Eric's Occasional Quirky, Often Irreverent Reviews.
Echambers
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Graycliff Crystal Series
Robusto
An Ode to Sweet Memories
Smell, perhaps even more so than any of the other senses, is intrinsically linked to memory. Some argue that this is because the olfactory nerve (the nerve that processes smell) is located so closely to the hippocampus, which is responsible for processing memories. Others argue that it is an evolved trait essential for the survival of a species.
Memory of smells also tends to be the most vivid. Survivors of rape sometimes struggle with describing the physical attributes of their attackers but can generally describe their smell with a high degree of accuracy. Likewise with combat vets, abused children, and other survivors of trauma. Car crash survivors often can describe the smell of fuel and blood and not much else.
Memory of smells is also among the most permanent, least permeable memories. Contrast this to visual memory: Apart from those with eidetic memory we often “misremember” what we see. Lawyers either love or hate this fact depending on the where they sit. In contrast, we rarely misremember smells -- the smell of the first girl I really kissed, the smell of the Coconino National Forest driving north of Phoenix, the smell of the Pacific Ocean, the smell of my newborn son and daughter...you get the idea.
It’s no wonder then, that the the first thing I noticed about the Graycliff Crystal was the smell. A sweet honey smell -- not the overprocessed “comes in a plastic bear” honey, but real honey, still warm from the hive. There use to be this little roadside stand just off the highway on my way home from University that sold honey by the quart jar. This was at the beginning of the boutique food revolution where you could order clover honey, blackberry honey, raspberry honey, apple honey, and so forth depending on the source of the bees’ nectar. Nevermind that most people couldn’t tell the difference between blackberry honey and raspberry honey! This honey was different, though. Stan, (the honey man) would roll his eyes if you ask what “kind” of honey his was but when pressed would tell you where he placed his hives (often places like Jed’s orchard or Maybell’s peony garden.)
The Graycliff Crystal has an easy draw which is good because it is still morning and I don’t want to have to work at this. It’s considered a medium to full smoke but for me it swings more towards the mild but that could be that I suspect that it has a little age on it given the light amber of the cellophane. It produces moderate amounts of smoke but the ash is flaky and weak, covering my shirt with its detritus more than my ashtray. Overall, though, the burn is right on.
Other reviewers have picked out notes of caramel but I don’t get it--neither literally nor figuratively. In fact, the only sweetness comes from the honey notes but that’s on the nose not that palette. Graham cracker, perhaps. Halfway through there is a little spice but only on the retrohale.
In the second half, the burn continues strong and the flavors pick up a bit. There is a little more spice now and the taste is bigger and more complex. If only my memory for taste was a strong as my memory for smell I could be more definitive in my description but whatever I am tasting is as ephemeral as the smoke it produces. A nut perhaps? But which one? I tried cleaning my palette hoping that would help but the flavor remains elusive.
Last inch and I can’t find my nubber (and it needs a touch up to boot). I almost give up but manage to touch it up, warming my eyebrows in the process. I’m glad I did too because this cigar finishes strong with consistent spice, albeit, mild, for the first time but only if I let the smoke linger a little longer than normal. My fingers are burned but it’s a good burn and I have no regrets other than wishing my memory for things and places allowed me to find my nubber so I could smoke this stick just a little bit more.
Here is what I smoked:
Robusto
An Ode to Sweet Memories
Smell, perhaps even more so than any of the other senses, is intrinsically linked to memory. Some argue that this is because the olfactory nerve (the nerve that processes smell) is located so closely to the hippocampus, which is responsible for processing memories. Others argue that it is an evolved trait essential for the survival of a species.
Memory of smells also tends to be the most vivid. Survivors of rape sometimes struggle with describing the physical attributes of their attackers but can generally describe their smell with a high degree of accuracy. Likewise with combat vets, abused children, and other survivors of trauma. Car crash survivors often can describe the smell of fuel and blood and not much else.
Memory of smells is also among the most permanent, least permeable memories. Contrast this to visual memory: Apart from those with eidetic memory we often “misremember” what we see. Lawyers either love or hate this fact depending on the where they sit. In contrast, we rarely misremember smells -- the smell of the first girl I really kissed, the smell of the Coconino National Forest driving north of Phoenix, the smell of the Pacific Ocean, the smell of my newborn son and daughter...you get the idea.
It’s no wonder then, that the the first thing I noticed about the Graycliff Crystal was the smell. A sweet honey smell -- not the overprocessed “comes in a plastic bear” honey, but real honey, still warm from the hive. There use to be this little roadside stand just off the highway on my way home from University that sold honey by the quart jar. This was at the beginning of the boutique food revolution where you could order clover honey, blackberry honey, raspberry honey, apple honey, and so forth depending on the source of the bees’ nectar. Nevermind that most people couldn’t tell the difference between blackberry honey and raspberry honey! This honey was different, though. Stan, (the honey man) would roll his eyes if you ask what “kind” of honey his was but when pressed would tell you where he placed his hives (often places like Jed’s orchard or Maybell’s peony garden.)
The Graycliff Crystal has an easy draw which is good because it is still morning and I don’t want to have to work at this. It’s considered a medium to full smoke but for me it swings more towards the mild but that could be that I suspect that it has a little age on it given the light amber of the cellophane. It produces moderate amounts of smoke but the ash is flaky and weak, covering my shirt with its detritus more than my ashtray. Overall, though, the burn is right on.
Other reviewers have picked out notes of caramel but I don’t get it--neither literally nor figuratively. In fact, the only sweetness comes from the honey notes but that’s on the nose not that palette. Graham cracker, perhaps. Halfway through there is a little spice but only on the retrohale.
In the second half, the burn continues strong and the flavors pick up a bit. There is a little more spice now and the taste is bigger and more complex. If only my memory for taste was a strong as my memory for smell I could be more definitive in my description but whatever I am tasting is as ephemeral as the smoke it produces. A nut perhaps? But which one? I tried cleaning my palette hoping that would help but the flavor remains elusive.
Last inch and I can’t find my nubber (and it needs a touch up to boot). I almost give up but manage to touch it up, warming my eyebrows in the process. I’m glad I did too because this cigar finishes strong with consistent spice, albeit, mild, for the first time but only if I let the smoke linger a little longer than normal. My fingers are burned but it’s a good burn and I have no regrets other than wishing my memory for things and places allowed me to find my nubber so I could smoke this stick just a little bit more.
Here is what I smoked:
Comments
Toro
Cigars are meant to be smoked, no doubt about it. But sometimes the cold draw is so alluring it becomes nigh impossible to bring a flame to the foot. Such is the case of the La Aroma de Cuba Edition Especial whose sweet, mildly chocolate bouquet makes my mouth water. I could do this all day, drawing and writing, writing and drawing but I have to remember that as good as the cold draw is, the smoke is even better.
I toast the foot, albeit reluctantly, light, and draw in the plentiful smoke and let in linger in my mouth, coating the tongue and soft palette with its pure tobacco goodness. The first draw is milder than I remember, even for a first draw, but the flavor is clean. The draw is good, smoke production fair, and the ash is tight for the first inch or so before is falls clumsily off into the ashtray (my La Aroma de Cuba ashtray, as it turns out).
Much like a snake sloughing off old skin to be reborn as a fresher more vibrant form of itself, the flavor of the EE really wakes up after the ash has dropped. There is almost harshness to it, most notable on the retrohale but it doesn’t last long and is most like a result of an inpatient smoker rather than a flawed blender or roller. The first third ends with a transition to a definite woodiness that lingers for a while.
Through the second third and into the last third I expected, based I am sure on a faulty memory, a little more complexity but the flavor is one-dimensional. Now this isn’t to say that it is not full of flavor, only that the flavor is not particularly complex. Lack of complexity is not necessarily a bad trait, in my book—in fact it allows one to more readily focus in on the flavor that is there without having to work hard. In other words, this is a great smoke for a nascent reviewer like me. Smoke production picks up a bit but it is still wispy. The burn remains true.
This is an easy smoke to nub and that’s exactly what I did. Half way through the final third I pick up a little bit of vanilla but it’s slight and something I have to work for; by the time I am ready for the nubber (which I have found since my last review) there is no mistaking the honey to the exclusion of the wood I noted earlier.
The true test for any cigar, of course, is if you would smoke it again, and the answer for me, is “absolutely.” Is it my favorite smoke? Well, no. Not even in my top five or top ten. But I do like and in the end that’s really all that matters, yes
Here is what I smoked:
Corona Gordo?
Sweet Texan Memories
I have Texas on my mind and inevitably when I think of Texas I think of one of my first middle school crushes: Teresita Hernandez. Teresita was a recent transplant from Texas and sat next to me in biology. God knows I wanted her bad but in middle school I was awkward and unsure of myself. I want to believe it was mutual and that she too was too shy. One day we were waiting for class to start she offer me the book she was reading. I began reading from her bookmark, the story of two young lovers making love for the first time. I blushed, she blushed, and we were, quite literally “saved by the bell.
I didn’t start the day thinking about Terisita but I was digging through my humidor looking for something to smoke I found a Montecristo Connoisseur Edition, Texas, and now that is all I can think about. Thirty-five years later I still blush a little thinking of those young lovers try to consummate their love for the first time. “Go slow,” she said, “it hurts a little….”
The cold draw is sweet but elusive, lingering in the mouth for just a moment and then its gone – like the brief flash of panties as the girl across from you uncrosses her legs and gets out of her chair. You crave more but deep down you know you’ll be left wanting. The Ecuadorian Habano wrapper is milk chocolate but without the sheen. Two prominent veins ride up most of the length of the sticks. They remind me of scars and I trace the length of them with my fingers.
The first inch or so tastes of wood and leather with a very slight spiciness that coats the roof of my mouth for the first few minutes or so then dissipates. A slight sweetness, of chocolate, perhaps, lingers on my lips at the exhale teasing me just a bit. The burn is razor sharp with the exception of a slight undulation caused by the larger of the two veins. Smoke production is minimal but the ash is strong.
Moving past the first inch the two veins are wracking havoc on the burn line to the degree that “line” is too liberal a term. The ash, as a result is arching upward as if praying to the great Monte in the sky. I know any moment now it will drop so I move the ashtray a little bit closer. Leather, now, is the dominant taste, almost to the exclusion of anything else. If you want to know what “leather” tastes like and you don’t want to smoke your belt, shoes, or wallet, this is the cigar for you.
Halfway through and the burn is out of control but a quick touch up seems to solve the problem. Leather is still there but it is no longer the prominent flavor. There is far more complexity now, so much, in fact that I am having difficulty picking out anything distinctive. There is spice on the retrohale but that’s not surprising and not particularly interesting.
In an effort to identify the flavors I realize I am smoking too fast so set it down for a little bit and try to occupy some time by searching for Terista. She lives in Everett, a city about an hour away. Would she think me strange if I called her now? Probably
The pendulum has sung to the other side and now and I am forced to relight. The next few draws are hot and acrid and I curse myself a little. To make matters worse the nicotine has kicked in and, in spite of a full stomach I am a little light headed. I want to call it quits but I realize the theme of this story is courage and wonder how I will feel in another 28 years if I let this go.
As it turns out I don’t really have to make a decision. It continues to struggle to stay lit so just before I might be inclined to reach for my number I call time-of-death on this Texan, close my browser, and reach for a nearly empty bottle of bourbon.
What I smoked: Arturo Fuente Hemmingway Best Seller
When: January 21, 2015
Where: In my cold, cold garage next to a heater.
There are two things that I know for certain: it’s cold outside and my nipples hurt. Although the science is a little sketchy, I posit that the two issues are related. First, though, I need to step back.
Many of us have heard that “correlation does not equal causation” which is a fancy way of saying that just because two objects vary in relation to each other doesn’t mean that one things variability was caused by the other’s. Thus, while the rate of inflation might be correlated with the average length of men’s hair doesn’t mean that one caused the other to happen. Everyone who has taken an introductory statistics class knows this. But it’s wrong, sort of. It would be more correct to say, “correlation might indicate causation but probably not.”
So what does any of this have to do with my sore nipples? I believe that my sore nipples were caused (indirectly) by the cold. Let me explain. The skin, under normal situations is actually pretty loose. Try pinching a little skin right now. I’ll wait. See? I told you so. When your skin gets cold it contracts (pulls in) and your skin gets tighter. Don’t believe me? Repeat the pinch test after soaking your hand in ice water for a little bit. This is part of the reason we get goose bumps and the reason your nipples get hard when it gets cold out. Interesting factoid: part of this process is called a poliomotor reflex, not too dissimilar to what happens to a porcupine when it brandishes its quills. I digress.
So, it’s cold out, my nipples get hard, rub against the inside of my shirt, and chafe a little in the process. This is why they hurt. As certain as I am that it is cold and my nipples hurt I am equally certain that if it was warm outside I wouldn’t have this trouble. (that and I suppose if I lost a little weight my shirts wouldn’t fit so damn tight).
Why am I telling you about my nipples? So that Rain’s panties get a little moist? Yea, I admit it, that’s part of it, but thinking about my nipples on the drive back from my doctors naturally led me to think about the Arturo Fuente Hemingway.
The Hemingway, of course is a perfecto with a nipple. It’s rolled with a Dominican filler and binder and wrapped in a Cameroon leaf. I’ve made no bones about the Short Story being one of my favorite-of-all-times smokes and a just slightly bigger the Best Seller is not much different.
The Hemingway is woody with bit of spice on the exhale. The Cameroon wrapper, I think, tempers the spice quite a lot—this would (obviously) be a very different smoke if this was a Dominican puro. Like all the AF I’ve had the construction is flawless and damn forgiving when I accidentally cut it a little too aggressively. Or when I ripped a piece of the wrapper off with the band. The ash stays tight for well over an inch and only breaks when I give it a little flick, mostly to save my sweater.
As we all know, the shape of a cigar adds a lot to the flavor and overall experience of a cigar. If you don’t believe me then try smoking a DPG Blue robosto and a DPG Blue lancer at the same time. The perfecto adds another layer of complexity to the experience because it changes shape as you smoke it – starting off with the first few minutes where essentially you’re smoking the nipple, before it widens out then back down again. It’s like a roller coaster in this respect, albeit a very slow one, taking a little over an hour per ride.
Throughout, the core flavors didn’t vary much though their relative intensity did—going from a sweet mild to a less sweet medium., then back to mild with little residual spice. It ends a little milder than the middle, and a little less medium then the start and with just a bit over an hour, leaves me plenty of time to apply a little more lotion to my nipples.
Here is what I smoked:
Bully
Ode, to Grandpa Jeff
I didn’t intend to do another review so soon, nor did I intend to review this cigar. While I am at it I might as well admit that I didn’t even intend to smoke this cigar until about 15 minutes ago. About an hour and a half ago I got a call from my sweet. We were both at work,. My sweet works about 30 minutes from the two we live in and I work about an hour away. As my sweet was walking into a meeting that she was facilitating she got a call from her daughter’s school—her daughter was in the nurse’s office complaining of a tummy trouble. “Go to your meeting,” I said, “I’ll call my son to pick her up and I’ll head strait home.” I could tell from her voice that she was relieved and grateful. A little while later she sent me a message, “thanks for being there for her, my love.” (See, I call her my “sweet” and she calls me her “love” aren’t we so damn cute???)
I looked at her message for a minute before I sent one back, “No need to thank me sweet, this is what it means to love.”
My grandmother taught me long ago that love is a verb. It is not just something your “in” it’s an action, it’s something you do.
So, thinking about love, I grabbed a Romeo y Julieta 1854 Bully from the humidor and headed out to the garage Maybe it’s because I was already thinking about my grandmother that I preconditioned myself to also think about my grandfather. But whatever the reason when I cut the cap and took a long and deep cold draw that’s exactly who I thought of. My grandfather never smoked cigars that I am aware of, but he did smoke a pipe with Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco and something about the cold draw reminded me of that.
The RyJ is not the most imaginative smoke but neither was my grandfather. He was steadfast, consistent, loyal, and a lover. His grave marker reads, “you surrounded us with love and beauty” and no truer words could have been etched on his stone.
Consistency is probably my favorite characteristic in a cigar. I absolutely love trying new things but when I come back to a favorite cigar I want the experience to be just what I remembered. The RyJ is like that for me. It has a good clean taste of tobacco (duh, right), with a very mild pepper on the tongue with a little leather on the back of the throat. If I concentrate really hard I can pick out a little wood but *** me if I can tell you want species.
Cigars, in my experience, tend to do one of three things after you light it (1) stay pretty much the same throughout, (2) get stronger, or (3) mellow out. For me, the RyJ mellows out about half way through. I rather like the smoothing out as I savor the last inch or so. Kind of, I suppose, a little like my grandpa who started him life full of fire and ended very much the gentle man. Here is what I smoked:
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