Kristoff Connecticut
WRAPPER: Ecuadorian CT
BINDER: Nicaraguan
FILLER: Dominican
FORMAT: Robusto (5.5x54) pig-tail cap, unfinished foot
ORIGIN: Charles Fairmorn, Dominican Republic
INTENSITY: Mild-Medium
WEBSITE: kristoff.com
NOTES:
Lemon pepper | Vanilla bean | Dandelion tea
Dusty & muted toward a melange. Gruffer than perhaps attempted, stubbly & needing a shave. Lemon pepper steers from behind a vanilla bean. Creamy but again see: stubbly. Cream is buttery sweet & quite nice but also bleeds due to delineation lacking. Dandelion tea is neat & acts as bitters in a cocktail. Directly underneath that is a tick-dank pantry pale spice. Clove, nutmeg. Sweet dashes are a mottled table sugar slight cocoa butter thing.
Structure tries to assemble via pale nuttiness but doesn't & also dries the palate in a cardboard lilt. Maybe both a shave & aftershave lotion is/are required. Undertones are fusty kaolin & terracotta out-front which also dig into the underbelly albeit superficially shallow. Rest of middlings are oats & grits. All stuffs are closer to equal than layered. Not a lot of depth or nuance. No real complexities save for the floral seasonings which are not readily apparent, say. No transitions. Chicken coop nethers, slightly.
Neither combustion nor construction is/are saviors. A bulging split happens under the band & an inch-down toward the foot. Burn wobbles, jags -- corrects then un-corrects itself on-down; repeat. Smoke out-put is varying levels of moderate+ but nothing beyond a muted sweet suede gathers in the room. Draws a bit hesitantly at times, requiring extra puffs, causing a rather quick burn. The finish is a fleeting sweet sandiness that ends in not the cleanest way. Unspectacular can still be pleasant simplicity. Not a lesser goal just a different one. Unfortunately, one not met here.
FINAL GRADE: B-
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79 D 60-69 F 0-59
FINAL GRADE: B-
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79 D 60-69 F 0-59
::: very :::