B"H
PROLOGUE
An AJ Fernandez Connie? What can go wrong? Oh -- New World.
Slowly I turned...
THE CIGAR
Ave Maria Immaculata
6 x 50 Toro
w. Ecuadorian Connecticut
b./f. Nicaraguan
Pick 'em up at www.CigarsCity.com -- whom I doth thank for this sampling.
PRE-LIGHT
The band and its secondary are elaborate and too, very goy. Very Catholic Church-y. I first notice a quite healthy sheen over-top the shaft. Smooth eye-balling. Minimal veins and nigh tight seams on a milky coffee even complexion. Nicely affixed cap. Foot tobacco is a monochromatic brownette packed to a medium+ density. There is a tick of crimped vein way up in the 3/3.
Light oily and smooth hand-feel. Great hefty heftiness. Balance of weight tips a tad toward cap. Charmin squeeze shows a medium+ density and hard snap-back, zero soft-spots. Schnoz notes on the shaft are a caramel and white pepper on a dirt/hay. At the foot there's a simple amplification of that -- maybe some weak latte additions.
Pale nuts and fresh grass high-light the cold draw. Some light cocoa with a white pepper cinnamon vibe. medium tension on draw. another cold tug and then another -- cream, more white pepper.
LIGHT
Very hay and dirt foot toasting aroma. Some non-descript sweetnesses therein, mayhaps off a wood note. Excellent even and eager toasting and torching. First hot pull is a fresh cedar with a white pepper attachment which ain't overly smooth but not in wallop fashion. Lots of artisan white bread in the high-up secondary. Second hottie is retro-haled to a white pepper zetz which falls to the palate in a creamy caramel. Toasty tobacco, then. Third hot draw is more toasty, cedar flexing, weak latte muscling or trying to. White pepper is up-top with that cedar. Caramel and bread load up the middling. a nice toasted tobacco enforces the hay/dirt under-belly. Creamy throughout, still -- I'd hesitate to say smooth, per se. There is still a green nigh bite that is roasting off (hopefully).
There's zilch insofar as softening of pack off lighting (Bic, out-doors). By the by, I cut with a Xikar Xi2. Burn is dead-even on a medium+ thick line. Ash is a pale medium grey sheath at a half inch meow. Silvery bits.
ACT I
Pale nuts mount -- which, gentlepersons, is how white babies are made. <rim-shot> Green nigh bite is subsiding. Artisan white bread is toasting. Cedar is getting at once more creamy and more roasted. Caramel is starting to lace the under middlings in an interesting and complexity adding manner. White pepper is dialing back. There's a distant vibe of light melon on the finish, which is a medium legg'd thing of sweet cedar, mainly. Perhaps the thin latte stays on.
Texture is smooth, and notes are somewhat getting there. Heavy white smoke out-put off each end. Nice even draw.
Combustion and construction are each a beaut until further notice, which I don't foresee. Room-note is a sweet aromatic tobacco and quite pleasant. Profile? Sure. Body is a mild-medium and flavors are a medium. Strength is mild. Lettuce talk mouth-feel: gruff tingle. A pins and needles thing which seems out of keeping with the Immaculata's profile. Great moisture level, tho.
I'm starting to think AJ has trouble with Connecticut offerings. I'm uncertain if I'd take this over the CT New World. This one tries, but sometimes that's the madrefuckero, as my friends south of the border might say.
ACT II
There are complexities and nuances herein -- to somewhat finish my thought at the close of Act I. There is a sweetening now, a sugar entering the cream. Still, there is a sharpness I've yet to quantify... and as I type, it comes to me. A budget-friendly white wine tang. Pine nuts are the nuts now. Cedar is devolving into a generic soft wood. Caramel up-ticks on the back of the sugar intro. White pepper is on the retro-hale and mouth-feel, only. Middling begins to burst with toasted bread. Under-belly is getting a deeper aromatic tobacco lilt. I get vanilla, then I don't. I get graham cracker, then I don't. I believe they sink, both, into the latte which is still thin but now an autumn-style beverage. This gets added to the room-note, which too seems sharpening. Nutmeg. Some suede is in the under-belly.
Combustion and construction stay impressive, even though I said I'd not mention. Very well-built stick, this Immaculata. Strength is moving the meter a kindly half-tick. Ash builds great and its insulation seems to do no harm. Chemically, there is a growing soapy bit.
ACT III
Here's something, gentlepersons: ginger. Replete with a white floral note attachment and a recurring of vanilla vibe. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. Still, not as smooth a character as I'd like. A lemon rind is flowing in, further tang. Acidity is much a thing now and really sticks to the palate.
Burn suffers its first bugaboo by way of a blistering tick of top-leaf. Gets burned through. With the citrus joining weak coffee, the final act is quite sour, knocking the profiles balance fercockt a bissell. This Immaculata tries (and does) do more than the New World Connie, but we've already covered that.
Construction/combustion are selling points; ending with a firm nub and cool smoke.
PAIRINGS
Loganberry Manischewitz.
SMOKE TIME
85mins
FINAL GRADE
****B****
EPILOGUE
"There is no try, only do." - Yoda
"Doo bee doo bee doo." - Frank Sinatra
L’shalom
L’shalom