AJ
kuzi16
Everyone, Registered Users Posts: 14,471
I have been smoking a bunch of AJs stuff as of late. Im not sure why. they just end up in my hand. i have smoked enough of these that i feel that i could pick out an AJ blend by taste/blending style alone.
this brings me to the thought that i have been having for the last few days.
does anyone else notice that the cigars that he puts out have a similar "journey"
by "journey" i mean they tend to build the same way over the course of the cigar and just at the point where you dont want it to build anymore, it is over. all of the MoWs do this. every san lotano i have had has done this. the LHC and LHCOF do this. to a lesser degree the AAA does it, and so do the diesels.
i also find that the fuller body his cigars are the more likely that the cigar will turn "hot" in the last few puffs.
and on a slightly related note...
the puro authentico is AJ's personal blend. they are rolled for him. Clearly he likes a smaller ring. why cant we see more from him in the smaller rings? if he likes the smaller rings, he should be able to blend them better. there is a world of potential there just waiting to be exploited.
thats all for my late night thoughts...
this brings me to the thought that i have been having for the last few days.
does anyone else notice that the cigars that he puts out have a similar "journey"
by "journey" i mean they tend to build the same way over the course of the cigar and just at the point where you dont want it to build anymore, it is over. all of the MoWs do this. every san lotano i have had has done this. the LHC and LHCOF do this. to a lesser degree the AAA does it, and so do the diesels.
i also find that the fuller body his cigars are the more likely that the cigar will turn "hot" in the last few puffs.
and on a slightly related note...
the puro authentico is AJ's personal blend. they are rolled for him. Clearly he likes a smaller ring. why cant we see more from him in the smaller rings? if he likes the smaller rings, he should be able to blend them better. there is a world of potential there just waiting to be exploited.
thats all for my late night thoughts...
Comments
im just sayin.
i should have made a different thread about the afterthought. i have a feeling it will take over the thread. i was more or less interested in hearing about the experience that people have with AJs stuff and how they view the cigar over the time it takes to smoke one.
As for the other thing, another thought it that maybe he doesn't control what vitolas are put out to market. He only has the one line of his own, all the others are contracted. What it really boils down to is that I don't know any better than you or anyone else here why it is how it is. Maybe Alex can chime in and shine some light on the issue.
As far as the smaller vitolas, I actually made a crack recently about the LHCOF 'robusto' being more of a 'mini-toro' at 5.5 x 54. I would love to have all of AJs stuff in the true corona size too, but i guess I'll only be able to get these in the corona sampler for the time being.
Anyways thanks for this thread kuz. Its perfect timing for the arrival of my AJ corona sampler and I'll pay attention to it.
I noticed it with the particular style he has using sumatra leaf.
As for the full bodied cigars perhaps it's me but they never seem to hit me like any other full cigars. I never get the Nic Sick.
I haven't noticed the Journey you mentioned Kuzi, but I'll keep an eye out for it the next time I light one up.
The thing I do notice about AJ's blends, and I can't figure out why, is that almost all of his blends I either REALLY like it or taste completely neutral to me, there's very little middle ground between the two. They are all either an absolutely love it cigar, or a who freaking cares experience for me, which is weird when so many share the same or similar flavors and ingredients. I've even noticed this with different sizes of the same blend, which is also weird having SUCH a drastic change on flavor, at least for me.
I don't know why, but he's one of the few blenders where I actually have no idea about weather I'll like it or not until I try it. Most of the time you can read up on a cigar and get a feel for it, or once you get a feel for a certain blender then you know it'll be a solid experience at worst. But for me thats not the case with AJ stuff. This isn't good or bad, it just is the way it is for me. My favorites are Diesel UHC, Diesel Unlimited D.X, Morro Castle (wasn't expecting that), Gurkha Park Ave (I usually don't care for Connies) and San Lotano Maduro Gordo (wtf? I'm not a 60 ring kind of guy and I usually dig habanos over maduros). The ones I think are boring are A Fernandez Signature (tastes a lot like a moro castle, why don't I love it? size?), MOW Orig, MOW Riunation, MOW Special Edition, Diesel Shorty and Diesel Unlimited D.6 (again, same blend as the UHC and D.x, but is it the size diff thats doing that much?), Gurkha Sherpa and Cuban Legacy and the San Lotano Habano (tried so hard to like this one, maybe too hard, but how could I like a maduro better than a habano?). Maybe its the fact that his flavors change so much with the changing sizes of the cigars that there can be such a spread in my opinions of cigars from the same blender and even from the same cigar line. . . I don't know.
The one thing I do know though, is that I still have several of his in my humi that I haven't tried yet (LHC Dos Capas, LHC OF, SC Artisan, SCCC, MOW Virtue), and I'm looking forward to every one. I also know that just because I don't care about the 3 MOWs I've had the other ones, Virtue, the PA and the Armada might fall into the "love it" category. I have no idea, and thats kind of cool.
The one thing I have to mention though, flavor aside, the man makes cigars that can take a beating and still smoke perfectly. They are made for my clumsy a$$.
I know this was a little off topic, but I'm just throwing out my AJ thoughts.
1. Signature blending style. This is indeed true. Blenders who ferment their own materials really have a chance to impart their own flavor. Pepin does a good job at this as does AJ and as does Racies Cubanas in my humble opinion (makers of some of the padilla and alec bradley stuff, illusione, etc). It has a lot to do with how long the tobacco ferments and how slowly or quickly they bring up the temperature of the tobacco. From what I can tell, they really do it slowly. There is also some batuming the happens with most of the very popular blenders by where other natural ingredients other than water are imparted on the tobacco during fermentation.
2. The tips of the leaves pack the most flavor. AJ has a very specific way he bunches his fillers so that brunt of the flavor and power in the tips happens in the first third to half. This allows any of the tar or smoke that has passed through the cigar during the first half to balance against the lighter less flavorful parts of the tobacco at the end. (kind of hard to illustrate in words so I hope that makes sense). This results in lower power at the end as well as a wind down in flavor. A few other blenders do this too. I tend to like it. It doesnt have that acrid or harsh finish which I think can really ruin the experience after a nice smoke.
3. Corona and small ring sizes. This is all on us. coronas believe it or not just dont sell. They do great with the cult fans out there but sadly that is a minority of customers. AJ is hounding me all the time to add corona sizes to the lines and he is always smoking them. That AJ Corona sampler we did was a huge hit. I believe we will be adding Ruination and Diesel UHC coronas in mazos to our inventory ongoing. It would be like our Armada coronas. Not necessarily online but available for purchase for the guys who are "in the know" and they would rear their heads in samplers from time to time. Tim has been pushing this for a while now. Everyone in the office loves coronas, unfortunately, customer preferences and sales drive so much of manufacturing decisions. That said, I believe San Lotano is going to see a corona or a lancero this year in their core line.
Great thread and great comments.
very interesting. thanks for the input. this really confirmed what i was tasting.
937th post, I wonder what a Svenson 1000th post contest will be like.
Man, I'm glad to hear the AJ corona sampler was a hit - I kinda suspected as much but wasn't sure. I for one would exclusively buy Diesels, Man O' Wars and LHCOF in the corona vitola if they were available. Glad to hear AJ has been hounding you about this. Consider this hounding +1 lol