Wrapper: Dominican
Binder: Ecuadorian Connecticut
Filler: Dominican Piloto, Mexican San Andrés, USA Pennsylvanian Broadleaf
Size: 6 x 46 Corona Gorda
Strength: Medium
Price: $12.00
My cigars received 3 months of naked humidor time.
Released March 2024.
Only 500 boxes of 10 released.
THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
Taco Tuesday. Fontella Bass. Rescue Me.
The stick has a minor plug. Do I waste minutes of my time fretting. Do I consider throwing it away. Or do I grab my PerfecDraw and just fix the damn thing. Dunno.
Wildfire Cigar Co. could do themselves a favor and include this blend on their webpage. I’m in the blind. No one sends me press releases. Can’t imagine why. But then I don’t publish cigar news. No need. There is conflicting information on the interwebs. The cigar was produced in Honduras. The wrapper is either Dominican or Honduran. No one seems to know definitively. On with the shoe…
Oh yeah, I gave the Wildfire The Intro a 96 last year…good cigar. I also reviewed the Wildfire Artaois. Gave that a 95.
I like how it starts. Initial complexity is showing off. My lips smack like a famished lizard. Every man jack of us can tell if a cigar will be tantalizing in the first 60 seconds. No exceptions. I feel nice like sugar and spice.
A spicy creaminess with caramel overtones. Possibly an E# or maybe an ♭F. Very smooth like Vivaldi making Way. This is a morning cigar. If you are fortunate enough to be able to smoke several cigars during the day, picking strengths and anticipated flavor profiles is half the fun.
During the heyday of cocaine over usage in the 80’s, hedonism went through the roof. I would finish a late-night recording session and spirit myself home from Hollywood to Long Beach where my girlfriend was waiting up for me. We would stay up most of the night and it would start again the next day. No idea how many of us had heart attacks and croaked.
The wrapper is lips-delicious without the need for my palate to be engaged.
In Curved Air, we were forced to play Darryl Way’s theme song ‘Vivaldi.’ It was a non-stop circle of fifths. If you got lost, you were fucked. One night, my bass’s tuning pegs got knocked hard enough to throw the entire thing out of whack. In the middle of this manifesto tune, we’d have to step off stage so Way could solo for 10 minutes on his viola. I must have smacked the headstock when I put it down on top of my amp. When the band returned, we played the song at double time speed. I was playing the notes, but they came out wrong. Francis Monkman came over to me and yelled the chords and I yelled back, “I’M PLAYING THOSE CHORDS!” Naturally, there was a music critic in the crowd and the next day an entire paragraph was all about how Monkman had to explain the song to me. It’s always something.
The Hook is one of those cigars that slips and slides without much attention needed or heeded. A very subtle approach compared to previous blends from Wildfire. The Intro was a flavor bomb whose cigar had a lot of punch. This blend goes a different direction. I have a lot of respect for blenders that improvise with releases. Plenty of manufacturers that do the same thing over and over. No surprises. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but not often.
There is nothing exceedingly special about this blend. Except that it feels like a $25 stick. You see this kind of blend in the much more expensive releases of 2024. This is my third stick, and it is dependable and reliable. Snaps up. Palates evolve…even after 50 years. I find myself reaching for cigars like this instead of the brash and brazen Nic puro power houses I’ve always loved.
Have you seen the new HBO documentary series “Ren Faire.” Jesus. A swirling cacophony of mental defectives. As a species, how low can you go.
I can’t say enough about how smooth this blend is. The hook is a big deal when writing a song. It can make or break its reception.
Halfway point. Lemon tart, creamy coffee foam, nuttiness, bits of black and red pepper, milk chocolate, a scoche of wildflower, a slight background of aged oak, and fresh portabella mushroom. Nice. Easy going. Nothing pushes. Happy together.
Right now, I’m struggling with the constant need to have more. Wives can eye roll like nobody’s business. ‘More cigars? What? Don’t you have enough?’ No. We don’t.
While the strength has been medium to this point, there is a surge. Okie doke. It snuck up on me. How do I know? Removal of the cigar band becomes a thing.
This Corona Gorda size is my favorite. I usually get close to 90 minutes. After that, if the cigar ain’t spectacular, I get bored. Your love keeps lifting me higher.
What guitarist hasn’t groaned when the keyboardist calls out a song in ♭E? No player wants to work that hard. Drummers just smirk.
Not a lick of nicotine but the power is stealthy. I can’t find the floor. I don’t think I’m going to rate this blend as highly as The Intro or Artaois. But that’s on me. 6 more months of humi time will do this blend a real solid. The others were love boats. This one I really like. Not a big difference. The eye of the beholder. One day I gotta stop opinionating cigars.
I played my Hofner for 6 months before I could convince my parents to buy me an amp. The German made bass guitar was a hollow body so I could stick the head against the wall and use it as a diaphragm and it boooomed. But the amp was better. I had a boner for months after I got my Fender Bassman. Damn. I was state of the art.
Wildfire puts out very solid cigar blends for very solid and reasonable prices.
You can purchase Wildfire blends from sponsors Small Batch Cigar (10% off with promo code ‘katman’) and Luxury Cigar Club (15% off with promo code ‘katman’).
RATING: 93
Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS
Cigar Reviews by the Katman 
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