Video review HERE.
As proof a cigar company does not need much of a reason to release a cigar I present to you the HVC Black Friday. A cigar that pays homage to the day after Thanksgiving which has become the biggest shopping day of the year.
This is the 5th consecutive year HVC has released the Black Friday and the fourth year in a row that the vitola is a smaller cigar. This year it's a 4 1/2 x 52 petit robusto.
The cigar is a Nicaraguan puro with a Habano Cafe' wrapper, binder from Esteli, and corojo and criollo '98 fillers.
Pricing is set at $6.50 per cigar and it is limited to 400 boxes of 50 cigars, which is over twice as many cigars produced as last year.
The cigar, for a smaller cigar, has a pretty good feel in the hand.
The test draw after cutting the cap was very good. The initial flavors at light up were quite dark; dry cedar, little bit of brown sugar and cinnamon, a little cream, nutmeg, and a massive amount of an earthy black coffee. There was a nice amount of black pepper rated at 7 1/2. The earthy black coffee makes up 79% of the initial flavors. The cigar is quite dark at the outset.
At the first third (30 minutes) the cigar is burning very slowly. The extreme earthy black coffee has toned down somewhat. The sweeter flavors are just like I previously described but now at the tail end of those flavors are some dry nut flavors. Then it transitions into the nutmeg and the earthy black coffee. The cigar is medium to full bodied. The finish is cream and nutmeg with a nice amount of lingering black pepper. The cigar remains very dark noted but the reduction in the earthy black coffee helped. The cigar is now more of a 40/60, sweet to dark notes. The black pepper is probably the most intriguing part of the cigar. It's very nice. I rated the first third at 90.
Moving through the second third (55 minutes) the cigar improved slightly. The reason is those massive earthy black coffee notes and nutmeg toned down even more. The sweeter flavors were able to come out. There is now a twinge of tangy notes to the cedar. The cigar is full bodied. The finish is unchanged. I raised the score for the second third to 91.
The cigar lasted 1 hour 11 minutes. The cigar is close to the way it was previously but it lost some of it's appeal. In the final third I had the cedar with just a touch of citrus, a little brown sugar, no cinnamon, a little nutmeg, the roasted nuts and cream have greatly decreased, and the earthy black coffee. The cigar is full bodied. The finish is a little sweeter but it's probably just sweet cream with some nutmeg and nice lingering black pepper. This is not the best HVC cigar I've had but it's not bad. I rated the final third 90. At this price point it's worth a try.
Overall Score: 90.33
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