Wrapper: Cuban
Binder: Cuban
Filler: Cuban
Size: 6 x 50 Robusto Extra
Strength: Medium
Price: $54.00

THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
Cuban cigars have seen prices skyrocket in the last year or so. Always expensive but now they are out of the grasp of most cigar smokers.

Minorly pungent aromas of floral, grape jelly, peanut butter, barnyard, lemon custard, honey, and slight pepperiness.

I gently cup the cap in my hand. I removed the fantail with surgical precision using my PerfecPunch (I use this device more than most land mammals, and the thing never dulls).

I bought a new Logitech trackball mouse. Lord, talk about feeling stupid. But it’s good exercise for my fingers in prep for receiving my new Ibanez 5 string electric upright. Those thick strings don’t suffer fools. Every player develops callouses but I was shocked the first time I played an upright. A whole new set of dead skin was required. The first month or two is not pain free. But I say this with a big smile.

The airflow is dead in the water. Half a C note for a cigar and the construction is shit. Only Cuba can get away with this…but are they really? Cubaphiles are slapping their foreheads. Non-Cuban smokers are in full glee mode and glad they don’t have the dough. My PerfecDraw, which cost less than this cigar, comes to the rescue, leaving its seating position on my bidet and rushing to the scene. I plunge numerous times and the cigar won’t unplug. What do I do? I keep at it with extreme prejudice. I go at it from both ends. I give up. Maybe once lit, it will clear a tiny blow hole.

This Cuban has less than a year of humidor time. Always a mistake. Cuba must be laughing. It can take years before you find out whether your purchase was worth it. And with whom do you complain?

First hits are very creamy and lemony. Half an inch in, serious refinement kicks in. It bellows like a whale kicked in the nuts.

The draw gets better but is still a bit stuffed like day old kishka. I’m drawn in by its quality, and it’s price tag, so I stick with it. The initial bad burn self corrects and now impresses me with a perfect char line. I feel guilty whining about a Cuban. Especially when it was a gift.

While I was enthralled with being in exotic Britain, I never got it that folks were enthralled with me being a Californian. Going to California.

The cigar began with a bang and is now hovering just above a whimper. The cigar is OK. If I was blind tasting it, I’d never guess it was Cuban. My thoughts would lean towards it being a U.S.A. Connecticut with Dominican guts.

Flavors are so subtle that they may not exist except for the dime I throw into the wishing well. There is definitive richness that keeps me alert waiting for something more definitive to happen.

Playing Zep’s ‘Black Dog’ in 1971 for a very critical audience was not easy. Today, sure…every cover band plays it. But the crazy floating mixed time signatures was a mind bender. I spent an entire half day with the guitarist learning to play it. And then another half day playing it with the drummer. My band Homegrown nailed 20 Led Zeppelin covers. I must hand it to the band’s singer. He could hit those high notes like Plant with ease. We were bad ass. Although, I never had a chance in hell playing with the stunning quality of John Paul Jones. I came close, but no cigar.

The blend is singing but would do better if it was hitting a high B♭. Instead, it does a slow meander. Clearly, and this is on me, the cigar should have stayed still and quiet in my humidor till 2030. Of course, I might be laying still and quiet by then. I doubt any other reviewer deals with the timeliness of the life curve.

The first third is done. A solid 30 minutes. This overstuffed garbanzo bean shows its wares by slowing the death process. Hmm…

The first half completes after 60 minutes. Not a single change in dimension. If the second half doesn’t materialize a sweet spot, all will be lost. If this was an $8 stick, I’d be telling you it’s not bad but should remain in the back of the bus of your choices. And here I go again, price matters. I understand the value of blind tasting. And for a certain audience, it works well. We all have our audiences. Some are just friends and others expand the universe with global entrants. Here’s the thing, my experience tells me that I taste blender’s intent which I believe is solid. But Cubans are wildly inconsistent. There is no guarantee that time will matter. If you have yourself some Trinidads, merely hold on to them for another 10 years and you can get back to me. Ha.

The same flavors exist in an overhead hover plane: Creaminess, lemon crème pie, mild black pepper, caramel, honey, and bread. You’ve heard these flavors a million times. It is up to the refinement of the blend to do the heavy lifting and now, it is merely a 90-year-old woman with 2lb Popeil pie tins.

In 1984, I went to Caesars Tahoe to see a 1am show starring Pee Wee Herman. I went there with a band that I was managing…and my new squeeze, Charlotte. After an hour, the shine wore off from Mr. Reuben’s performance. It seemed more like an audition piece than a well thought out show. The usual characters were there and some that would never make it to his TV show a few years later. The damn thing was three hours long. In the middle of the night. While the actors probably tooted up backstage, the audience was booze soaked with little access to cocaine.

This is a seriously dilated dead on arrival blend. It doesn’t move a scoche in two hours. Nada. Bazinga. I found numerous reviews. All of them are 10,15, or 20 years old. The blend was well received. Weather affecting the tiny island just kills everything in sight. Like most cigar manufacturers, they will never own up to admitting mistakes in farming or production that may have been widespread. Rather, they prefer to pass their mistakes on to the consumer.

I will admit that maybe this is just one of those Habano blends that requires many more years of rest than I allowed it.

RATING: 87

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS

Tags: cigar reviews, cigar reviews by the katman, cigars, Cuban Trinidad Robusto Extra | Cigar Reviews by the Katman, katman, phil kohn