RealFreakinCigarReviews

Initial Thoughts

You really cant go too wrong with a decent cigar store brand like La Gloria.  Especially when you can get a deal on them, like I did in this case when my friend Dan recently turned me on to a web seller called JR Cigars.  So I bought a five pack of these guys, which are just "plain Jane" La Gloria's, no special edition or designation or anything.  These should be pretty OK.

The Smoke

Before firing up the lighter, initial visual inspection revealed a nice evenly colored wrapper with a few veins.  The color is a dull medium brown that doesn't seem to shimmer and shine as much as the ones pictured on JR's site (shit, what kind of image enhancement do those resellers do to get such purty lookin' cigar pictures? ..or do they spray vegetable oil on them?)  A squish test turned up a few thumb-sized soft spots in an otherwise consistent firmness.

After v-notching the cap and lighting the guy, a fairly bitter toasty flavor emanated that remained more or less consistent all the way through.   The bitterness softened a bit at the half way point, but the same toasty flavor never left, nor was it accompanied by any other flavors of note.  Well, no  flavors other than that usual bong-resin-type of flavor that you get when smoking an average cigar down to a 1" butt.

The draw was good and produced an adequate amount of smoke, but the burning end did produce it's own little wind of wasted smoke.  The ash was darkish grey and at the halfway point, revealed a disturbingly yellowish core, like some old crusty Arizona-sunbaked Foam-In-A-Can insulation junk somehow made it's way into my cigar - no weird flavor or anything, just odd.  And after tapping off a hunk of ash, the burn was such that the new ash hunks formed in a kind of Daffy Duck exploding elephant gun pattern that might draw stares in polite company, so tap that ash off often!  The burn started pretty good, got a little uneven towards the end, but despite me getting prepared to intervene, it fixed itself. 

No real excitement here; just an average smoke that wont draw unapproving stares from your poker buddies when you fire it up.  The experience ended with a thought running through my mind: "where's my toothbrush?"

The Rating