Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade
Binder: Corojo
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 6 x 52 Toro
Strength: Medium
Price: $12.00
My cigars received 3 months of naked humidor time.
THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
I found a single review and the critic loved this cigar. It is the style of blend that I love while I await semi-conscious sensory overload and my fix of caffeine. After promo codes, the stick is only $11. A bargain. Is it like Avowed Cigars ‘New Dawn’ or the Casdagli ‘Daughters of the Wind’ or Eladio Diaz ‘Before and After?’ Let’s see.
The cigar has some serious weight. Like a frozen kishka on Christmas morning. I sniff like a boy dog meeting his long-lost love. Notes of delightful floral, caramel, warm cream, macintosh apples, bonerfide honey, golden nuts, slimy cinnanummon, and Welch’s grape jelly.
The draw is that same bouncy kishka without free flow of air. During the high holidays, I’d pretend to smoke the plutonium heavy, schmaltzy, tube of matzoh meal. Little did I know. I snatch my PerfecDraw from the clench of death. A carnival ride that I once ran after running away from home at age 11. Lots of easy women and daring girls. Man, this thing of mine is plunge resistant. Not being rolled by #9 rollers. #9, #9, #9. See the White Album.
A sweet lemony start. Nice. And then deep earth tones…and then pure bitter. Damn.
The cigar is dry. Pulling tobacco using my PerfecDraw reveals dust, not leaf bits. Same issue with my previous two sticks. I bought several fivers of El Mago blends because I’m stupid. I saw the pretty tubos, the affordable price tags, and pulled the trigger(s).
My previous review of the El Mago Solstice received an 84. I declared that that review would dictate if I reviewed more from El Mago. Did I listen to the voices in my head? Of course not. I forged ahead because…why? I took the damn cigar photo. That’s exactly how dumb I am. Damn dumb.
The construction is awful on all three test subjects.
RATING: 75
And now for something completely different:
The Curved Air Chronicles…
July 1974
I left for Amsterdam out of LAX. It was a miserable flight. It was bumpy and I puked twice into airsick bags because I was not allowed to get up. I shoved the very full postulates into the seat pocket in front of me and passed out. The stewardess noticed the leak a couple hours later.
My oldest and dearest friend, Skip Howlett along with his wife Debbie, left for Sweden a week early so they could visit her family where everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes. And speak perfect English.
Our grand plan was to meet up in Venice a week later. My girlfriend and I spent our days in a cheap hotel in Amsterdam where the floor was slanted so badly that it was hard to stay vertical while traversing to the bathroom. We were directly above a nightclub where disco ducks danced the night away.
We were very glad to get out of Dodge and make our way to Venice using our Eurail passes. The trains were not air conditioned and it was hotter than hell in July. We were crammed into a six-seat compartment with 8 other people. Those people were a non-English speaking Italian family who took pity on us and fed my girlfriend but not me. I guess my afro scared them.
Skip brought his ’69 Gibson Les Paul gold top and his Fender amp. I brought my ’70 Gibson EBO bass, my Peavey amp, and a custom-made speaker cabinet with an 18″ heavy duty Altec Lansing bass speaker. The bass cab had 14 layers of solid oak. It was a tank. It took up my entire allowance for luggage. I carried a wet wipe and a waffle on board.
We agreed to leave our gear in the Amsterdam train station’s storage, and upon meeting up in Venice, we would go back to Amsterdam and retrieve our stuff. Of course, we didn’t leave our axes in the train station. My bass never left my sight.
I was strolling through an open-air Italian market, when right in front of us, were Skip and Debbie. The first thing out of Skip’s mouth was, “Do you have the amps?”
I bellowed, “WHAT? NO!! I don’t have the amps. What are you talking about?”
He had apparently wanted to do me a favor and stopped in Amsterdam, on his way to Venice, to pick up the amps and bring them to Italy so we wouldn’t have to make the long trip back.
Our gear had been stolen. I stomped the ground and yelled profanities. I had that speaker box custom made for a small fortune. Skip and I mounted a train heading for Amsterdam. An 18-hour trip because of all the stops.
The train was full, and we ended up sleeping in the narrow hallway….it was humid hot and miserable. As soon as we got there, we double scooted to the luggage department. There, in the middle of the floor, were our amps. Almost as if on display.
I started screaming at Skip. He just threw his arms into the air and could only sputter, swearing they were gone when he was there earlier.
We figured that someone, working at the luggage department, “borrowed” them before Skip arrived to pick them up. I yelled so much at the person in charge that Skip had to pull me off the guy.
We dragged our heavy equipment across cobble stone streets to a small café and ordered some needed food. An hour later, back on the train for Venice. We watched carefully as the amps were loaded on the train.
We found a crowded compartment and plotzed. Just as we were on the border of France and Germany, Skip showed me a hash pipe that he brought along for the trip. He had a tiny chunk in the pipe and stowed it in his three-ring binder… in one of those semi-opaque pencil holders with the zipper. Skip kept a journal.
I gritted my teeth and told him that if we got caught with drugs we will spend our days in a German prison. I begged him to toss it, but he wouldn’t listen.
And sure enough, as soon as we hit the German border, the compartment door flew open and there were four armed soldiers with machine guns, yelling, “HASHISH! HASHISH!!”
I damn near shit my pants. The compartment was full of young people traveling through Europe for the summer, but they targeted Skip and I as the usual suspects. My afro didn’t help.
For some unknown reason, Colonel Klink pointed his weapon at Skip’s backpack, sitting on the racks above the seats, and motioned for whoever owned it to get it…and open it.
I started flapping my arms like a crazy person. All I saw was a Turkish prison for Philly.
The four soldiers squeezed themselves into the compartment already full of half a dozen people. Guns were haphazardly aimed at people. It was an impossible task to squeeze my butt cheeks any tighter when automatic weapons are being carelessly aimed at you. This had become a bad Marx Brothers film.
The head Nazi was only inches from me and Skip. The soldier pointed at Skip’s binder and motioned for him to remove it from his rucksack. My arms were flapping like a hummingbird. I wondered if giving blow jobs to prison guards was inevitable.
There, in plain view inside the zippered pencil holder, was the hash pipe. I was about to faint.
Skip did something that defies logic and physics. He removed the pipe, in full view of the soldier, and put it in his back pocket. All I could think of was the experience of being some guy named Zeynap’s new bride in prison.
The soldier didn’t see it. It didn’t register. It was a baby Jesus miracle.
In a flash and flurry, the soldiers exited the compartment. The air exited with them.
We fell into our seats, covered in sweat. Skip and I stared at each other without talking. We couldn’t speak.
When my senses returned. I grabbed the pipe from Skip’s back pocket, opened the train window, and threw it out from the fast-moving train…probably clonking the head of some guy named Ursula.
Skip screamed at me. The Marx Brothers film continued as we grabbed each other and tussled. Finally, it was over when I told him I’d buy him another one when we returned to Amsterdam.
It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. We were redeemed.
So my dear readers, the moral of this story is don’t do drugs in front of Nazis unless you have an escape plan…or trim your afro before boarding public transportation.
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Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS
