"Have you Kaplowitz'd to-day?"
The first thing you need to know is TASTE: DRAW: BURN: BUILD: is/are in homage to one Mr. Laurence Davis. "Cigar aficionado and owner of Sautter Cigars." For they are his critical criterion. Secondly, you should know that it's a segment I've just recently added to my reviews.
So what of it? Well, let's delve.
TASTE: perhaps the most important & surely the most subjective category. Dicey af, huh? Well, I approach this as objectively as possible. Meaning I do NOT grade to my personal profile preference. Instead, I attempt to grade to the blender's intent. How I arrive at this is via understanding the contents of the cigar.
Depending on the parts of its parcel, I can see attempts at weight, pepper-spice, and strength fairly easily. Did it get there or was it a bland Nicaraguan? An aggressive Dominican? Failures in each case -- painting in broad strokes. Then there is complexity, nuance (depth), and King Balance.
DRAW: simply, if you can't take a pull, you can't taste a thing. However, if a draw is wide open, that ain't good, either. You want to sip at a fine cigar, a chef's stove-side spoonful tasting -- not stagger up to an all-you-can-eat trough, bloatedly expecting instant mashed potatoes w/ jarred gravy. Also, it's tension should be even-keeled thru-out.
BURN: is the line straight? Is the pacing true & its MPH languid? Those are great signs. How's the ash? Does it make the mandated inch or-so to denote excellence? Succinctly, BURN is in re everything from char-line to ash-tip. But also & beyond: Smoke out-put.
A moderate amt. of smoke is nice. Under/over-whelming are each unkind. Let's throw aroma in here, too. When you think of it, this is a ::: very ::: important spot along the way to determining a final grade. I mean, a cigar's primary objective is to burn. Then draw. Then taste yums. Hmmm. Because of this PO, I see no quality in cold draws.
BUILD: Hard/soft spots? Squishiness via progression? Shoulder, cap, and seams assemblage, too. Cracking? All that. But what of the components of the build? Meaning complexion & texture of leaf. Fingers & eyes, here. I personally find veins make me feel like autistic folk feel about stiff tags in T-shirts.
FINAL GRADE: this is where it all comes together. BUT HOW? Well, it ain't some sorta sheer averaging out of the four segments above. There is a spectrum within each & a hierarchy of importance among all. Not to mention the utterly impossible intangibility of "character" which is a thing for another time altogether.
I think that's a fun way to end this dose of drivel.
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