Drew Estate Undercrown Sun Grown
Wrapper: Ecuadoran Sumatra Sun Grown
Binder: Connecticut River Valley Stalk Cut/Cured Sun Grown Habano
Filler: Nicaraguan (Ligero from Nueva Segovia)
Size: 5 x 54 Robusto
Strength: Full
Price: $13.50

AROMAS AND COLD DRAW POINTS:
From the shaft, I can smell some lovely floral notes, chocolate, espresso, very creamy, pepper, cedar, and butterscotch.

From the clipped cap and foot, I can smell both black and red peppers, malt, chocolate, cedar, floral notes, coffee, heavy cinnamon, and malt.

The cold draw presents flavors of cinnamon, red pepper, chocolate, vanilla, malt, cedar, barnyard, and butterscotch.

THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
I checked out several reviews and everyone loves this blend scoring some very respectable ratings.

First up: Malts, cocoa, cedar, cinnamon, espresso, marshmallow, butterscotch, sweet cream, nutmeg, and slight vegetal notes.

The malt begins to kick arse. Sweetness is a dominatrix. Marshmallow, butterscotch, nutmeg, and cinnamon make for an exciting combination.
Strength begins at a solid medium. The char line is on the money.

I’m an inch in and not a lot of complexity. Transitions aren’t bad but aren’t great. The finish is special…very long and tasty.

I can tell you right now that I do like the Sun Grown blend better than the original Undercrown blend. It isn’t as heavy handed with a lighter appeal due to subtleties and nuance that the papa blend doesn’t seem to have.

The DE web site says this is a full tilt strength blend. So far, just medium. I will probably regret those words as it kicks in at some point and sends me and Alice to the moon. Can’t wait for the invasion of the Nicotine People from the Black Lagoon.

The Drew Estate Undercrown Sun Grown is a kinder, gentler version of the DE Undercrown. I don’t remember a lot of complexity to that blend either. I can’t remember the last time I purchased an Undercrown. Too pedestrian for my tastes.
Burn issues begin.

It is here at the start of the second third that the blend finds its complex nature. Transitions are floating free in space making for nice little turns here and there. The finish is wonderful.
Still….strength is only medium/full. I expect a cigar designated by the manufacturer as full strength to kick in a lot sooner than this one has.

The flavors: Malts, cinnamon, red pepper, nutmeg, espresso, heavy cream, marshmallow, butterscotch, vanilla, honey, clove, and a touch of root beer, cedar, nutmeg, and some cocoa.
The Drew Estate Undercrown Sun Grown begins to blossom. Strength becomes intense. My vision is the first to notice.

This is a nice even keeled blend. Plenty of geometric balance that spreads across my palate like a drunken Pollock.

This blend is exactly what smokers who don’t have a developed palate will say they like but not know why. It projects a big picture at work that morphs the different tastes into one big jumble of wow.

I’ve burned past the light in the loafers part of the cigar and it settles down to a normal burn.

The halfway point arrives at exactly 25 minutes.

The blend is so bloody smooth that the strength doesn’t seem to be overwhelming. It is only the nicotine that warns my brain that something is going on.

Know what this reminds me of? The My Father El Centurion H-2K-CT. I love that blend. And there are striking similarities even though the ingredients are completely different…and both at the same price. I’d like to have a cigar-off and compare one day.

I now experience a Thanksgiving treat from this blend…pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. The cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove add allspice to the mix.

We are going to the in-laws for Thanksgiving. Papa Larson makes the greatest bacon covered jalapeno poppers in the world. Each year, I just stand next to the plate left out for everyone and attempt to consume them all on my own…while elbowing other guests out of the way.

Complexity, transitions, finish, balance…check. Surprisingly, the nicotine attack is on the wane. S
I am in lock step with the other reviewers and Cigar Aficionado. This is a mighty fine blend worthy of ratings at 90+.

I cannot think of another DE blend similar to the Undercrown Sun Grown. Like the cheese, it stands alone. This Robusto just shines with an ET heart glow.

Black pepper makes a flanking attack ridding itself of the red pepper spiciness I prefer. For newbies, I find the difference between black and red peppers to be the position of the taste. Black finds itself in the back of my throat. While red hits the tongue and sinuses.

Creamy malts compete heavily with the sweetness factors. There isn’t much savory in this blend….
Blam!

As if a light switch had been flipped, the strength knocks Alice to the floor and off to the moon we go for a rough landing. Holy shit. Thank goodness my smugness about the lack of full strength for the first two thirds of the cigar seemed like a letdown. I don’t know if I could have smoked the entire cigar at this strength with nothing in my stomach.
Manny Mota & Jesus Alou! I’m falling down the rabbit hole.

I think I’m paralyzed. I just stare at the words on the page and no longer have any thought process in motion.
Newbies beware. I’ve been smoking cigars for 60 years and my ass is officially kicked.
The strength begins to overwhelm the subtleties of the blend. I believe if I had something in my gut this would be easier.

Malts dissipate. Still very creamy. Black pepper is on a rant. The pumpkin pie was fleeting. The other flavors are there but mooshed together now providing a sum of its totality rather than singular identifiable flavors.

I may have to lie down after this review.
I want to say something clever and witty but my I.Q. has dropped from 79 to 3.

I’m stating the obvious but unless you are a he-man…which I am not…choose your time for smoking the Undercrown Sun Grown carefully. Nothing puts off a friendly herf more than you puking into the ashtray.

I’ve hooked up a I.V. Demerol to my arm to get me through the final moments of this review.

OK…stupid comments aside…this is an excellent cigar. The price is reasonable. The only caveat is that this might be a Darwinian blend that takes out the weak and delicate smoker.
You’re going to dig the Undercrown Sun Grown.
Final smoke time is one hour 10 minutes.

RATING: 92

And now for something way different:
Cannagars.

From a blog called “The Potlander”

“A New Site Selling Luxury Cannabis Cigars Bills Itself as “420 for the 1 Percent”—So We Tried It
Smoking just got a whole lot bougier.

“What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on weed?
Until last week, mine was a $79 one-gram gram of Sitka Gold flower rolled in 2 grams of hash—an indulgence for a visiting friend’s first legal pot experience.
But I am decidedly part of the 99 percent, which means I’m not the target market for Leira Cannagars, which bills itself as “420 for the 1%” on their slick website.

“Seattle-based Leira rolls cannabis cigars, the smallest of which is a petite three-and-one-quarter-inch cigarillo size that retails for $110 in Washington shops, like Freedom Market of Longview, where I snagged mine. They sell out ‘within hours or the weekend they are dropped,’ the company told us, as cannabis users splurge on a product that ‘represents success, luxury, and sophistication.’

“This cigarillo includes 4 grams of flower, coated with a half-gram of rosin, wrapped in cannabis leaves. It’s advertised as burning slowly over an hour. They also sell a six-inch Corona, which retails for $420, and which is filled with 12 grams of flower, sealed with 3 grams of rosin and also covered in cannabis leaves, that they claim will burn for us to five hours.

“Leira works hard to make the packaging look lux as well: each cannagar is sold in a corked glass jar, topped with drips of purple wax. While I hesitate to embrace weed as a product for the bourgeoisie, I am a sucker for marketing.

“My smoking history begins with Marlboro Lights in middle school and has plateaued at frequent bong rips and the occasional celebratory joint, so the information I have about cigars primarily comes from the media. Specifically, my firsthand knowledge is limited to the boxes making great pencil cases, and the flavored ones are best served gutted and refilled with weed, then sealed with saliva. Buying a cigar already made with Grape Diesel saves so much time (and saliva), even if it costs 100 times as much!

“Leira has a lengthy video with instructions on cutting and lighting the cannagar, claiming you need a cigar cutter and a butane lighter. Considering my weed budget was already shot after this purchase, I decided to go rogue and skip the step of buying equipment that I likely wouldn’t use again. (My kitchen scissors and a classic Bic worked just fine, which was somehow both a relief and a disappointment.)

“Here is one of the things I didn’t know about cannabis cigars: They’re hollow in the middle! If you smoke them in the manner you usually smoke a joint, your mouth will be burned. A lot of times, even! This was a surprise—I was expecting the density of a blunt, but the cannarillo was shockingly lightweight.

“Since I have smoked pot way more times than I have smoked cigars, it took a long time to figure out the best way to hit this thing.

“The two friends I shared with were equally baffled, and I ended up offering up a regular old-fashioned preroll once we were tired of the discomfort. At one point, we recalled media impressions of people smoking cigars, and puffed out our cheeks and inhaled while giving tiny wet smooches to the cannarillo, a method that finally resulted in less burning and deeper hits, but also made the whole thing sort of gross to pass around.

“One friend wisely said, ‘I wish we would have figured this method out $60 ago.’ Indeed, for a 99 percenter like me, it was hard to enjoy the curling smoke without seeing it as money burning away between my fingers. I have to wonder why Leira didn’t bother adding inhalation instructions to their video—I suppose one percenters already know these things.

“My final impression of the Leira Cannarillo is one of disappointment.“The idea is great, but the execution makes this a better novelty gift for a friend than a smoker’s splurge. I found the presentation tacky, reminding me more of Maker’s Mark than Montecristo. If I’d gone for the Corona and spent four times the money, I’d be outraged since you could buy an ounce of weed for that much and roll a ton of old-fashioned blunts.

“Since I’m middle class, I’ll definitely be scraping the debris of the finger-burning stump left behind into my bong instead.”

You can visit Leira Cannagars HERE.

Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS