Esteban Carreras 187 Maduro Toro with thanks to CHENO
Never heard of this outside of the gift by Cheno.
Toothy Nic Maduro, it’s a Puro by AJF. Shiny and oily, streaked dark, flat veins and seems, smells like aged tobacco and a doughnut shop, chocolate on foot, not much on cold draw. Very earthy on kickoff with black pepper, leather and smidgen of anise. Easy draw. I expected more black pepper from AJF Nic but this was not homicidal. The burn line is self correcting but has my eye worried, foot throwing off a bit too much smoke for my liking. Nice mellow savory flavor and lemon balm on tame retro. Second third good balance of savory, sweet, salty notes. Cigar might be a tad under filled, throwing off a lot of smoke, smoke production on draw is variable and I need to keep after it or it tries to die on me. Final third, burn line still ugly but self-correcting, nice savory flavor but kinda monotonous. Black pepper conspicuously absent and retro is very mellow. Burn line required 1 touch up in final third, smoke production all but gone except from foot. Double bumping the draw at the nub I’m getting molasses, burned coffee, no salinity or minerals. Smoke time about an hour fifteen which seems kinda quick. I think the cigar may have been under filled and could have used another month at proper RH. The box this was in in March and April was around 70 to 72, since end of April around 64-66. It was a bit too moist, my fault. A good cigar w/potential, thank you, Greg.