Weekend review; November 20, 2010

What beautiful weather for mid November! 72 degrees and clear, sunny skies. I got an early start today and decided to vacuum up the leaves in the yard before the South Carolina/Troy game. It looks like this weekend is one of the BIG weekend for leaves. The backyard is covered and thick with them. Next weekend will be just as bad. Most of them will have fallen by then.

We decided to do things a little different for this year's Christmas tree. We will be on a little winter cruise vacation for a week in December and won't be able to enjoy a standard tree for part of the month so Connie has decided to go with, well, a very unusual tree. She took a long strand of garland equipped with white lights and string them around our hall coat rack.

She did keep a couple key ornaments, an angel and the cigar!

From the street it actually looks like "a tree", somewhat. Next to the makeshift tree is a display of the true meaning of the season; a nativity scene.

Trees are not the meaning of Christmas afterall. Let's not forget what the true meaning is. The birth of our saviour Jesus Christ is what we're celebrating. I actually like the little tree. I feel a little like Charlie Brown!

Now, on to some reviews.

This weekend's cigars reviewed are:

• Cain Habano 550
• Camacho Corojo churchill
• Lot 23 Belicoso

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Cain Habano 550 (5 3/4x50)

A dark brown cigar that is extremely well made. It's very dense feeling. The entire cigar is very smooth and almost vein free. Cain cigars are powerful and are comprised of 25% Esteli ligero, 27% Condega ligero, and 30% Jalapa ligero.

It started with powerful, peppery cinnamon spice with notes of vanilla and subtle semi-sweet citrus. The finish is very long with vanilla notes, raw almonds, and pepper. There are some rich coffee notes in this cigar too. This is a full bodied cigar. The ash is among the tightest, most dense I've ever seen. At an inch and a half I laid the cigar in the ash tray and the ash did not break off! Look at that!

Perfect burn; very even.  Quite an impressive cigar. Great flavor, impressive strength while still being very smooth. By the way, the ash did not fall off until it was almost 2 inches long! The cigar stayed flavorful and consistent to the very end. A very good cigar that is powerful, yet smooth!

Score: 93



Camacho Corojo Churchill (7x48)

Nice looking, medium brown cigar with some reddish hues. It started off with a ton of black pepper and slightly sweet notes mixed in the grapefruit and vanilla spice. The finish is long with vanilla notes and still more of that black pepper. Full bodied. In the final third the cigar was still consistent. It's been awhile since I've had one of these and I am quite impressed with it. This cigar is from the current production and I have not aged it. This has to be one of Camacho's best. Great cigar.

Score: 92



Perdomo Lot 23 Belicoso (5 3/4x54)

This Perdomo is named from the particular lot on the Perdomo farms; lot 23. All the tobacco in this cigar comes from this stretch of land. Taken from the Famous Cigar site: Perdomo Lot 23 cigars are medium-bodied cigars blended with a 2001 harvest of bale-aged Cuban Corojo and Criollo '98 tobaccos grown exclusively on a virgin plot of land discovered by Nick Perdomo and his late father, Nick Sr.

From the Cigar.com site: In 2000, Nick Perdomo planted an experimental crop of tobacco on a small plot of land appropriately named Lot 23. It is here that the golden tobacco leaves of Lot 23 were harvested for extended fermentation. When the tobacco was ready for blending, Nick was shocked to find the cigar did not blend well with foreign tobaccos, but rather was ideal when blended with tobacco from the same field.


From the Perdomo site: Lot 23

The cigar has a long, sharp pointed head. It started with cinnamon spice and some light vanilla notes and pepper. The cinnamon is predominent spice flavor with the vanilla is subtle, but still notable. The burn was a little off during the smoke but nothing terrible. These cigars are very affordable and can be found at any cigar shop that sells Perdomo. They run around $5 each. A good cigar that could be a good everyday cigar.

Score: 88