Wrapper: Connecticut-seed
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 7 x 54 “Churchill – No. 17”
Body: Mild/Medium
Price: $17.50

Today we take a look at the new Padrón Dámaso No. 17.
It made its debut at the 2015 IPCPR trade show but from what I read was not overwhelmingly favorably received.
This is a first for Padrón as you will read below.
From my sources, it doesn’t need much humidor time so what the hell.
Many thanks to the anonymous angel/reader that sent me a pair.

BACKGROUND:
Factory: Tabacos Cubanica S.A.
Date Released: July, 2015
Regular Production

From the Cigar Aficionado web site (June 24, 2015):
“A milder version of the Padrón brand—a Nicaraguan cigar draped in blonde Connecticut-seed wrapper and shaped in the round, rather than pressed square—is poised to be unveiled next month. The cigar, a first for the Padrón family, is meant to appeal to those who tend to smoke milder cigars.

“The new brand is named after an influential ancestor of the Padrón family who started the tradition of growing cigar tobacco in Cuba. In the late 1800s, Dámaso Padrón emigrated from the Canary Islands to Cuba and began farming a rental property in Las Obas, part of the Pinar del Río province in Western Cuba.

DESCRIPTION:
This is not your bitch’n lookin’ Padrón. It is a rough cob. Lots of wrinkles, lumps and bumps. Not so tight seams. Out of round. Sloppy triple cap.
The cigar is extremely light in the hand. Doesn’t feel jam packed with tobacco and will most probably be a much quicker smoke than its huge size belies.
The double band is gold lettering on white background and brown trim. Same goes for the secondary band.
This is a big honker. Going to take a while. Will take breaks to minimize re-writing the Bible.

SIZES AND PRICING:
“Padrón Dámaso will come in four sizes to begin with, each of them named for the age of one of José Orlando Padrón’s grandchildren.” From Cigar Aficionado.
No. 8 – 5.5 x 46 Corona $12.50
No. 12 – 5 x 50 Robusto $13.50
No. 15 – 6 x 52 Toro $15.00
No. 17 – 7 x 54 Churchill $17.50

AROMAS AND COLD DRAW NOTES:
From the shaft, I can smell sweet lemons, butter, hay, cedar, and cereal.
From the clipped cap and the foot, I can smell the same as above with the addition of barnyard and black pepper. Makes me sneeze.
The cold draw presents flavors of spice, cocoa, cedar, wheat bread, and citrus.

FIRST THIRD:
The draw is pretty good considering how big this cigar is and its dangling from my lips.

Pic 4
Then some deliciosity breaks on through to the other side: Creaminess, wheat bread, spice (Lots of it), cedar, floral notes, sweet lemons, gooey caramel, and some nuttiness.
The Connie wrapper is too delicate and too thin. I have cracks all the way up the cigar as soon as I lit it. I hope this isn’t a deal breaker.

Strength is mild/medium.
Some type of fruitiness eludes me. Very woody as well.
The char line starts off nicely.

The sweet lemon is delicious and in conjunction with the creaminess makes the whole blend sing. The other fruit elements are in the citrus family: Grapefruit, lime, and bitter orange.
The Padrón Dámaso No. 17 isn’t burning as quickly as I thought it would. Good sign.
And the char line is behaving nicely.

There are three malt components: Caramel Wheat Malt, Wheat Malt, and Special B Malt. (See Malt Chart).
So far, the cracks have not expanded. Good news. I was thinking I should start off with my second stick basically shit canning this one. But at $17.50 a stick, it would be disrespectful to the terrific reader who sent it to me.
And at the 5-1/4” mark, the cigar canoes on me. I fix it and move on. I guess you know where this review is heading, dontcha’?

I’m more concerned about the cap disassembling on me. The Padrón Dámaso No. 17 has just terrible construction. Yeah, so this is a cheap version of a ridiculously, over-priced Padrón. Doesn’t mean you drop the ball in quality control, does it?
The cracks at mid-point are getting larger. I can’t fucking believe this. My attention is totally diverted from the flavors and character of the Padrón Dámaso No. 17 and, instead, directed towards its construction.
Shame, shame Padrón family.

SECOND THIRD:
Smoke time is 20 minutes.
Here they are: Creaminess, sweet citrus, cocoa, malts, nutty, caramel, buttered toasted wheat bread, floral notes, cedar, and grass.
I check other reviews and we seem to be in near total alliance. Huzzah! That’s pretty cool.

The cap is a disgrace.
And as I near the large cracks mid cigar, they seem to be spreading.

As soon as I remove the double cigar bands, it all goes to shit. I will be very surprised if I am able to finish the cigar. The Padrón family should be ashamed of themselves.
One thing missing. Complexity. Transitions. Balance. Finish. Other than that, it’s a great cigar.

I hate doing this to a cigar. The dear readers that take all that dough out of their pockets to please me and help me must feel really pissed off that I give the cigar they sent me a terrible review. I’m losing friends right and left. But everyone knows, I either tell the truth or I don’t write a review.

I’m having a terrible problem with the Cabreras Cigars I was sent by the manufacturer. I’ve had 6 different blends for about 6 weeks and they aren’t getting better. All are in the $3 range and they taste like $3 bundle cigars…or less. I’ve told Chris, at Cabreras, this and he is very defensive. He somehow thinks his $2-$3 sticks should be wonderful because they sell a lot of them. So who am I to tell him they ain’t so hot? I don’t want to write a bad review because that’s exactly what it will be on all his blends. This is the only time I’m a real hypocrite. The man was kind and generous and sent me a bunch of cigars that are basically, shit. Or take 6 months of humidor time.

The wrapper begins to disintegrate to the point that I am able to get the nozzle of the cigar glue bottle underneath and squirt some glue inside.
The whole cap begins to come off so I glue it and now I let it rest a while. So I will write a small after review story to kill time.

10 minutes later.

The Padrón Dámaso No. 17 stayed lit.
Strength is still mild/medium.
Look, Padrón wants to put out a cigar aimed for smokers who don’t like oomph in their cigars. But at least make it exciting; especially at this price point.
This D.T. is anything but exciting.
Some spice move up the chain of command.
I’m moments away from burning into the massive wrapper cracks. That should be a light show.

HALFWAY POINT:
Smoke time is 35 minutes.
Flavors perk up. Finally: Spice, cocoa, sweet citrus, creaminess, malts, caramel, cedar, nuts, floral notes, and buttered toast.

Flavors are very nice. But I think it was a huge mistake for the Padrón’s to get into the Connecticut wrapper business. They don’t have a knack for it.

Now what I do like are the everyday Padrón blends. CI has a nice selection and I’d take any of those over and above the expensive line. C’mon. $40.00 a cigar. Does it give you head? No? Then I will pass. There ain’t a cigar so good on the planet that is worth $40.
I remove the lower secondary band and observe the havoc caused by the focakte wrapper dysfunction.

I don’t care if you buy and smoke this cigar immediately or let it rest for 2 years in your humidor, the construction is horrible. My fingers are crossed I can burn through this without having to dump the cigar.
The Padrón Dámaso No. 17 is getting better. More potent flavor profile. Much spicier. And the strength hits a solid medium body.

The whole char line is going ape shit now.

To the dear reader that sent me these cigars, my most sincere apology.
I really don’t think more time would have made any difference. I take a close look at the other cigar and it is terribly built as well. One seam is so bad that it looks as if it would have been the first to unravel after lighting it.

The Padrón Dámaso No. 17 is going to end up in the clearance aisles of all the online stores within a year and then get discontinued by Padrón. This was a major cluster fuck on their part.

Zero quality control. Can’t wait to get to the rating portion of this live program.

LAST THIRD:
Smoke time is 55 minutes.
Based on the other couple of reviews, I seem to be the only one with the construction issues. Clunker cigar? Who knows?
Halfwheel gives it a lowly 87. The Cigar Authority gives it a 90. Blind Man’s Puff gives it an 86. And one thing I noticed is that they all tried a few cigars trying to get the most from this blend. So I have the feeling that they had a similar experience trying to get a cigar to review that wasn’t a major traffic accident.

And why aren’t there more reviews? Methinks most of the reviewers had a similar experience and are letting their stash rest longer…hoping for the best.

Well dear readers, I’ve managed to burn through that wrapper mess. Now only the focakte cap remains a mess.
Meanwhile, the flavors are excellent. I really like the blend.
Not a single flavor element has disappeared. Only gotten stronger.

Some nicotine shows up. And I still have over 2” to go. That goes against the concept that this cigar is for those liking mild cigars…or a blend for newbies.

The spice moves to the head of the line. Creaminess follows. The rest of the flavors are in the same order as listed earlier.
I spoke too soon. More wrapper is coming loose near the char line.
Man, what a dog!
I’ve broken my own record. More photos for one cigar than I’ve ever taken. A total of 16 shots.
Final smoke time is one hour 5 minutes.

RATING: 80

PRICE POINT:
LOL. This is like selling a 1965 Ford Pinto for $25,000.00. Again, the Padrón family should be ashamed of themselves.
I wouldn’t pay $7 for this stick. Even if it hadn’t any construction issues. And it boils down to picking a terrible Connie wrapper that is way too thin.

Another thing…the cigar smokes way too fast. An $18 Churchill cigar that lasts only an hour. Give me a break.
No complexity. No balance. No finish. I suppose these will come with more humidor time.
Do not buy this cigar. For the price, you can buy several really good cigars. If I found out you bought some of these, I will come to your house and give you an enema from a red rubber bag…and a long red rubber hose. Twice.

1-31-2016 NOTE:
A reader sent me a Robusto he bought in July 2015. It has had 6 months of humidor time without the cello. I am smoking it now. It is under filled and burns like a cigarette. It has terrible burn issues I cannot control. And because it so light in tobacco, it smokes harsh with some bitterness. I got halfway through before I said the hell with it and tossed it. So time does not make this a better blend.

Life and Death….whoosh…
Went to the doc yesterday. A long drive on the freeway. I was cruising at 60 or so when out of nowhere, a small silver car going at least 120-140mph finds an opening between me and the big rig next to me in the middle lane. I was maybe two car lengths behind him. I was in the slow lane.

This idiot threaded the needle by veering in front of me so close I thought he nicked me. He then straightened out and over compensated.

Honestly, I’ve never seen a car go that fast except on TV.
He was a football field ahead of me in 1 second flat.

And in his over compensation to straighten his car out, he slammed into the concrete barriers on the far right of the freeway that were there because of construction on the freeway.

He hit that barrier nearly head on at least 120mph…or faster. The car caromed back into the fast lane of the freeway and then went right back into the concrete barriers on the right again. Slamming his car over and over.

I, naturally, slammed on my breaks as soon as this happened. As did everyone else on the freeway. Everyone was stunned. Car parts flew off his car like a rain storm. I was scared to death that his hood or the top of his car would fly off and hit my windshield. 4 foot tall safety cones flew into the air and sailed at least 100 yards barely missing me and other vehicles.

Not a single vehicle moved on the freeway.

A big rig slowly pulled behind the guy in his car. So I just move on slowly and staring at the guy in the car. He was slumped. I saw no evidence of a safety bag.

He had to be dead. There is no way one could survive what he went through.

Why was he going so fast? Stolen car? Being chased by police? I have no idea.
I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.

And then it hit me as the adrenaline began to wear off. He came that close to clipping the front left end of my truck. If he had, I would have been killed instantly.
Oh for the Grace of God.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, Padrón Dámaso No. 17 Cigar Review