J. London Blue Telephone Booth (5 x 50)

Video review HERE.

(Description taken from Halfwheel.com website)

J. London Cigars’ newest limited edition, the Telephone Booth Series, has shipped to retailers.

The first cigar in the series is a 5 x 50 robusto that is called the Blue Telephone Booth. It uses a corojo wrapper, an olor binder, and a mix of broadleaf and criollo 98 fillers, though the countries of origin of those leaves are not being disclosed. It will come packaged in red butcher paper-wrapper bundles with a blue sticker of a phone booth. 

As you can see my bundle is number 263 of 600.

Production is limited to 600 individually numbered bundles of five cigars, a total run of 3,000 cigars that is being produced at an undisclosed factory in the Dominican Republic. Jonathan Fiant of J. London Cigars said that it is a facility owned by a family with four generations of experience growing and processing tobacco, while the cigar was blended by “a master with over 40 years of experience in the industry.”

Pricing is set at $14.60 per cigar.

Fiant also previewed the next two releases in the series. The second blend will have a neon green sticker and will be a 6 x 56 toro gordo that uses a Mexican San Andrés wrapper, while the third blend will have a pink sticker and will be a 4 1/2 x 54 petit robusto with a pigtail cap that uses a habano maduro wrapper. Both of those cigars, along with all the cigars in the Telephone Booth Series, will be priced at $14.60 per cigar. Those two cigars will have production runs of 3,000 and 4,000 cigars, respectively.

The wrapper is "speckled" in color and the cigar has an average feel in the hand.

The test draw after cutting the cap was good. The initial flavors at light up were citrus, citrus peel, brown sugar, and earthiness. There was black pepper rated at 7 1/2. A pretty good start.

At the first third (22 minutes) the cigar is going along nicely. I still had the citrus, citrus peel, and brown sugar. And now there are light toffee notes also. There's still earthiness and light leather at the base. The finish is light toffee, light citrus, and leather with good lingering black pepper. The cigar is medium bodied. The cigar is very nice at this point. There is nice sweetness. I rated the first third 94.

Moving through the second third (46 minutes) the earthiness really came out. Along with it was the leather and now, black coffee. The sweeter notes have taken a hit. The cigar is still medium bodied. The finish is leather and good lingering black pepper. I rated the second third 91.

The cigar lasted 1 hour 4 minutes. The cigar made a nice bounce back. The earthiness, leather and black coffee dropped back to a workable amount allowing the sweet notes to blossom. The cigar is medium bodied. The finish is toffee and leather with very good lingering black pepper. The cigar got very nice again. I rated the final third 94.

Overall Score: 93