Wrapper: Brazilian Arapiraca
Binder: Indonesian
Filler: Colombian, Dominican
Size: 5 x 52 Robusto
Strength: Medium
Price: $6.89 (More than a buck less online)

Today we take a look at the Macanudo Inspirado Green.
I’ve had the cigars cooking naked in my humidor for 4 months.

BACKGROUND:
From Cigar Aficionado:
“First there was Macanudo Inspirado Orange. Then came Black and White, followed by Red. This summer, Macanudo Inspirado will be getting a vibrant new color and blend: Green.
“Covered in a dark wrapper from Brazil, Macanudo Inspirado Green is the first Macanudo made with Brazilian tobacco. According to brand owner General Cigar Co., the Brazilian Arapiraca cover leaf serves as the foundation of the blend, which is also composed of an Indonesian binder and filler from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

“The upcoming Macanudo Inspirado Green will ship to retailers this August (Available now from some retailers).

SIZES AND PRICING:
Robusto: 5 x 52 $6.89
Toro: 6 x 50 $7.39
Churchill: 7 x 48 $7.69

APPEARANCE:
This is a stout little Robusto. Hard as a rock from stem to stern. The wrapper has an oily mottled 10-40 look to it. The cigar is lighter in color in the first half than the second. It almost looks like two different wrappers. There is a double cap…keeping price low. Seams are tight. Lots of veinage that gives the cigar the appearance of a dead tree.

SMELL THE GLOVE:
The cigar’s wrapper is delicious with aromas: Dark rich chocolate, espresso, floral, barnyard, caramel, red pepper, creaminess, roasted almonds, butter brickle, peanuts, cedar, malt, and savory dry rubbed meat.

The cold draw presents flavors of malt, caramel, espresso, black pepper, dark chocolate, creaminess, cedar, barnyard, and nuts.

FIRST THIRD:
Despite the cigar mimicking Stonehenge, the draw is clear; so, I put away my PerfecDraw draw adjustment tool.

Flavors start with some German pretzel, brown sugar, espresso, black pepper, buttermilk biscuits slathered with melting butter, bitter almonds, cedar, and BBQ dry rub.
Good start.

I pulled a boner and smoked one a month in. Fucked up my dears. This cigar seems to have gone the minimalist approach of slapping the cigar into a cello toot suite allowing you the opportunity to do the heavy lifting of letting it rest so it has some character.

4 months seems to be a golden time for a lot of blends. I find it the first opportunity to really get a hint of the blender’s intent. Catalog cigars just grow, dry, roll, and ship asap. I often cringe at folks who buy cigars fresh from the store and light ‘em up. They, generally speaking, are getting only the merest hint of what the cigar offers with some humi rest. I’m also surprised how many smokers that do this love their cigars. I guess I’m cursed with being an insufferable snob on this issue.

So far, construction is top notch. A nice clean char line burn. And the draw resistance is exactly how I prefer my cigars.

Only a mild touch of complexity. It’s pleasant but not making me hold my pee pee and exclaiming “Excelsior!”

Transitions are not moving. The finish is just black pepper with some hints of creaminess and chocolate.

I’ve never been a fan of Macanudo. Too inconsistent. It seems they try to keep up with the boutique world of cigars but fail miserably as the corporate mindset seems to get in the way each time. My apologies to you golfers who swear by them.

A sip of water and it flushes some of the flavors out of hiding: maple syrup, gingerbread, a rich cedar, steak spices, and a touch of mustiness.

The hardness of the stick hides the fact that the cigar seems to be under filled. I’ve blown through the first third in 20 minutes.

SECOND THIRD:
Naturally, Cigar Aficionado is going to give this Inspirado Green a 92 or better. Other reviewers will have their feet firmly planted on the ground and we will see lesser scores than the corrupt magazine’s scoring system.

I did everything right. Months of naked humi time. Dry boxed for 3 days. The cigar should be a sight to behold and taste.

Instead, it is exactly where a $6 cigar should perform. It’s an OK cigar for doing yard work or fucking the neighbor’s rabbit harem. A study by the CDC has determined that rabbits reach a much more intense orgasm when they smell a cigar. But a warning…the rabbits do not like being kissed on the lips. It’s just a rabbit whore thing.

Some long-awaited complexity begins to show itself. Nothing extraordinary, but it does at least show some growth. I feared this might a be a very linear experience. Maybe not.

I get a surprise with an apple pie flavor that dominates. I can taste the fresh apple, cinnamon, walnuts, sweetness, and buttery crust. Now, I’m hungry…couldn’t be my diet. My cat taking a dump makes me hungry.

Strength has been medium til this point. It extends the long arm of the law to medium/full as I near the halfway point. Some nicotine makes its parlay.

I don’t know if 4 months isn’t enough humi time because I would like to think the Green would get better with another few months…or this is the blender’s intent on display this morning.

I see folks buy Opus X blends at the cigar lounge. And they light them right up. Have you ever smoked an Opus X that didn’t need years of humi time? Me neither.

The over all flavor profile continues to improve. It doesn’t blow me out of the water, but it does urge me to not be so harsh.
Nice, sure. But to be honest, it tastes like any other decent $6-$7 stick. I couldn’t pick out this blend in a line up full of Toranos, Padillas, and Perdomos.

I had an epiphany this week. Know why Isabela cigars are so good? I was going to just speak with Johnny about this…then I thought why not expose this to hundreds of billions of readers…OK, maybe 12.
John admits to not humidor aging his own stash. A right out of the cello man. I have only seen him smoke Isabelas when I see a cigar in his mouth.

Then I got it. Isabelas get years of aging prior to being shoved into their cellos. This makes the cigar ready to go from the point of sale. And that’s why John uses extensive aging…to suit his own taste. The upside to this is that we customers get the benefit of Johnny’s method. Yeah, they are pretty good out of the cello, but I still do additional humi time before I smoke or review one. Insufferable snob 2.0.

Halfway point arrives and the cigar improves immensely. I’m constantly telling newbie customers at Prime Cigar that when they smoke a cigar they just bought, expect to see a big improvement of the flavor profile in the second half. This is what is occurring here and now with the Green.

A new richness appears. The cigar smooths out nicely. Character finally shows up with new subtleties and nuances. This is good.

Transitions make their belated move. A nice even flow of aforementioned flavors whizz by. The finish improves to allow both savory and sweet tones.

If the cigar had started this way, it would have gotten a much better score than I am prepared to give it. Still, at less than $6 online, I should stop complaining and face reality that I can’t expect this little bugger to taste like a fine boutique brand in a higher price range.

I’m approaching the last third and the blend is strutting its stuff at last. Maybe I was right…another few months of humi time and the cigar will be consistent from start to finish.

LAST THIRD:
The stick is now medium/full with extreme prejudice. Nicotine is flowing through my veins. My vision is now the same as a well fucked rabbit.

I definitely like this blend better than the Red. Didn’t like that much said Rocky.
Construction has maintained an even keel. No issues.

The complexity has now morphed the flavors. A beautiful balance. A full spectrum of flavor nuances that make my palate smile. Me? Personally, I hate smiling. Because my grandparents were from the Transylvanian mountain range, people think I’m going to take a chunk out of their neck. My gramps sounded exactly like Bela Lugosi.

The cigar is going to halt at medium/full.

I don’t believe I found any other reviews of this cigar. I expect that the other reviewers are waiting for the right time as well. As this is a regular production cigar, there is no harm in letting the cigar rest even longer before reviewing.

Based upon CA’s bizarre rating system, this could be their top cigar of 2020.

Man, I wish this blend had the cajones to start strong that mimics the way the last third tastes.

Some online cigars carry this cigar now. Others, like CI, have not released it yet.
If you must have this cigar, I’d wait a couple months so it appears on Cbid and you can snag it for less dough.

A lot of smokers are going to love this cigar. More experienced smokers will see it merely as a yard ‘gar.

As the cigar comes to its end, there is no harshness or bitterness.
My recommendation is that go ahead and try a fiver but be super patient with it.

RATING: 88

And now for something completely different:

Baseball is about to return for a shortened season, so I pulled this story.
1978

My beloved L.A. Dodgers were in the World Series playing the Yankees. I had a solid, but crazy, group of friends and we watched every game together.

From Wikipedia:
“This Series had two memorable confrontations between Dodger rookie pitcher Bob Welch and the Yankees’ Reggie Jackson. In Game 2, Welch struck Jackson out in the top of the ninth with two outs and the tying and go-ahead runs on base to end the game. Jackson would get his revenge in Game 6 by smashing a two-run homer off Welch in the seventh to increase the Yankees’ lead from 5–2 to 7–2 and put a final “exclamation point” on the Yankees’ victory.”

That evening was the night that Welch had struck out Jackson. And SoCal was jubilant. We were at Richie’s and his wife Delores’ apartment in the Belmont Shore area in Long Beach. Belmont Shore was right off the beach and was like a cross between the Sunset Strip and Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.

Attending the revelatory party was me and my girlfriend…plus another couple I can’t remember. Doug Page was there. An original human being…The living embodiment of the Big Lebowski. He always had a cocktail in his hands whether he was driving his old Volvo or sitting on the couch. My other solo buddy was an old high school friend, John Turner.

Doug became a good buddy whom I met from playing volleyball at the beach every weekend. Back in our late 20’s, we were sleek, tanned and good looking. Now we all look like raisins.

The game had ended and we were celebrating, drinking tequila and smoking doobs. John announced he was making a booze run and off he went into the streets where a massive celebration was in full gear.
He returned with Dodger’s pitcher, Bob Welch, in tow. We literally fell out of our chairs.

John had found a drunken Welch in a bar next to the liquor store on 2nd St. where the action was in Belmont Shore.

He then convinced Welch that a hip and happening party was going on and he dragged him over to us. Hip and Happening? We were 8 people and literally sedated from weed and booze.

There were three couples, (And John and Doug) listening to music and getting sloshed.
Welch plopped himself down in a chair opposite the couch, leaned back in the chair until it rested on its back two legs and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Delores did not like this one bit.

Welch was completely shit faced and began telling us gossip about the Dodgers. Then he started complaining how they didn’t treat him right. He bitched about Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda….and how someone else got a snazzier sports car than he got, etc, etc, etc. Poor Welch.

Then he started bitching about John’s description of our hip and happening party. He became very rude. He called our wives and girlfriends skanky bitches. Richie, who was from Philly, was a tough dude and got up and knocked Welch’s chair out from under him.

Welch was a big guy. And he shook the apartment with the thud his body made.

He got up and was ready to fight. He was in shape and 21. We were all nearing our 30th birthdays and not in shape like this athlete. This guy was bad news. But one does have to take into account he was only a kid at the top of his game…and had no idea how to cope.
We later learned that Welch was a full-blown alcoholic which got him traded to the Oakland Athletics in 1988.

John held Welch back and I held back Richie. Welch kicked over the coffee table spewing drinks and bowls of chips and dip everywhere.
And then he sat down again.

We all looked at each other in wonderment. This can’t be happening. Here was the star of the L.A. Dodgers on the night they beat the NY Yankees and all we wanted was for him to leave.

My very timid, and meek, girlfriend spoke up first and asked him to leave.

Welch went into a tirade and cursed at us in a nonstop blue streak. It took John, Richie, Doug and I to move his body to the door where we could still hear him swearing at us as he stumbled down the street.

I have some more gossipy baseball stories to be discussed.
My wife was in her mid-20’s and a flight attendant for Lufthansa Airlines. But still a German citizen. She became engaged to San Francisco Giants’ ace pitcher John Montefusco. They were engaged for two years but then she found out about his serial cheating and dumped him.

She got to go to all the baseball private parties. Remember Steve Garvey? He was the squeaky-clean Dodger. Every kid wanted to be Garvey. Charlotte told me stories about the guy, and I couldn’t believe my ears. He was a serial skank underneath the All-American image his agent developed for him.

But then at some point, Garvey got his dick stuck in the wrong place and was caught by his wife; red handed. She took everything.

Garvey was the worst, according to Charlotte, in terms of fucking around openly at the “In” parties. Charlotte watched him grab a young girl by the ankles, on the 5th floor balcony of a San Francisco hotel, and let her dangle upside down while she screamed in terror. He was repeating the mantra, “Fuck or fly. Fuck or fly. Fuck or fly.”

Charlotte also told me how many baseball players would go down to Central America and smuggle coke back to the States so they could peddle the stuff and make some extra scratch.

I actually saw Dodger Dusty Baker at a friend’s house in Long Beach coming out of the bedroom as he just scored some coke. He quickly made his exit when he saw me. I don’t know how much he thought he was disguised; but wearing an official Dodgers warm up jacket didn’t help his disguise.

Of course, all of the players smuggling coke had hangers-ons that would distribute the dope for them. All the baseball players had to do was get the stuff on the plane and bring it home and make a killing. This went on for years…maybe still does.

As I tired of the music business, Charlotte grew tired of Lufthansa and being hooked up with a snake for a fiancée. So, she bolted to South Lake Tahoe with a friend and began managing a well-known club along the lake’s shore. That’s where I met her in 1984 while managing a band from Long Beach but based out of Tahoe.

The first time I met her was while we were setting up the band’s gear at her club. She came downstairs to where bands played to say hello to the guys that played there often.
She sat down and my jaw dropped as I listened to her swear like a longshoreman. I was told later that I just stared at her, not blinking, listening to the filthiest mouth I’d ever heard on a woman.
I fell in love instantly.

It nearly killed her not swearing once our baby Katie was born. But by the time Katie was 13, she could no longer control herself and I will give you three guesses how long it took for our impressionable teen to pick up on it being OK to curse like someone squashed by an elephant.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: cigar review, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, Macanudo Inspirado Green | Cigar Reviews by the Katman