Surrogates Satin Glove
WRAPPER: Mexican San Andres
BINDER: Nicaraguan
FILLER: Nicaraguan
FORMAT: Churchill, box-pressed
ORIGIN: My Father Cigars, Nicaragua
STRENGTH: Medium-Full
PROFILE: Bitter-Sweet/Savory
DELIVERY: Roasted/Smoky
COMBUSTION: excellent
CONSTRUCTION: excellent
Darkly roasted and smoky yet lively overtones, bittersweet in nature. Undertones are savory spices with salted sour additions, delivered roasted w/ light char. It's dark & lively there, as well. Is Dark & Lively a BET show? Should be. Complex as fuck, balanced supremely to boot. Deeply nuanced.
- Pepper (black, cayenne)
- Spices (cumin, smoked paprika, salt)
- Coffee (dark roast)
- Brown sugar
- Chocolate (dark & semi-sweet)
- Wood (cedar, hickory)
- Vegetal (fennel, anise, mushroom)
- Earth (compost, top-soil)
Burns on an even-line on-down. Gives off a good volume of smoky-smoke both passive and aggressive but sits quite light on the palate. Not a lot of a room-note. Ash builds slowly to an inch, but not more, a bit dryly-so.
Rolled quite well sans hard/soft spots. Some slight softening ahead of burn. That burn is cool and slowly-paced. The draw is a bit snug but adds t the feeling of sipping from a chef's spoon and not gorging on an all you can eat buffet of instant grub.
FINAL GRADE: A-
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79 D 60-69 F 0-59
The following is via www.CigarDojo.com:
"Surrogates, a brand that is owned and distributed by L’Atelier Imports, has always maintained a certain air of mystery throughout the cigar world. When first released, the brand was made specially for Ohio retailer New Havana Cigars as an affordable alternative to today’s increasingly popular limited edition cigars. The original NHC exclusive consisted of the Bone Crusher and Skull Breaker – a release that was met with confusion amongst consumers. “Are Surrogates cigars intended to be clones of existing cigars?” people began to wonder. Concerns were quickly met with a response from brand runner Dan Welsh:
"When people saw the names of these first two vitolas, there was much speculation that they were either made by one of our trusted vendors, or were meant to be a duplicate of one of their offerings. Neither is true nor implied. The names were based on the novelty fonts that I chose for these full bodied beasts. In retrospect, I should not be surprised that some people jumped to conclusions about them being made by Viaje, because of the themes used in the names. This was never my intent. Bone Crusher is a play on the strength of the stick ‘hitting you to the bones’ and Skull Breaker is a play on ‘feeling it in your head’ when you are done. Had I projected the myriad of conclusions being drawn I might have chosen ‘Punisher’ for the Skull theme and simply ‘Krusher’ for the other vitola. But Surrogates was the branding I wanted to bring forth and create a following for.""
"...Who’s to say the original Bone Crusher and Skull Breaker cigars weren’t an homage to Viaje (skull and bones)? Dan teased at the fact that their Tramp Stamp release clearly poked fun at business partner Pete Johnson’s Tatuaje logo. And then there’s the Crystal Baller, Dan further insinuated that the cigar showed his respect and love of the Illusione Epernay. And let’s not forget about L’Atelier’s own LAT line, a clear salute to the great Cohiba Behike. ..."
Hi, me again. For my moolah, I get Padron here -- as does Tony Crack by way of our local B&M manager. You can listen to Tony talk about that in Stick Men: Episode Twenty-Three.
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