out to be Germany. Stew tried to do the mechanics of the bottle operation first and botched it. I didn’t even want to try so Griff did it and it worked. We decided to that we would hold off the beers in the dressing room. So I would enter the room with an unopened bottle of beer and Darryl would quiz me as to where I got it. I would tell him I had to buy it at the bar. “Would you like mine? I can get Griff to find out why there are no beers in the dressing room.”

Darryl, being the greedy son of a bitch he was, said yes. He would gladly take mine.

We hadn’t let anyone in on our secret. So Stew and Griff and I sat in the dressing room watching Darryl drink. We got impatient. But we waited for him to finish. Our only hope was that he didn’t throw up before going on stage; which was a ritual before every gig because of his nerves. The dummy would always eat a big dinner, get queasy, and then puke 10 minutes before hitting the stage.

We were still a good hour before going on and hoped the beer and the acid made it home before he puked.

Twenty minutes before stage time, Darryl would always begin to practice his viola. He was always called a violinist in the press, but he really played a viola; which is a bigger and deeper sounding violin. Plus it was made of Lucite and had lights in it and it was electric. So he could put on quite a show with that carnival act viola.

We walked on to the stage to thunderous applause and I could hear Darryl moaning in the darkness. I looked over to Stew and Griff and they nodded.
I have to hand it to Darryl. He somehow got through the two hours without running off stage screaming like a banshee. He had figured out that he had been slipped some acid but thought it was the bar’s fault, not mine.

Darryl’s playing that night was hysterical. But funniest of all was that he always insisted on being the one to count us in to a song with the “1-2-3-4” And while high on acid, he couldn’t remember the numbers. So I started us in, ignoring Darryl. The three of us tried very hard to keep from laughing. Like kids in school or church. We were spewing spittle all over ourselves to keep from just letting out a big belly laugh. Any laugh at all would signal Darryl that we knew what happened.

Although, he would probably never remember it.

Darryl was a classically trained musician. He loved the composer, Vivaldi…who lived through the end of the 17th Century and died in 1741. Vivaldi liked to use the circle of fifths a lot in his music. That is where you play the root note, and then play its fifth. Then you play the fifth of that note, and so on. It takes 12 chromatic notes to complete the circle. And it is very easy to get lost if you don’t really pay attention to what you are playing.

So the band’s theme song was “Vivaldi.” A song dedicated to the composer totally based on that circle of fifths.

When I first started playing with the band, I had a couple space outs where I lost my place. Once you lose your place, you’re fucked. Why? Because within that circle, you are playing in the same key and every note you play will fit. It may not be right, but it will fit as a harmonic tone.
Darryl got really angry at me those two times I screwed up. He had no patience whatsoever.

The audience never got the joke. Darryl kept screwing up the circle and we tried to follow him. Mick was completely perplexed at what was happening.
Back in the dressing room, Darryl was really peaking on the acid. He wanted to be angry but Stew, Griff and I talked him down, so to speak. We kept him calm and clucked our tongues at how someone in the bar could have done this to him.

We went back to the hotel. Darryl was the only one of the band who got his own room. So the three musketeers spent the night with him making sure he did nothing foolish. He finally fell asleep around 6am. We were exhausted. It was a hard fought battle for that practical joke and it wore us out too.
We were late leaving the hotel because of Darryl. The road manager was furious.

The rest of the tour, Darryl bought his own beer at pubs or liquor stores before the concert and never let them out of his sight.
It was a glorious night.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS