Amilcar Perez Castro Robusto

My weekend was not the best! First, I did the video review of the cigar below and everything was fine. Then we went to a lake party, which I refer to in the video. After the party I went to the car, loaded our chairs and other things we took, started the car to let the AC cool it off, and shut the door. Mind you, I did not lock the doors. Well, after we went back inside to say our goodbyes we went back out to the car to leave. Guess what! The doors were locked and the car was running! We have a keypad on the car but Connie did not remember the code. We tried everything. It was not easy to get a coat hanger through the door frame and I didn't want to ruin the paint so we finally gave in and called AAA. After about an hour they showed up and had the door open in less than a minute!

Well, at least that was over. We arrived home and went inside. I immediately noticed it did not feel cool. The AC had stopped working! At that point it was 76 degrees in the house. I called the guy who put the unit in (about 4 years ago) and he said he'd be there as soon as he could. He was away on a call that was 30 miles away! The temperature inside kept climbing. He finally showed up and found the problem but the unit was so hot from the fan trying to run he could not turn the unit back on. He would come back Sunday morning to check it out and see if it would run. I feared the fan motor was shot! All night the temperature inside kept slowly rising. It was not a good night's sleep! In the morning I looked at the thermostat and it read 82. I shaved quickly, took a quick shower, and headed out to church early just to enjoy it's nice air conditioning. I talked to the repair guy and he said it would be fixed and running before we got home. I was very glad to hear that.

After church we went to the gym. Once I finished my workout I looked forward to coming home to a nice, cool house. But, my phone had a text message from the repair guy that he was still waiting for the repair part to complete the job. I was furious! The house now was at 87 degrees! Man, that's hot. He arrived around 3 pm and got the unit going. Finally, cool air was again flowing through the house. The temperature slowly; VERY slowly started coming down. By 8:15 pm the temperature was down to 78 degrees. By morning the house should be at our set temperature of 74 degrees.

What a weekend! Now, on to the blog review of this week's cigar.



Amilcar Perez Castro Robusto (5x50)

 

The Amilcar Perez Castro robusto is marketed by Famous Smoke Shop. It is a very dark maduro. The construction appears to be very good. Mr. Castro was a manager at the Garcia family's My Father cigar factory. Over a year ago he joined forces with Rocky Patel to form a new cigar factory in Esteli Nicaragua. Amilcar has worked on  producing such great Rocky Patel cigars as the 1961, 15th Anniversary, and others, he is now producing a brand called APC, Amilcar Perez Castro.

Video review HERE.

Wrapper: Pennsylvania Broadleaf Maduro

Filler: Nicaraguan and Honduran

 

The test draw was a tad firm but not a deal breaker. The initial flavors at light up were sweet coffee notes, leather, with some roasted almonds. I let it sit for a minute.

The cigar burned very even. After 1/4 inch the flavors were black coffee, pepper, dark chocolate, subtle grapefruit citrus, and some faint almond notes. The finish was average with lingering pepper and semi-sweet notes of vanilla.

About a inch further in the cigar had some great sweet chocolate notes and a ton of black pepper. There is just enough citrus and almond notes to round out the cigar. It is full bodied right from the start. It's also full flavored!

A little over halfway the vanilla notes have added some richness. There are a lot of dark chocolate notes, pepper and vanilla. The citrus and almond notes have gone. The finish is longer and more vanilla and lingering black pepper.

As the cigar wound down the citrus notes are back and they are sweet orange. There is even some citrus on the finish.

House brand cigars are always hit or miss. This cigar is a hit! There are great maduro flavors in this cigar; coffee, sweet dark chocolate, vanilla, citrus, and a ton of black pepper! Loved it!

Score: 93