Wrapper: Nicaraguan Criollo
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: 6 x 56 Figurado
Strength: Medium/Full
Price: $20.00
Date Released: September 2026
Quantity Released: Undisclosed
Factory: Undisclosed
THE WHOLE MEGILLAH:
A nice oily stick that’s built like a tank. Perfection in rolling.
The three different blends in this line are merely differentiated by Green, Red, and Black. As usually is the case with Viaje releases, little information is forwarded to the consumer about history, quantities, and factory. Farkas likes to keep things close to his chest.
I’ve found that most Viaje blends age out after a year. Just one ferret trainer’s opinion.
What has been disseminated is that the Green blend is an earth, wood, and spice forward cigar. Sounds good because it makes it easy on a reviewer. Now I don’t have to make up a laundry list of exotic flavors; but I will be required to find a million ways to say complex, rich, transitional, and depth.
The wrapper aromas are delightful with sweet floral notes, mild barnyard, dark chocolate, malt, and cedar.
I clip the cap and put cigar to mouth for the cold draw experience, and I’m nearly bowled over with red hot spice, cedar, and earth. But the draw needs a leg up and since I’m not a patient man, I grab my PerfecDraw and it solves the draw problem. This is the reason I try to stay away from cigars with pointy ends. You can’t clip too much of the cap because you don’t want the wrapper to unroll but a little bit is usually not enough so out comes the draw tool.
Nice earthy start.
With two months left before I retire my blog, I will not be doing full-on video reviews as I’m learning the ropes. The thought of following the template of my predecessors has no appeal. I refuse to be boring. So, it will take a bit of study and erudition before I debut the finished Katman 2.0 in January. On social media platforms. The blog is dead.
The instant appeal to this cigar is that it begins smoothly. Some Nicaraguan blends smack you hard in the puss at the start. I don’t care for that, but then it may merely be my advanced age and decrepitude.
Last month, using the Hubble Telescope, scientists discovered life on a distant planet that they named Kishka 1.6. Back in the lab, researchers are furiously working on inventing a bra that can finally hide Jennifer Aniston’s nipples. During conversations with the Kishkerians, they asked, “Please send final episode of Gilligan’s Island…and are Brad and Jen still together?” Scientists were flummoxed and instead sent them videos of John Holmes. They haven’t heard back.
Construction is solid and the burn is a slow roll. No featherweight here and my Spidey senses tell me this is a 2-hour cigar.
Cedar is strong along with notes of roasted cashews, black coffee, and a leathery substance only known to the Kishkerians on Tuesdays at noon.
So far, the cigar is offering up a strictly non-sweet flavor profile. But I love the smooth earthiness which makes up for my craving of 50/50 Savory v. Sweet.
The ash is hard. Like a 7th grader’s first real boner at a school dance. Funny thing about that. I was very shy around girls. I’d go to the Friday night dances but stood directly in front of the live band. More specifically, in front of the bassist. I loved the sledgehammer to the chest from the low dB’s. Did I have a boner? Only when I sashayed too quickly to the jungle rhythms.
Inch number one was a nice introduction to the blend.
I’ve written quite a bit about actress Tippi Hedren (The Birds). I saw a doc about her. She was married to my boss Luis Baranchea who owned a structural fab shop. He would come upstairs, after a long lunch with his wife and daughter-in-law Melanie Griffith, and head straight for the kitchen. He would pull a big bottle of vodka from the freezer and sit and drink all afternoon. After a few minutes, he’d pull me in and make me sit down at the table. For the rest of the day, he’d bemoan his financial status due to Tippi’s ridiculously expensive lion reserve Shambala. It kept me from my work, but he didn’t care. The documentary said she divorced him because he was an alcoholic. Duh. If she had drained my bank account, I’d become a drunk too.
The cigar is wonderfully toasty. It’s nutty and earthy and cedary. Its smooth character is a winner. I love this blend…so far. I’ve only had my samples for a month. I betcha that with another couple months of detention, it’s going to sing like Tippi telling Hitchcock to stop hitting on her. And what I remember of her…she was an incredibly arrogant woman.
After reading Groucho Marx’s autobiography in 1972, I wrote the icon and asked him to send me something that was lying around his house. I waited at my mailbox for months. I finally received a terse letter telling me, in essence, to fuck off. Pure Groucho.
I smoked the Red a couple weeks ago and it didn’t wow me. But the Green? Pure golden slime. I’m loving it long time.
A year after I left the employ of Luis, I was driving down Harbor Blvd in Anaheim and came to a red light behind a gorgeous Cadillac. I noticed that the personal license plated said ROAR. Holy shit. It was Tippi. I put my car in park and jumped out. I ran to the side of her car pushing my face just inches from her window. She freaked. I yelled for her to open the window and reminded her who I was. She calmed down enough to say it was nice to see me. And then I handed her my business card and told her to call me. Good times. I got to scare the shit out of a movie star.
The first half was enjoyable. But the nicotine is becoming ferocious. I get the spins. Oh no. Each time I took LSD, that’s how I knew I was coming on to the drug. Spins and then nausea and then panic. I’m not currently sick to my stomach but there’s a bit of panic setting in as I have the entire second half of the cigar left
In my old age, I just can’t handle strong cigars anymore. I don’t know if it’s just a crispy brain or its deteriorata.
Charlie Schink is visiting me on Monday from Seattle. We are going to make some video reviews. We’ve not yet discussed who is going to wear the new yellow sun dress I bought. I’ve built a mud wrestling tub on my patio. He’s here because he is attending a cobbler convention in Chicago. His shoemaker is visiting from Germany. Unfortunately, Charlie’s feet are as long as they are wide and needs special hobbit shoes. I have written 12 pages of insults for when he arrives. He’s planning on driving to nearly every country on the planet with his converted Toyota Landcruiser. I can’t wait to see the photos of the car. A lot of time and money has been turning it into a Transformer. And here is something that cracks me up…there is so much high-end computer shit he has to learn that he has confided in me that it is not only frustrating but it’s taking longer than expected. The brittleness of old brains is not to be trusted.
I need to walk off the nicotine. I can barely type. Holy Batmobile.
I get down to the last third. The Viaje Zombie Alternative Artwork 2026 Green is a lovely smoke but it’s too strong for me.
Viaje says the cigar is only medium/full in strength. That is not correct. It is full-on power.
In 1969, two buddies and I got trapped in a cave adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in Newport Beach. The tide had come in. We found a vertical 10 foot tall outcropping and we desperately climbed up it. I was last and the tide was coming in so fast that the water was up to my chest while crashing waves had become dangerous. They each grabbed an arm while I screamed not to let me go. I thought it was the end of me. All I could think of was if I had caused a rip in the fabric of our friendship that would have allowed them to let go and laugh. Thankfully, they didn’t. But I sometimes still have nightmares.
I can’t go any further with an inch and a half to go. My serenity-now has been depleted and I either stop or go out in a hail of nicotine dizziness.
So how do I rate this cigar? Just because I’m a wuss doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the width and breadth of the blend. But it feels like punishment. It’s a fine cigar but it’s a fleeting item that’s floating into the marketplace ether. There are samplers still available and that’s what I’d recommend. Each blend is different. So, I’m going to stick my head in an ice bath and recover slowly.
RATING: 94
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Categories: CIGAR REVIEWS
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