Wrapper: Pennsylvania Broadleaf
Binder: African Cameroon
Filler: Dominican, Mexican
Size: 5.5 x 54 Toro Box Pressed
Strength: Medium
Price: $12.15
Date Released: September 2025
Quantity Released: Regular Production
Factory: Tabacalera Palma, Dominican Republic

My cigars received 3 months of naked humidor time.

THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
The men who started this company in 2021 have dedicated their blends to the Mormon teachings. When I opened their lushly illustrated website, I went to ‘Our Story.’ It says “Mission Coming Soon.” I’m going to take a wild guess and say the boys (Brandon Oveson and Kendrick Woolstenhulme) are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They own a cigar shop in Salt Lake City. Living in Mesa, AZ in the 90’s, it was a regular occurrence to fend off young men in the identical garb of pants, white shirts, and black ties knocking on our door asking if we had heard the word. A couple of times, I used the ‘I’m a Jew’ get out jail free card, but it only heightened the challenge for the proselytizing purveyors of a solution of me not living an eternity in hell.

I love the oily brindle appearance. A once crisp box press is softened from no longer being in the box. An obvious observance. Frankenstein veins give the cigar a tough look and intricate double cigar bands add to the allure. The only detraction is the cigar is too light in the hand. Hopefully, it will plump.

Aromas are close to non-existent but I’m able to decipher soft walnuts, freshly brewed coffee, malt, and milk chocolate. The cold draw gives up notes of mint, malt, dark chocolate, espresso, walnuts, and red pepper.

Wind chill in Milwaukee is -40°. The interior window frames of my cave are frozen stiff with ice on the inside.

The blend starts uneventfully with light notes of walnut, effervescent malt, caramel, and earthiness tinged with citrus.

The cigar begins to plump on command as if it believes its life depends on it. This is a good thing.

The blend resides in a consumer-friendly price point. The leaf stats find my blunderbuss of a G spot nicely. And I’m a sucker for a good box press. Pretty much the same as dangling jewelry in front of a gorilla. Except the monkey dresses better than me.

Half an inch in and the earthiness accelerates. The nuttiness takes heed and finds a home nestled in the breast of a dancing queen named Zelda. There is a mystical well-roundedness in the blend’s approach. A cigar sommelier could nail it but the one I have chained in my closet is taking a pee break.

I never understood why I had so many burn failures with box pressed cigars. It seems that in the last 5 years, rollers were whipped into submission to get it right, or I was wrong in lighting my cigars with David Carradine’s rope I bought on eBay. His family had to make a living.

I like the cigar. It’s early and there is plenty of time for it to fail, but initial impressions are positive ones. I don’t remember my earlier two sticks because I’m 76. Thank God I was born in ’50. I hate to think how folks born in ’33 and ’47 can manage the math.

The walnut, with a nice new floral element, is killer. And the cigar goes out.

The floral does double duty as a flavor and an aroma. I check the leaf stats again to see if I’m missing something. It’s unusual but not impossible. I have no idea which of the leaves is smacking me in the kisser with a bouquet of roses and chrysanthemums.

As the one-inch mark departs this world, a sweet fruity note slams it home. I love a transitional cigar, which in this new market of mostly unaffordable cigars, is a godsend.

Apostate lists 8 blends on their website. You can check it out here. If The Zarahemla can hang tight, I’d very much like to try their other wares. Why do cigar manufacturers come up with names of blends you can’t pronounce or remember. I’m sure at their cigar shop in Salt Lake, they high five and fist bump. I visited that lovely town only once 40 years ago. It wasn’t easy finding a nice bar except in the hotels.

This is the prefect morning cigar. It is smooth, transitional, earthy, and showing early signs of complexity. What’s not to like. Regular production doesn’t hurt the appeal.

The light as a feather weight prior to lighting up was very deceptive. The stick burns as slow as my understanding of the current cultural climate. On the upside, it seems that I may have lucked out as I’m going to witness NASA going to the moon again. When it happened the first time in 1969, I kept the L.A. Times front page. It is framed and hanging on the wall to this day. I saw that you can buy them on eBay for about $15. Appears that everyone had the same idea.

The first half was great. I’m very impressed. I bought my cigars on a hunch when they came out in September. Once in a while, I get it right.

The balance of sweet v. savory is very close to even steven. The earthy qualities slightly take the 60% mark. Strength in the first half was a solid medium. A little bit of arse kicking begins at the start of the second half. But as a licensed cigar reviewer, I take on all comers.

The rigid burn surprises me as there have been no issues except for the early reverse detonation of man vs. fire. I wipe off the old man slobber and get you a good photo below.

I shove myself away from the desk, lean back in my expensive gaming chair, and stare at the ceiling while uttering the words everyone knows. Fill in the blanks: “N… S… O……”

The elusive treasure is a cigar that has you thinking you’re having a good time instead of just wiling away the hour thinking about your next cigar.

The flavor profile shifts. Big notes of dark chocolate, dried figs, black walnuts, caramel, creaminess, mild red and black pepper, and easy sipping malt.

Bass players often hear, ‘Turn it down!” My wife has it down pat. So, I found a wonderful new device by Fender called the Mustang Micro Plus Personal Guitar Amplifier. It plugs into your guitar, and you plug headphones into it, so you are the only one listening to Smoke on the Water. The wunderkind mechanism gives you over 100 presets for amp types and effects. It is Bluetooth so you can get even more sounds from your iPhone. All this for only $135. This thing is life changing because I can’t control when I want to play. Now, the guardrails are down. It arrives today. The only dread I feel is the 50-page instruction manual. But I shall double up on my statins and I should be fine.

Strength is medium/full and on an empty stomach, I feel the earth move under my feet. Luckily, I have a half full bottle of MD 20/20 nearby.

The last third always tells the truth and I begin that journey now. If the profile remains the same, I’m happy. If harshness is kept at bay, I will dance the dance of the Hopi Indians who always enjoinder the ritual of happiness away from the reservation.

And…I’m spent. The Zarahemla sticks the landing. Beautiful transitions. A nice dose of complexity. The proper depth. And it doesn’t cause defibrillation from the strength in the last couple of inches.

This is a must. And I will seek out Apostate’s other blends because I’m now smitten.

RATING: 96

And now for something completely different:

I’ve never told this story for fear of backlash. In the 1990’s, we lived in Mesa, Arizona. The Mormon church ran the town for decades. And at that time, Arizona had the largest population of Mormons outside Utah. It wouldn’t have mattered if not for my little Jewish daughter being persecuted by her Mormon teacher in the 3rd grade.

We discovered that Katie had a penchant for saying ‘Oh my God’ at recess. Each time, a fellow student would rat her out to the teacher and the teacher punished Katie by putting her in the corner for the rest of the day.

This happened several times and finally, she was permanently placed at a desk facing the corner. For two fucking months.

Two months was how long it took for Katie to tell us about her exile. Upon her coming clean, I called the principal and said we were coming down to talk.

We met with the principal, the vice principal, and the teacher in Katie’s classroom. They tried to soft pedal the whole thing while my wife Charlotte could barely hold me back.

We got the company line how Mormons don’t allow that kind of language. OK. So why didn’t they contact us? They just looked stupid when I asked that question. We received no apologies, just judgment for the way we were raising our child.

After an hour, I grabbed my wife and stormed out. I discovered there was a Jewish day school in Phoenix. I paid the fee over the phone and the very next day; a bus picked her up.

My daughter was enthralled at being at Solomon Schecter Day School. What we hadn’t expected was the massive quantities of homework that followed. On average, it was 2-3 hours per night. Which included learning Hebrew. I was working 10–11-hour days as a structural project manager. Charlotte handled the onslaught.

One day, a 10-year-old autistic boy across the street climbed a 120-foot-tall electrical tower. His 15-year-old brother scampered up behind him to try to stop him. They sat on top of this thing for hours while the fire department tried to figure out a way to get them down. News crews showed up and it made national news.

Our next-door neighbor had the young boy in her class and told us of the horrific treatment the boys received by their tyrannical father. They were beaten regularly. So was their mother. As I said earlier, the Mormon church ran things. So, the cops did nothing.

The 15-year-old went up the tower because he was afraid of the consequences of the younger boy getting out of the house while he babysat him after school.

If you were not Mormon, you didn’t get to play varsity football. Or be on the cheerleader squad, be on the math team, or just about anything that would be fun for teens. Across the street from every school in Mesa was a Mormon education center. Each day, after lunch, Mormon kids were expected to leave their teachings as they were required to attend religious school.

The Mesa city council was Mormon. All the city heads were Mormon. You didn’t stand a chance if you were a Christian, Jew, Muslim, or secular.

Two hours passed before the fire department was able to get a crane tall enough for the firefighters to get the boys down safely.

And true to the teachings of strict obeyance, both boys were beaten severely after their ordeal.

This is all true. My poor kid had to suffer because of intolerant religious idiots. We found a secular high school for her to attend when she was of age. But thank God for the openness of her Jewish day school. Who had one of the first female rabbis leading the congregation. Katie became best friends with Rabbi Bonnie’s daughter, so we did things together as families. Bonnie’s husband, who had long hair down his back and a biblical beard, became wealthy doing the horoscopes for the ultra-elite in Hollywood. He would be flown out there during the week. Private jets would be at his disposal. It was very expensive sending our daughter to private school but there was no judgment of small children who only spoke their minds.

This is the news report of the event. Note the crocodile tears of the father at the end of this video. Son of a bitch.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS