Courtesy of www.CigarsInternational.com

With Tony away this week I wanted to fill the week with at least two reviews. Seems that time was not on my side though as a co-worker has also been off all week and his workload got dumped on me. Yeay! But have no fear, I did some digging and found this blind review that I never had the chance to post. I think you all know how much I enjoy doing these blind reviews so I’m not sure how this one slipped through the cracks.

As a caution, this was done many moons ago so the pictures admittedly suck and I’m glad to see how much I’ve improved over time! lol. (I can’t believe I used to use the flash, I’m sorry about that! haha) So bear with me on that, I promise some better pictures next week! I’m not sure on the exact date that I wrote this but I believe it was at least a year and a half ago, somewhere in early 2010 or possibly even late 2009. I happened to find it on one of my hard-drives from a crashed laptop. Glad I’m a pack-rat when it comes to electronic junk!

The cigar ended up being a La Herencia Cubana Oscuro Fuerte which is one of the growing number of exclusive cigars from Cigars International. It is also another blend from the great AJ Fernandez who has turned out some excellent cigars lately such as the recently reviewed San Lotano Oval and the Man O’ War Armada. Both of which received excellent reviews from us. The cigar being reviewed today is a much older blend and packed with some Ligero long-filler. It’s currently offered in 4 vitolas at very fair prices. Let’s see how it faired in my blind impressions.

Cigar: La Herencia Cubana Oscuro Fuerte
Drink: Mill Street Brewery Coffee Porter
Vitola: Robusto (5.5 x 54)
Wrapper: Pennsylvania Broadleaf
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Price: MSRP $4.20
Burn Time: A little under 1.5 hours

Construction:
• The cigar is wrapped in a very dark chocolate brown wrapper
• Lots of veins but none of them very large and don’t look to pose any potential problems
• Foot is soft and springy but head is fairly firm when squeezed lightly
• No oiliness on this wrapper, it actually appears a bit dry
• Clean triple cap to finish off the top of the cigar
• Foot looks graciously packed and full
• Cutting the cigar with my double bladed guillotine was a little messy, but nothing major
• Draw is good right off the start, I like that!

Burn:
• Toasting was mostly even although there was one dark spot in the center that just wouldn’t catch
• As we progress, the burn has been dead on and razor sharp through the first-half
• Just past half-way got a slight wave in the burn that ended up correcting itself
• Had another peninsula form past the halfway mark that seems to be correcting itself slowly
• The last half of the cigar needed a few more draws to keep lit although the first half was burning nicely
• Burn took a turn for the worst near the last 3rd, hard to keep lit and very wavy

Smoke & Ash:
• Giving off a big mouthful of smoke from each draw
• Resting smoke is almost non-existent and a very light burning tobacco aroma
• Ash is light grey in color with the occasional darker streaks
• The ash is tightly packed and appears strong so far
• Each ash lasted a little short of 1 inch and made an explosion when they hit the ashtray, not sure why but it was definitely messy

Tasting Notes:
• Wrapper has aromas of cocoa and a barnyard/hay type of scent
• Foot aroma is of cocoa and a touch of spice on the nose, almost a mild pepper
• Pre-light draw is mostly the barnyard/hay type of flavor and a bit of the spice
• Initial draws are nutty, earthy and a touch of spice, it’s also very dry on the back of my throat
• Getting a toasted wood flavor about an inch in
• Retrohale is medium bodied with a barnyard flavor and a very mild kick
• The body has been medium right from the start
• Flavors haven’t changed much up to the half-way mark and its still very dry
• Passing the halfway mark, the only flavor left is burning wood and getting a bitterness here too
• The bland flavor and bitterness stuck through to the end, disappointing considering the first half was very good
• The bitterness got too powerful in the last 1.5 inches, had to put it down…
• I’m pretty sure the poor burn factored into the harsh flavors here since the good burning start had much more enjoyable flavors

Final Thoughts:
I think you can tell from my notes that I wasn’t too impressed by this cigar. It started off pretty decent but unfortunately the flavors didn’t change much and only dwindled away as the cigar progressed. The extreme bitterness at the end was also a big disappointment. I’m not sure if it was just a bad stick from the batch since I haven’t had this cigar before. That’s probably one of the main downsides of a blind review, a single bad stick could ruin your impressions on that cigar for the future. Even with it’s incredibly cheap price I think I’ll be avoiding this cigar in the future unless I get some glowing recommendations from a lot of people.

Pairings:
The brew I chose to pair today is from the local Toronto based brewery called Mill Street. This is their Coffee Porter which as the name implies, is a Coffee flavored Porter (Complicated, right? ;)). I’m a big fan of this brew to pair with cigars, it’s got a full feel to it and the coffee notes pair excellently with cigars. I wrote up a full review on the brew if you are interested, you can find it here. It’s also made locally and I love supporting local business whenever possible. This was probably the highlight of the review for me and I really enjoyed the brew. As I mentioned, it pairs excellently with a variety of cigars including full and mild. It paired well with the La Herencia Cubana Oscuro Fuerte and complimented the initial good notes I got from the cigar. I would definitely suggest a strong pairing with this cigar to combat the harshness I got on the end, something like a Porto, Stout of strong coffee would go well.

The post La Herencia Cubana Oscuro Fuerte (Blind Review) appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

The cigars themselves don’t seem to be too widely available as I write this with only a handful of online shops that seem to have them. I have found them in 3 sizes, Perfection No, 1 (Robusto), Churchill, and Perfection No. 2 (a slightly longer Churchill). They are also available with an Ecuadorian Sumatra and a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. Usually those are two of my favorite wrappers, but a wrapper is only a small portion of what makes a good cigar. Let’s see how this one stood up in the review.

Cigar: Exile by Cuban Imports Inc.
Drink: Quinta de Infantado Tawny Port (Bottled in 2004)
Vitola: Churchill (6.75 x 50)
Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Price: About $5
Burn Time: Guessing around 3 hours…

Construction:
• A very dark chocolate brown wrapper with some spots being almost black
• Has a very bumpy texture to it and some major veins
• The double cap above is quite clean
• The band is interesting, sort of similar to a the style of a government seal on a box of cigars with some postal stamp-type markings on it
• There is also a secondary band at the bottom that is very much like newspaper topped with a gold ribbon and wrapped in a pig tail near the foot
• Most of the cigar is very firm with just a slight spring near the head
• Foot appears to be very well packed
• Draw is a little too tight at the start of this cigar

Burn:
• Toasting was fairly even with only one small black spot that wouldn’t glow
• A wavy burn right off the start required a correction in the first inch
• Cigar went out right around the first inch, needing a lot of effort to keep this one lit
• Despite some extra draws the cigar is still going out, had to cut further down the head to get a better draw
• Still need a ton of extra draws to keep this cigar lit and I’ve still had to relight it at least 3 times before the half-way mark
• Needed a major touchup at the half-way mark
• Yet another re-light past the half-way mark… I will not re-light if it goes out again
• Went out again, and I’m going to set this cigar down with about 2.5 inches left…

Smoke & Ash:
• Not much smoke on the draw at all
• When the cigar went out I was getting almost no smoke due to the tight draw
• Ash appears very tight with no flaking
• Only after cutting the head further, poking it with toothpick(many times) and giving it a firm roll between my fingers was I able to generate a somewhat workable draw, still like drinking a milkshake through a tiny straw…

Tasting Notes:
• Wrapper aroma is very mild with just a hint of cocoa and sweet tobacco
• Foot has a very earthy aroma to it with some hints of spice
• Pre-light draw is very earthy with some pepper on the lips
• Initial draws are mostly earthy with a dry finish
• Retrohale holds the same flavors with no bite, the whole experience is quite mild so far
• I still haven’t found more than earthiness and hay-like flavors through the first couple inches, I’m sure the draw issues are hampering any flavors in the cigar as well
• Still getting only a boring hay and earthy flavors at the halfway mark
• I must say I’m kind of impressed that with all the touch-ups and re-lights that I’m not getting any major harshness
• After the halfway point I finally started getting a little bit of coffee and nutty flavors, still very mild though, I hope they develop a bit more
• Still not much harshness near the end but the flavors disappeared again and the burn was just getting way too difficult to manage

Final Thoughts:
There’s not much I can say here, the notes pretty much speak for themselves. I spent most of my time fighting this cigar to stay lit, burn properly, and produce at least a decent amount of smoke on the draw. This was my third Exile of the same wrapper and vitola and all three have given me similar problems. As mentioned, the cigar never really got too harsh despite all the re-lights and touch ups but the flavors also never had a good chance to develop. Based on the three I’ve smoked I will be avoiding these in the future. If you’ve had a different experience with this cigar or perhaps a different vitola or wrapper please let me know, I’m curious to see if this is the general consensus or I just had a string of bad luck? Maybe if I’m wrong I’ll give them another try.

Pairings:
It’s been awhile since I’ve had a nice tawny port pairing in my reviews so I’m glad it’s back! The bottle I had today was bottled in 2004 by Quinta de Infantado. It has a fairly light red color to it and produces some nice oaky flavors complemented by dark berries, such as black berries and black cherries. It’s not too strong and comes in at an excellent value for the price. It’s definitely a good port to start with if you’re just considering trying it out for the first time or to have on hand to serve without feeling a wallet pinch. I didn’t enjoy this cigar but I did enjoy the port and I won’t bother recommending other pairings since I don’t really recommend this cigar.

The post Exile Churchill appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.