Yesterday I mounted the big beemer bagger to ride an hour through beautiful Merryland countryside to visit an affable redneck hippy who owns a hobby farm near the Susquehanna where he grows his own tobacco. I bombed him with half a dozen store bought premiums, and he in return gave me half a dozen tobacco sprouts from which to roll my own. These sprouts make my seedlings look absolutely pathetic. Check this out:
That's my habano above, assuming that you use a high def computer monitor. Those viewing this post on a smart phone will have to zoom in. That's his Yellow Orinoco taking up the rest of the screen. Zoom out. I truly do have a black thumb.
I planted his sprouts soon as I got home. Discovered I had busted a palm sized leaf off one of them in transport. Then I sat in the shade, drank beer from the stogie stein, and broke out one of the seven Rain sent me for review.
La Aroma de Cuba smells more like la aroma de compost. Dark brown with a greenish cast. Packed tight tight tight; hard as a honeymoon dyck from foot to head. Super smooth, super even construction. This was a long corona. Just shy of six inches and maybe 47 gauge. Had a bitter grass flavor to the wrapper unlit, with a bit of a sting to the taste. Cello had a yellowish cast to it. Some color blind person put a whole lot of effort into both bands, I tell you. The lower band had "EE" on it, from which I derived this was Edicion Especial -- special edition.
La Aroma uncapped easily, leaving a ragged end. Little shreds popping out from where the cap had been. Kind of thing makes you go phut phut until you get the bits off your tongue. Unlit draw was more mulch. She fired right up with one match toasting her foot. Right away I knew this stogie was not for me. A sour stinky mulch flavor hit like a ton of sour stinky mulch. Stingy with her smoke, but strong with flavor: wet leaves piled up a week in the sun. So I let her sit to see if she would burn in and mellow out. Not so. Just barely this side of uck. I soldiered on, trying to get used to it. It did mellow at least from compost to wet earth or damp peat. A hint of cedar. Smoke was small in volume, stringy in shape, and scattered quickly. Mild retro. If I could have enjoyed the retro without putting the thing in my mought I would have rated it a full star higher. I must say in La Aroma's favor that Bearswatter told me repeatedly how nice it smelled at a distance. I got up and left it, and indeed, it smelt quite tasty so long as it was not in your face. Like bagpipes: The Brits tell us that bagpipes are fine at a distance, and that Scotland is just far enough. Alas, I could not puff it at a distance. That blows.
Another objectionable oddity was the ash. The ash looked tight enough; but it would drop with no warning at less what the heck, leaving a raggedy cherry. That happened every 3/8" like clockwork. Have never had a stick drop ash so quick. An inch or so in, I discovered that I had to puff frequently to keep it alive. Then I dlet it sit, it wanted to go out. Hiscovered the flavor wants rum, not beer. That improved the thing a bunch. But about that same time, it abruptly extinguished with a touch less than half the stick left. Not worth re-lighting.
Not much stink finger. Mild mulch morning mouth. Half a damp wheeze. I rated this cigar one and a half stars out of five.
