WRAPPER: Sungrown
BINDER: Dominican
FILLER: Dominican
FORMAT: Toro
ORIGIN: Dominican Republic (Tabacalera A Fuente y CIA)
INTENSITY: Medium/Medium-full
NOTES:
Coffee beans | Hardwood | Dark chocolate
Here, the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. The coffee beans are Italian+ roasted, you know, burnt. A non-descript hardwood is a tick scorched. Dark chocolate is waxy until the second-third, then it becomes a rather nice semi-sweet chocolate note with vanilla bean addition. All is quite smoky, almost to a liquid smoke faux extent.
But it together works into a serviceable cigar, most likely through no small part blending alchemy. A little bit of molasses becomes buckwheat honey on its toasted hearty grains end. Not a lot of complexity, but a neat-o evolving transition toward sweetness. Goodly length'd bitter-sweet finish with slight salty charcoal attachment. Nicely balanced although a tick rudimentarily-so.
Some cigars grade sneaky-high because they simply don't (much) transgress on the palate and offer-up no real performance issues. This one, for instance. The highlight of its construction is a lovely draw. The lowlight of its combustion is constantly conical ash. The burn is mostly even and when not, is self-corrected. The pacing is super nice. This stick keeps it real. Perhaps even real, real.
TASTE: B
DRAW: A-
BURN: B+
BUILD: B+
FINAL GRADE: B+
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
POSTSCRIPT:
People all wrapped up in Sherlock Holmes sometimes debate amongst themselves what it was exactly that Watson was referring to as his 'Bull pup.' A dog (but then where did it go?), a gun, a temper? However, most couldn't care less and even I have trouble seeing why it matters much. Also, a friend in the business of boxing media asked me what regular people are excited about in the sport. I don't think it's a potential Bivol-Beterbiev match that has casuals all abuzz.
The truth is that most people might maybe watch a Holmes flick if it's on, maybe they read some Adventures as a kid. Maybe they'll plan to watch the big heavyweight fight or cheer along if a lighter division contest pops up on ESPN. This is fine. It's all fine. Not everyone is a boxing nut, Sherlockian, or cigar geek. Some folks just smoke inexpensive mixed-filler cigars which are readily available, sans any imbibing regularity. I occasionally like reviewing those types of cigars, so I did here.
::: very :::