Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
Binder: Pennsylvania Broadleaf
Filler: Predominantly Nicaraguan
Size: 5 x 50 “Robusto”
Body: Medium/Full
Price: $7.99
Number of Cigars Smoked Prior to Review: 0
Accompanying Libation: Water

Today we take a look at the Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2.

BACKGROUND:
From the Wilson Adams web site:
“Wilson Adams was born out of a desire to create a cigar for smokers who yearn for balance, richness and complexity. In 2011, we traveled to Estelí, Nicaragua where we visited the Plasencia family and formed a lasting partnership. Instead of utilizing smaller factories, we chose Plasencia due to their vast storehouses of tobacco from almost every growing region in the world. The family owns farms peppered across Central America from the island of Ometepe to the gorgeous fields of Honduras. After many back & forth trips to Nicaragua and some 40 blend iterations the White Label (Habano) was born and launched in 2012. A year later we launched our Red Label (Sumatra).”

DESCRIPTION:
I’m worried. I took some Viagra last night. That was almost 12 hours ago. Gave me a major 4” boner. That’s big for us Jews so don’t laugh. (But it is 3-1/2” in diameter…sort of like a bathtub plug.) They say that if your erection lasts longer than 4 hours, seek out medical help immediately.
I thought they were kidding.

So I’m sitting here with a clown balloon in my boxers. It hurts. I thought maybe a prick (No pun intended) of a needle might deflate it.
Nope.

It hurt.

So I’ve been rubbing it hoping that might make it go down.
Got the wrong effect.
Feels OK.

The happy ending has passed and it hurts again.

Charlotte is at work. We have only vehicle. If I call 911, can I disguise my voice? What if I say I’m a terrorist and I’ve made the Katman have a big boner unless he releases 12 martyrs at Gitmo?

The damn cat thinks it’s a play toy and we didn’t remove his front claws. How do I explain that to the ER nurses and docs?

Our female dog is sitting on the couch winking at me with a slight smirk on her lips. I don’t care for that. Bad dog. Absolutely no treats for her.

If I wait til Charlotte gets home and drive myself to the ER, what do I wear?

I heard they slit a vein to deflate your boner. Now I know that has to hurt. I mean what do they do? Give you a Novocain shot to deaden the scalpel? I don’t want a shot in my pee pee.

I guess I will just wait and see if it goes down on its own til Friday.

I have noticed that my face is super pale. I don’t think it is as much from the pain as it is that the blood in my face fell from gravity.

On to the Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2. Nice looking cigar with an oily dark brown wrapper. Another rainy day. Another shiny chrome cigar band. More lousy photos. Trust me on this. The wrapper is dark and oily.
Seams are nearly invisible. Lots of veins. A nice solid cigar that is densely packed without a single soft spot. The right amount of give when depressed. The triple cap is one of the most flawless I’ve seen. The cigar literally morphs into the cap without seams.
And that damn cigar band. I had the same trouble with the Habano. Shiny with hard to read lettering and a lousy photographer: Me.

SIZES AND PRICING:
No. 2: 5 × 50 Robusto $7.99
No. 4: 6 × 52 Toro $8.75
No. 7: 6 × 60 Gordo $9.50

AROMA AND COLD DRAW NOTES:
There is a heavy powdered cocoa at the foot and shaft. I smell scallions at the clipped cap. A first for me. There are also aromas of spice, leather, and earthiness.
The cold draw brings spice, leather, sweetness, chocolate, cedar, black cherry, a touch of salt, and rich earthiness to the table.

FIRST THIRD:
The draw is spot on. Along with the first puffs comes a big dose of red pepper. Earthiness and strong tobacco notes rule the moment. Behind that are chocolate, leather, sweetness, floral notes, and nutmeg.
The strength is medium body from the get go. Smoke billows and I turn the fan on. I can’t see the laptop screen.

A giant wallop of creaminess is up to bat next. The sweetness and black cherry are now very, very strong. In fact, the black cherry is morphing into maraschino cherry. Very cool.
The leather and earthiness are beginning to take hold of the flavor profile.

More flavors move around the bases. I taste a nice dark espresso. The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 became complex within the first 5 minutes of smoke time. I’m impressed. I was also very impressed with the Wilson Adams Habano.
The char line is on point. No touch ups needed.
Strength moves to medium/full.

The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 is on a slow roll. It doesn’t rush things. Flavors come and go as they please. The main ingredient, though, is the sweetness that must be coming from the Sumatran wrapper. The sweetness diversifies at this point: black strap molasses, cherry, coconut, sweet tea, short notes of hickory, and sweet cream.

The chocolate and coffee make their move by coming to the surface blowing all ballasts.
There is a brown sugary nougat flavor. It is just a hint and darts around like a mosquito.

SECOND THIRD:
The ash has hung tough and made it to the start of the second third. There will be hell to pay when it…and it falls on to the top of my camera as I typed this sentence. Murphy’s Law.
Flavors are nice but not exciting. The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 is a good cigar but it doesn’t grab me by the gnarglies.

Construction is good. No touch ups required. No wrapper issues. A well-made cigar.
Methinks, I will be surprised by the halfway point. Just an old man’s intuition.
The sun is beginning to shine and I hear birdies sing.

Here they are: Sweetness, cherry, spice, chocolate, espresso, creaminess, nougat, leather, earthiness, molasses, hickory, and coconut. The thing is…the flavors don’t pop. They are subtle and nuanced. Some cigars pop from the start. Others need time to find their sweet spot. I believe the Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 is the latter.
A nice woodiness appears.

Just half an inch from the halfway point, the flavor profile shows off and becomes a nice list of bold flavors. The sweetness is almost too much. The cherry is so strong; I’m beginning to feel like I’m smoking an infused cigar.
Damn. Too much glue on the cigar band meaning future shots will be funky.
I switch to a Diet Coke and get a real Cherry Coke experience. Might as well take advantage of the situation. I think that if the creaminess were stronger, the sweetness would not have such a strangle hold on the flavor.

And then some of the flavors fall off: coconut, nougat, molasses, chocolate, espresso, hickory…they just disappear.
Actually, this helps the cigar immensely. It is now got a strong premium cigar taste. What I mean by that is that the cigar has a very rich earthy tobacco flavor. It sees a return of the creaminess. It becomes meaty. Chocolate returns. And leather makes a big impact.

HALFWAY POINT:
It appears that the first half was batting practice. The second half is where the meat is.
The cherry moves to the back of the line. That’s good. It was a little too much.

Having smoked the largest portion of the cigar, I can now say that I like the Habano much better. I take a look at my review of the Habano Lancero and see that I raved about it. Something I have not done with the Sumatra.

LAST THIRD:
Here is where the Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 really shines. Strength maintains its medium/full status. A touch of nicotine appears.
The Sumatran wrapper has less influence now. The sweetness has ratcheted back leaving a better cigar blend in its place.
Typically, Sumatran wrappers bring a lot of sweetness to the table. It is a crap shoot if that works or not.

I’m really digging the last part of the cigar. The complexity is less heavy handed than earlier. It’s smoother and better balanced.
Coffee and chocolate return and become the prominent flavors along with cream and wood. Cherry hangs in the background.

Overall, this was a good cigar. Just not as good as the Wilson Adams White Label Habano No. 6.
The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 finishes cool and without a hint of harshness.

PRICE POINT:
The Wilson Adams folks are very down to earth. A boutique brand that doesn’t charge $12 for their cigars? Unheard of.
Of course, a few years ago, an $8 cigar would be ultra-magnificent. The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 is a very good cigar but I wouldn’t add any more adjectives to that description. It is a good effort and I believe that the future is bright for Wilson Adams and their blends will continue to get better.
The only problem with boutique brands is that they are difficult to get deals on. Small Batch Cigar only carries the Habano in lancero and Cigar Federation doesn’t carry the line at all.
So discounts are nowhere to be seen.

SUMMATION:
The Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 is a good $8 cigar. I would buy it again. Actually, it was a gift. But that aside, I remember being told that the cigar had plenty of humidor time on it.
Johnny Piette sent it to me. Good ol’ reliable Johnny. Stand-up guy.
I received a bunch of cigars from Jim Grande yesterday and I want to use this space to thank him. I’ve reviewed them all but I will enjoy them. Very nice man.
Jim told me he had to settle his dad into an assisted living home this week so it must be hard on him. My best wishes go out to him and his family.
I liked the Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2. I am comfortable recommending it. But if your budget only allows one or the other, go with the Habano.

And now for something completely different:
(My apologies to long time readers for repeating this story.)

We were on tour for 6 weeks throughout Europe. For one of those weeks, we were on the same bill as Larry Coryell and the Eleventh House.

Most of you may not know who Larry Coryell is. He is the father of jazz fusion guitar. He changed my life with his progressive style back in 1972. Along with his cohorts of the day: Stanley Clarke, Ron Carter, Keith Jarret, and Mahavishnu Orchestra, and so forth.

I was a jazzer when I auditioned for Curved Air, in 1974, and won the audition hands down because my kind of playing hadn’t reached the English shores yet. All the bass players at the audition played exactly like Chris Squire of “Yes.” All technique and no soul.

We spent a week in Switzerland opening for Coryell. At the time, Switzerland had no big arenas so we played in auditoriums that seated just a couple thousand people.
But we packed them. We were a double threat.

Swiss audiences are very reserved. Applause is minimum. There is no screaming. No girls on top of boys’ shoulders with their tops off. They just sit quietly in their seats taking it all in and really focusing on the music and performance. I liked that about them. I hated raucous audiences. No one was really listening. Now we never had a Beatles-like reception but I got the taste of what it was like not to have anyone listening, just going nuts. Of course, in those days, the Beatles had horrible sound systems and they couldn’t be heard anyway.
We had one of those systems that blew your hair back.

Now who the hell thought it a good idea to put him on a bill with us….a progressive rock band with a violin, cutting edge synthesizers and a chick singer along the lines of Stevie Nicks and Janis? It was a crazy bill.
This was the band he used when we played with him in 1974:

Even though the musicians in my band were world class classical musicians, they didn’t know squat about this new musical movement. But I did, because I was the only American in the group. Even Stewart Copeland, (The Police), our drummer, wasn’t that familiar. I idolized Larry and his band mates so when one night, after the gig, he invited us up to his hotel room to shoot the shit and smoke cigars, we all jumped at the chance.

The worst thing you can do with a celebrity, if you should meet one, is act like a fan. Be yourself and talk about the weather.
But noooo…my bandmates fucking interviewed him. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t look up from my cigar.

Curved Air has close to 20 albums under their belt so they were no slouches. And here they are mesmerized. And behaving like rank fans.
I had been smoking cigars since I was 18. That’s because my dad smoked ‘em and so did his pop. I was DNA impregnated. My band mates smoked cigarettes and that’s it. They had no idea what was in store for them. I did; and chuckled.

Larry passed around GIANT Cubans. Beer and wine was offered and Larry and I dug right in. The others watched our lead as they had never smoked cigars, including the chick singer.
I remember the bliss of that fine cigar and as my eyes met Larry’s, we smiled big and laughed out loud. From the peanut gallery, I heard coughing and choking. Again, Larry and I glanced at each other and burst into raucous laughter.

The schmucks did not want to admit they had never smoked a cigar, let alone, a strong Cuban. So they puffed away, occasionally inhaling. They were real dumbasses. So in a matter of minutes I had a bunch of Kermit the Frogs in the room. It is hard being green.

But the real funny part was that they began to interview Larry!! Not have a normal conversation; they friggin’ interviewed him because they were so intimidated. Meanwhile, I settled in my hotel chair and puffed away, savoring an expensive cigar.

Larry answered the questions politely, but one at a time, one of the dip shits excused themselves to go to the bathroom where we heard projectile heaving. Larry and I never laughed so hard.

Within 30 minutes, my band had retired to their own hotel bathrooms and Larry and I spent the rest of the night, til dawn, smoking, drinking, and telling stories about the “road.”

I am pleased to announce that Larry is alive and well and still playing. And I shall never forget his kindness and down to earth personality.
What a night!

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, Wilson Adams Sumatra No. 2 Cigar Review