So i told Craig (st8edg) i would smoke a cigar for him since he is unable to. Today was even better then the last 2 days and was about 55F today. So as promised, i lit up a Taboo Twist Torp that was gifted to me.
The construction of this cigar was very nice and it had a very firm and HEAVY feel to it.
The prelight draw was decent. Back in my earlier days (my first month of serious cigar smoking) this would have been perfect for me, but since then i have come to love the extremely low effort draws. The flavor was full of spices and some other things my newb pallet cannot yet recognize.
As soon as i lit it, it burst into flavors of spices and creamyness. I tend to not be big fan of spices but im sure they will grow on me and the creamyness is what i love in a cigar. And since this was a medium bodied smoke it was the best of both worlds for me! At first the burn was a little uneven but i think that is due to my newbish ways of lighting (toast the foot, get a nice red glow, blow out till its even then enjoy!).
After the first 1/4 it went from spices and cream to a new flavor to my pallet and took me by surprise. I thought i had tasted a milk chocolate.. could this be true? If my young pallet is not telling me lies... by george! it is milk chocolate! along with a nice undertone of spices. After tasting this i wish i had saved as a dessert smoke for after dinner. I was quite happy with this since this is another new flavor for my pallet to take in and enjoy within the last 2 smokes. By now the burn had evened itself out very nicely and the draw had stayed the same and will continue to stay the same throughout the rest of the cigar.
Well, my short lived milk chocolate flavor had gone back into hiding and let the full flavor of spices and cream come back into play. As you can see the ash is holding up strong and firm which only complimented the construction of this cigar and if you look closely at the ash you can tell where the barber pole colors effect the ash color too which i thought was kind of cool.
as you can see the ash is still holding up but not quite as clean as the first 1/4 of it. The chocolate flavor had come back by this point and seemed to continue to go off and on and trade with the spices as if they were having a battle between the two and kept me on my toes for the rest of the smoke.
Right about here i was starting to get some funky burn issues where one side burned and the other... simply just did not want to. I tried rotating the cigar but seemed to have no effect on it so i took the torch to it and gave it a little fix up. This was the first time i had to pull the torch out for a fix during the smoke but had no complaints doing so. By now some undertones of leather were starting to come into play while the spices and cream were still the main components of the taste. This was the rest of the story till i finished it with about 3/4 of an inch left.
construction: 8/10
Taste: 8/10
Burn: 7/10
Appearance: 9.5/10
draw: 7/10
overall: i would give this cigar an 8.5/10.
With some age... i could see this cigar as being a favorite!