Further on Each of the Eleven (11) Commandments of Cigar Etiquette VI

6. Thou shalt not covet thine neighbor's stick.
Long to smoke the stick in your hand. You will find immeasurable satisfaction beyond smoke, there.

This is not to say I wish of you to delude yourself into believing you'd not swap your Quorum for a Montecristo. This is to say make the most of what you have, because let's face it -- even a Montecristo offering won't scratch that itch if you don't learn this particular lesson.

A cigar, for our non-pycoanalyctical purposes, is far more than simply a cigar. A cigar is a meditation steeped in ritual. It is too a lifestyle which incorporates no short supply of other lifestyles. What if I were to tell you that you cannot fully enjoy a cigar if you do not know about the worlds of adult beverages, coffee, and (to a lesser yet greater extent in my personal belief), ambiance?

That's correct, kiddos. Kap's talking pairings again. As always, as a method of greater enjoyment.

Let's play scientist. Light up a stogie -- any stogie -- and pull up some techno music. I dare you to enjoy that stick. Youtube an old re-run of Designing Women. Same stick -- you liking that smoking experience, kind gentleperson -- best of luck with that. Now we see how writ large this Cigar Lifestyle truly is indeed.

For chrissakes, I almost left ya hanging there. Quick, put on some Tom Waits. He's the Tawny Port Wine of audio cigar pairings. Quite hard to mismatch a cigar with either of those fine offerings. Visual entertainment? Three Stooges.

Much of pairing is so simplistic as to be innate. Do what you like with what you like. However, don't mistake individual likes for pairings. I like sardines. I like a peanut butter. I know I would not like a peanut butter and sardine sammich. I've actually tried that. Poverty is a female dog and craft beer does not pair with any cigar.

But peanut butter... have a spoonful the next time you go green while pulling a stick above your weight limit. It'll fix ya up better than a pinch of sugar and taste twice as nice. I'm talking the sugar whipped Skippy variety, not the precious natural crappola.

Where as I? ...

... Pairings.

To be embraced with a cigar:
1. Well- roasted/brewed coffee of a medium or greater roast.
2. Whisk(e)y because I won't even try to convince you otherwise. Do attempt an Oloroso sherry, though.
3. Chocolate. Try milkier varieties with milder stogies and match the darkness of the wrapper through the spectrum.
4. Fortified (desert) wines (see sherry). Manischewitz.

atmospheric pairings:
A. Jazz with a floral cigar.
B. American Songbook with anything.
C. A baseball game on the radio.
D. Back and white era films.

NOT to be embraced with a cigar:
Beer.
Electronica music.
In-laws.
Sardines.
My homeless drunk lawn guy with one remaining and failing kidney who just now interrupted me mid writing this and mid smoking the nub of a Casa de Garcia.

I suppose I simply ask for you to be present of your surroundings during your smoke. Failing this, there exists not a cigar which can hope to be good enough. You will be doomed to forever longing and eternally coveting.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

And send my lawn guy some good thoughts.

L'chaim and gracious thanks for reading my ramblings. You can read all the Eleven (11) Commandments of Cigar Etiquette HERE, and I do so wish ya would.

El Rey del Mundo: Robusto Larga -- Cigar Review

Prologue:
5:09pm
White tissue paper, pig-tailed on each end, with the cigar band set over top. That’s a certain thing that will at the very least catch an otherwise wayward eye. I bite and hand the clerk my change purse, I’m known for my change purse around those parts. It has attached to it a key fob card which gives me back a halfpenny in reward for every million point eight dollars spent. On certain in-store selections. An absolutely amazing amount of restrictions apply.

I digress.

Gentlepersons, I implore you to get a change purse. I carry only 3 things on my person: a Schrade Old Timer pocket knife, a handkerchief, and said change purse. I ain’t never been caught with my pants down -- in any situation which required pants up, at any rate.

Nevertheless, I have

The Cigar:
El Rey del Mundo
Robusto Larga
Connecticut Broadleaf Oscuro wrapper
Honduran binder/filler
Parejo Robusto 5 x 54

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Pre-light:
Doing away with the Charmin, I now am looking at a rather veiny, toothy thing with lovely age crystals forming on it. The coloring is quite mottled, however, and the whole darned affair is so rough around the edges, that so help me Hashem, I fart.

I am put in mind of the slovenly and oh so much more vulgar brother of an Romeo y Julieta Medallas de oro 1875 Reserve. This fella is from back before today’s cautious manners were invented.

The nose on this thing is surprisingly minimal. How’s about it has the smell of an old leather chair that sat for decades in a cigar lounge and is now sitting in the summer sun, left outside to “air.” Been out for a while now...

There is deep tobacco (natch) but too a surprisingly minty floral backing when sniffed at its foot.

The jig threatens to be up almost immediately with the construction of the cap requiring of me the assistance of ye olde Mighty Mite pocket knife. I am beginning to have my doubts that we’ll arrive at our destination prior to our wheels falling off. It seems to want to shatter in my hands...

I sip at my sherry to steady my fragile nerves.

A grassy hay cold pull and I am again surprised. A thrill a minute thus far, this stick.

I too note that the packing is firm+ side of medium and not entirely even...cue ominous music…

I actually, ya might wanna just keep it playing throughout. I fire up the Dark Cabaret of The Tiger Lillies and soldier on.

Before I forget: if anyone has a lead on a free - cheap accordion, shoot me a line. Also: lessons.

Light:
Toasting the foot lets loose wood and toast smells. Picture a fella dumping a loaf of bread from oven onto butcher block. That. Now picture it in a dark room with no ventilation.

The light itself is fine, but the stick feels so rigid as to be brittle.

The first warm pull shows dark tobacco, the second adds a flake or two of black pepper. The third pull is a retro-hale that does not offer much more.

The burn is even enough yet not to be confused with exact and I’ll watch to see if it will correct itself in

Act I:
There is a less than hearty feel to the smoke. I would not say wispy, but neither is it robust. It fails to fill my yap to its brim. The ash is dense and white and stacks up quickly. There perhaps looms on the palate’s horizon a red fruity syrup hint. The finish for now is long and kind and simply dark tobacco. The burn does, in fact, right itself.

Distant red fruits remain distant and a baking chocolate is even further behind them. There is a flinty earthiness taking unfortunate hold.

Nice burn. Good ash. Rigid construction. Medium pull but near wispy draw. Dark tobacco. Black pepper, especially on the retro-hale. Hints of red fruit syrups and baking chocolate appear to always be right around the next corner.

The ash, without warning, and as ungentlemanly and gruff as you’d expect, clumps onto my keyboard and shows more powder than I’d suspected.

Act II:
It’s a nice enough offering, sure. All hints beyond dark tobacco are now hiding around a couple of corners and have too disappeared o’er the horizon.

The rigidity eases a bit and now comes back, oh so close, the baking chocolate…

All nods to construction seem well done and the pull of smoke to my smoke-hole has improved.

There is now a dark, very dark, chocolate in the output smoke and a near tangy baking on my palate. It lingers there, too, on a long finish. Black peppers are splittsville, daddy-o. Quite nice.

Act III:
This is not a long smoke. This is not a slow smoke. This smoke does feel like one you spend much of your time chasing down. The notes all seem just out of reach until well into the second half. Perhaps it is a learning experience. An slow and earned introduction into the black arts, and I ain't talkin' Maya Angelou.

This smoke again has ashed off unexpectedly and an inch of mainly powder rests on my new Dr. Martens.

Baking chocolate on the buds and on the mouth-feel finish. Dark chocolate on the schnoz. These jockey with the dark tobacco for the forefront. Construction does not break, but heats and bends. A serviceable chew develops, to my pleasant surprise. A dark dried plum comes in now, mainly on the finish. A finish that lingers in its complexities at near full until the next pull.

I likey. To be honest, I couldn’t tell ya exactly why. I feel as though I have been invited to sit at the adult’s table and while being unable to partake in the conversation -- I still immensely enjoy listening. I am no nascent smoker. This leads me to believe there is a hidden and almost occult knowledge within this Obscuro wrapper.

I look for hints of Evil Eye shenanigans. “Kein Ayin Hara.” Spit thrice.

At the very end, there is a salty molasses flavor that feels of old world, perhaps even olde worlde. I sit back and ready myself for the Sabbath Queen. Her magic is even older and better. I 'spose.

Another clump of ash falls and hits my other foot with a health dose of powdery symmetry and I think of how the roots of the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life do match its crown.

There is magic afoot.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Notes:

This King of the World offering does without trying what Illusione tries so hard to do.

Pairings:
A Dark Cabaret atmosphere. Murmurs. Hushed voices of a hurried nature. Amontillado will allow all these to take form on the stage.

Epilogue:
6:00 thereabouts
I shall quite well like another, sir. Simply throw it down the rabbit hole for me to chase.

Editorial note:

No images yet, kiddies. Go blame Blogger for not fixing my uploading/formatting woes/issues. 

Valentia San Andres - Cigar Review

Prologue:

I'm expecting a big smoke. Stomach's full. Let's do this. 

LET'S DO THIS

The Cigar:

Valentia Cigars - San Andres
Negro San Andres Mexican Maduro wrapper
Peruvian Viso binder
Ligero/Dominican Republic/Nicaragua Viso filler
6 x 56 Grand Toro

Pre-light:
The band is affixed and then some. The Schrade Old Timer is employed with a surgeon’s precision, and we are free to move on from there after noting that Valentia’s choice of design looks better suited for a motorcycle company of some sort.

My sniffer sniffs quite a dose of heavy hardwood, dark dark tobacco, and an almost sort of canned red fruit in heavy syrup.

Fairly toothy and well-oiled, the wrapper is free from major flaws, yet it remains rustic a la veins, not seams. The packing is tight end of medium and very even. The head is quite firm and square and does not lend itself readily to a bite. Again the Mighty Mite is employed. This time with a sturgeon’s precision. I have seen pictures of sturgeon and their pointy nose things. I imagine they can be quite precise.

I digress.

The cold pull is almost purely cinnamon with a far off backing of accompanying sweet spices of nutmeg and possibly cardamom. On a late summer, fall-like evening such as this, pumpkin spices come to mind.

Light:
Toasting the foot lets loose a healthy helping of hardwood. The first warm pull is of this hardwood and the finish is of deep tobacco and warm sweet spice bite. Quite deep and quite warm for so early into this offering and I thank the stars for the Taco Bell resting in my gut.

The light is a tad stubborn, but comes along well enough. A bit like a car sans power steering. The draw too is a bit tight, so I open it up by cutting off a tad more of the head. I am greeted kindly for my bissell finaglings. A mouthful of sweet spices is joined with black pepper and a finish similar to that of a strong coffee’s, sets up shop on my palate.

The burn is even but for one hiccup of a spot which burns wildly faster than the rest. I shall allow it to fix itself in the

1/3:
This is not the kick in the pants I was expecting when I read this offering’s profile. Much room is left here in which for nuances to appear. I await their arrivals. Holding their places, in the by and by, is an almost dusty mottling of what might be yet to come into delineation.

Thus far there is dark sweet spices of the aforementioned notes and a deep tobacco that while toting glimpses of depth, too lack a certain strength -- a certain complexity. The burn straightens some, and I straighten the rest. A slight cream begins to take form, particularly on the retro-hale.

The ash piles up slow and thick. The smoke output is heavy and kind to the nose with hardwood notes and rich tobacco. If this offering must flirt with being one-dimensional, at least it’s a nice enough dimension.

My main complaint here is that while the pull is not tight, it is quite wispy -- like sucking through a straw with a crack in it. This makes me somewhat less hopeful that the cigar will open up and show me something more.

The cinnamon has mottled into the sweet spices and now the sweet spices, in turn, are threatening to mottle into the dustiness. The construction is loosening as it warms, but also not breaking in. I stand by my previous power steering analogy.

We shall see. I would like to eat my words in the

2/3:
The ash has yet to clump off or show one iota of an intent at doing so. Unfortunately, the dusty haze has officially swallowed the lone remaining sweet spice note. I am left with a deep tobacco abyss.

“... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche

That gaze back at me would find more nothingness, I’m afraid, than Heidegger would know what to make of. Thus ends our philosophy course. I gave you all As -- not you, Valentia. Not you.

I flick the ash at a hefty length and it clumps hard and solid into the dirt around my roses.

Let’s talk about the importance of focusing on blending more than marketing. Let’s too touch on sizzle being good, but steak being all the better. Finally, let’s talk about a singular rather depressing dimension, imagine if you will, where I am only ever sitting on my porch smoking a cigar and not being favored by a harem of redheads with creamy breasts and full lips.

Sigh.

3/3:
I had paired this Mexican ode of a stogie with the aforementioned Taco Bell. I shall now sip freely from my Diet Pepsi and focus on external pairings. Tom Waits and the vaudevillian Dark Cabaret would be too much here -- and big band too foreign in this context. I think Tejano but then I glance at my new shirt. A white textured dress shirt. A sharp dressed man.

ZZ Top.

I have decided to fiesta, mi amigos. I have decided too, that the cigar does not always take center stage in a proper pairing. I will stop writing soon. I have just eaten the worm in a South Texas dive with a row of Harleys out front and a puddle of standing water just off the left side of the bar.

I left my Valentia in an ashtray somewhere. I forget where. I forget where.

Nota Final: Si minuso
(Now kiss me under the mesa, senorita.)

Epilogue:

(Now kiss me under the mesa, senorita.)

Estilo Cubano - Cigar Review

Prologue:
5:43pm

I was walking my mini dachshund Ruby Vondella around the block. As too was a neighbor walking their Great Dane around the block. No matter which way I tried to evade -- the big dumb beast and his dog would follow. I was cornered on the corner and ducked into a bike path, looking over my shoulder to wish them a very fine day.

I looked down and there it was. A five dollar bill. 

My first thought was to spend it on scratch-offs, then I thought about

The Cigar:
Estilo Cubano
Ventura Cigar Co.
Nicaraguan Viso Habano wrapper
Honduran Seco Habano binder
Ligero Habano Blend via Costa Rica & Nicaragua filler
Rabo de Cochino Pigtail head

Pre-light:
Fairly visible seams. Quite dark, natch. Oily and toothy to the feel. Packed very firm and evenly. Smells of dark chocolate with a back of sweet spices. Deep, but not very, tobacco.

I lop off the Piggie with my trusty Schrade Old Timer Mighty Mite. That’s about all you’ve gotta do, to the uninitiated. Perhaps, too, poke a hole through the head. A cold pull is sweet warm spice and moderately dark chocolate. I am reminded that cinnamon and chocolate are a traditional Mexican pairing -- one of which I find no complaint in.

The pull is sweet and spicy and chocolate and indicative of an upper medium strength.

Light:
The foot toasts very willingly but not as an inferno. First warm pull is a dark tobacco. There is a struggle for it to get going, there is a tight draw that does not allow an abundance of smoke immediately through. There is a certain wispiness with flinty and peaty notes, neither of which I care for. An airy saltiness. I taste neither chocolate nor cinnamon in any meaningful way and am somewhat nonplussed.

I don’t fully feel as we’ve entered the

1/3:
But the amount of pulls I’ve taken declare we indeed have.

I go looking in the retro-hale and find a simplistic black pepper. If you’re keeping score at home, we have a not enough tobacco and a black pepper bite -- but a somewhat toothless one, at that. This stogie just does not want to get going thus far.

Today’s word is “wispy.” There is barely taste enough for me to discuss, and I know my stuff, good sirs. Not just anyone can have a blog, you know.

The ash packs on well, but exhibits more flaky edges than Nathan Lane in a modestly subdued suit.

Thus far, I missed my guess, as I’d now rate this cigar a wimpy medium. A brunch offering. As such, I’d pair it only with coffee -- whatever ya got. Cream and sugar. Please do not get feces-faced at brunch, my dear gentlepersons.

Where is the Nicaraguan? Where is the Habano? I absentmindedly flick the ash into my mint plant at about an inch of flakiness yet oiliness.

At the end of the first third, a retro-hale gives a bit of red pepper and cinnamon. The smoke output is improving, but not into my smoke-hole. The air around me is a sharp almost mechanical spice that is sweet only due to not being sour. Or is it sour due to not being sweet?

A tin bite is left on my palate alongside not enough of any of the aforementioned flavor or nose notes.

2/3:
This is so peculiar. Too, it looks enough like a pretzel left too long in the oven -- I fire up The Peculiar Pretzelmen. It works, because there is not enough cigar to pair with either poorly, or well.

At five bucks from my own pocket -- feh. Double feh, that I had to hoof it a mile each way to the cigar shop. There is no hint at this developing into much more and only the dark cabaret on my free Pandora account can save me now.

“Who’s that knocking at the door?” Ask The Peculiar Pretzelmen.
“Not Sally.” I say, “she was born with no arms, poor thing.”

Final Grade: Incomplete (crappola construction)

There it sits in my tray.

[I am simply glad that first fleuron worked. Attempting two was just greedy.

Please imagine Blogger allowed me that greediness once more HERE.]

Epilogue:
Sometime from now --

Okay, the burn was even. When it wasn’t it was self-correcting. I simply did not want to leave you with as bad a taste in your yap as I have currently still lingering in my own.

I had hoped the fiver was from the wallet of the Great Dane owner's wallet. Now, I fear it was. I had this coming! I had incited the Evil Eye! I have no one to blame but ... I'll find someone.

"Kein ayin hara."  I say and spit thrice. The bad taste remains...