Monday, June 7, 2021

Ventura Cigars Manolo Quesada for Cuban Cigar Factory in Review

lo-fi & lovely

Ventura Cigars Manolo Quesada for Cuban Cigar Factory 

WRAPPER: Ecuadorian Habano
BINDER: Ecuadorian
FILLER: Dominican Republic, Nicaragua

BLENDER: Manolo Quesada, Michael Giannini
MANUFACTURER: MATASA (Quesada)

FORMAT: Robusto
ORIGIN: Dominican Republic
INTENSITY: Medium

NOTES:
Orange Creamsicle | Cedar | Graham cracker

Yo dawg, I heard you like collabs. So I put a collab in your collab, so you can collab while you collab. Musty-bright. Like foglights at dusk on a country road. Focused, fuzzily. Buttery cedar planks brace & back orange creamsicle and graham cracker crust primaries. That orange creamsicle is less a kiddie treat, more a cocktail--as a tick of vanilla vodka boozes up the clingy-not-cloying finish. The first 1/2 is quite good, perhaps a tick drying.

Suede, hiking trail earthiness, white pepper, form the secondaries. Tangy-zingy but both in balance & knee-deep in whipped cream. Fairly high notes dug deep into nice nuances. Each note can fully be examined from all sides. Unfortunately, a cardboard flavor creeps in at the half-way mark; evolves into a driving force thereon. All told, sweetly pleasant and almost captivating but more so ordinary... & then somewhat disappointing.

Performs above average in all regards, as to combustion/construction. A set it and forget it offering, shy of write-home perfection. A small crack happens in the 3/3 top-leaf, smokes thru sans FUBAR. A note: the room-note exhibits that cardboard tendency well-before the palate is alerted. An old-school smoke dressed up in new school clothes. "Hello, fellow kids," it seems to say. The kids ain't buying it. The narrow misses are the worst.

TASTE: B
DRAW: A-
BURN: B+
BUILD: B+

FINAL GRADE: B
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79 D 60-69 F 0-59

Other Ventura offerings:

@kaplowitzmedia

::: very :::