My Father No. 5 - Cigar Review

PROLOGUE

At the close of this write-up, there'll be a new addition to my reviews: LESS SCHTICK MORE STICK. Featured will be less prattling on and more what ya need to know at a glance. Just keep on a'scrolling to check it out. As always, please don't let me know what ya think.

Gentlepersons, let's hop to --

THE CIGAR

My Father No. 5
Ecuadorian Habano-Rosado wrapper
Nicaraguan binder/filler
Toro Gordo 6 x 56

PRE-LIGHT

I wanna marry the My Father band design. I know the absolute illusion of true love when I see it; and I'm looking at it right now. Actually, right NOW, I'm putting the band in an empty Manischewitz bottle which now serves the purpose of band-catch. To completely be a nit-pick -- now I'm eye-balling the undressed stick...

Nice rich cocoa bean complexion with even mottling over-top of a black coffee hue. Minimal veins of spider up to one broad enough to irritate the hand-feel in the final third. Seams are only barely visible, and even. Tobacco at the foot shows a matte yet lively tint on a canvas quite similar to the barrel but a notch darker and with a touch or two of dirty blonde highlights. Packing looks like a medium+ density and a quick pinch up and down the shaft confirms it. Nice and even throughout, as well.

Schnoz-wise, there is a surprisingly potent floral note at the barrel with a nice dose, too, of paprika. Very floral and freshly green at the foot, with a nice bit of red spice. Nibbling off the cap, I get a very smooth draw with just a touch of resistance, Let's call it medium. That cold draw gives me some fresh spices and nice coffee with a hearty helping of peppers. There's a light trace of mixed nuts at the cold finish.

LIGHT

6:15pm
Aromas of hardwoods and sweet grasses with a peppery foreground are let loose on toasting the foot. First hot draw is a lightly roasted coffee swirling around an array of peppers and sweet spices. Lots going on there, let's let the chips fall where they may. It delineates further on the second hot draw, which is retro-haled to a shot of roasted and finely-ground black and white peppers, which give way to a paprika, which meets up with them afterward on a nice tongue-tip tingle. Coffee is filling out and a heavy and dark floral note is coming in. Third pull is a sweetening of the coffee and an introduction of a somewhat clay earthen backing.

Foot-note is a voluminous and quite sharp via black pepper affair, but with it is also a light floral which surprisingly is allowed to come through on a wave of sweet hay. It's as if the two littler notes teamed up to be heard, yet remained within each others' well-defined borders. Mouth-feel is a pleasant clean tingle of paprika and white/black peppers. Burn is evening out off a light on my front porch. Its line is medium+ and from it grows a pale to light grey ladder-runging of ash, sans flake. Draw is still perfection. Profile is quite high already, and I'm glad to be doing this My Father review on a full tummy. Let's say Medium+ easily.

ACT I

A very nice cinnamon comes on like a trained bull in a wide-aisled China Shoppe. Peppers and paprika subdue and there is less tingle, but a still very clean mouth-feel that has a good earth vibe. A sweet earthiness with a touch of clay is the canvas on which is painted primary notes of finely ground black and white peppers and a trace of cayenne, and a cinnamon stick stirred coffee mug. A dark floral note comes and goes intermittently. Finish is long legged and of strong sweet coffee and cinnamon with a paprika underneath. Mouth-feel seems to have picked up some frothed milk.

Tremendous and now much more kind smoke out-put and the aroma is all around me of a coffee house slinging Mexican Lattes. The clay has left the earth note and that note deepens in richness and complexities. A heavily toasted cream sets into the finish and mouth-feel.  There's a very interesting meringue cookie note on the end of draw to beginning of finish.

Burn-line is wavy and not looking to correct or go nucking futs. Ash is a touch more flake, but holding. Construction is not softening an ever-lovin' hair, and too, stays the same on all other accounts.

Coffee keeps growing and the paprika hides a bit behind a rising nutmeg which meets the cinnamon. Peppers have all subdued, but remain: white, black, and cayenne -- in that order. Floral notes visit with less frequency. The meringue cookies are clear as day and quite a thing. I roll the ash off at an inch+ and it's a powdery thing, warm with a touch of velvety oils and a slightly more dense center than exterior. Mouth-feel is clean to a bit of remaining tingle and perfectly moistened. Finish is a trace of cayenne on cinnamon with a strong coffee. Backing is a rich sweet earth. Profile is medium+ and nicely mannered.

ACT II

Little bit more settling here. meringue cookies are fading quick and faded. peppers have somewhat mottled but remain at least the same strength. Cinnamon and nutmeg fall back to the other red spices after paprika surges a pull or two. Coffee stays dark and sweet and the frothed milk collapses into it.

Burn remains wavy, and burn-line a bit thicker than I'd like. A spot of wrapper threatens to pull up ahead of the burn, but ultimately holds without much effort. Ash is the same as prior, with a tick of narrowing between its rungs. Packing softens a good couple of notches a solid inch ahead of the burn. Smoke is a bit warmer than cool. Retro-hale is kind yet robust peppers, white and a touch of black. Smoke out-put continues to be full off both ends and thick in the air. Aroma is unchanged in any notable way. The mouth-feel is now on my lips and I smacks 'em real good, like.

The midway point brings a ramping up of earth and red spices highlighted by a cinnamon burst, which falls to the tongue. Another length of ash is rolled off to a greater density by way of added oils. There's a bit of a throat catch and I gentlemanly cough into my schmatta. A bit of a canoe-threat is evened out by a re-touch and responds well to correcting. Primary notes are cinnamon and strong loaded coffee. Very high under-tone of earth. Secondary notes are very close and are peppery, now only black and mainly on the retro-hale. That pepper is now ground a bit more coarsely.

Mouth-fell is only barely a cream now. Perhaps more a butter. Buttery vibes are there on the finish, as well and mix great with the black pepper. Coffee has good and strong legs there and takes a bit of red spice with it. Smoke is warm but nice. The aisles of that China Shoppe feel a bit more narrow now and the bull, a bit more...bullish. I can feel the gentler wrapper getting tested by its more powerful guts. Like a wild horse testing its coral. I don't know a darned thing about animals, but that seems apt. Especially since the second act closes with a slight crack in the wrapper a half inch from the burn.

ACT III

Very coffee, very cinnamon, very high underneath of earth, and a a very close secondary of remaining red spices. Black pepper is still on to a lesser extent and finely ground yet again. A very dark floral note is in the distant -- it's actually the only clear depth. It comes in on the retro-hale and is a dried almost potpourri. On closer examination, there is a trace of white pepper in the dried floral notes. Ash is more well oiled again. Burn is a bit of a mess, but we'll see. Wrapper cracks again, again about a half inch from burn-line (which has thinned to a thin+). The first crack was smoked through without event.

Floral notes reach a crescendo and exit just shy of band. It's all coffee, cinnamon, red spices, and black pepper from here, on a now further away yet sweeter earth with a touch of toasted vanilla influence. Finish notes are eerily close to the draw notes, with a welcomed re-addition of toasted cream which soothes the mouth-feel which threatened dryness for a tad. Profile is a very muscular medium+ but in the end the fence held. Now at the band, Imma shut me mouf and pull out a toothpick.

NOTES

A bit unrefined and unchecked by My Father standards. Testing limits in a testosterone manner, undeserving of the pink in its label. All told a nice offering to remind you of your frat house years, while in your post retirement ones.

I find myself reminiscing over its Meringue cookie flavor. The strength was quite nice -- holding me, instead of wrestling me.

Burn was not up to My Father's typical standards and required I believe three or four re-touches, all told.

PAIRINGS

One Bourbon, one scotch, hold the beer.

FINAL GRADE

****B****

PROLOGUE

7:45pm
I can't believe I gave a My Father no.5 a B grading. Who the heck do I think I am???

LESS SCHTICK MORE STICK

Mellow: Less
Coarse: More
Sweet: Sweet Potato
Spicy: Intermittently
Savory: Nope
Strength: Lennie Small
Draw: Perfection
Burn: Tricky-ish
Construction: feh!