Graycliff Vintage 1999 Review

[ghost]

Hi guys! It has been awhile since I have posted a review but last week my wife gave birth to our bouncing baby boy and you know what that means? A WHOLE LOT OF CIGAR SMOKING GOING ON!!!

I have had a several different cigars over the last week but am going to review the Graycliffs 1999 Vintage line here. I bought these last year from CI while they were running a deal. I like the regular blue line from Graycliff and figured I would give these a go. When I first got them I had one and was not overly impressed. Yesterday, a beautiful sunny warm day gave me another excuse to step outside for a smoke of something different. Reached into my coolidor and pulled out this smoke.

Setting: Outdoors. Temps in the low 70s. Light up was at around 1:30PM. Felt good having the sun on my face.

Appearance: Tan color wrapper. Body was a bit on the soft side and a few knobs here and there. Not a particular great looking cigar. Ok in appearance.

Cut: Used my old reliable Palio.

Storage: This one was in my 70 RH coolidor for probably over a year. Rock steady on RH and very low maintenance.

1/3rd: I gave it a pre-draw before adding some flame to it to see if I could detect anything. I noticed that the draw was very loose, which was something that I remembered from the first one I had a tried. I was a bit skepticial but with a nice warm spring day and a cup of cofee in tow I lit this stick up. First hints I started getting were of a toasted oak/wood. At times it would built to more of a burnt wood. The thing that surpised me was how the draw changed from being very loose when unlit to a very pleasant. Not perfect mind you, but a bit on the loose side of perfect. The other thing I noticed was a very nice amount of white smoke it produced. Started to enjoy these aspects of it. The burn on the other hand left a lot to be desired. Very uneven; of the ugly sort mind you.


2/3rd: Towards the begining of the 2/3rd I started detecting some flowery tones which I have always associated with Graycliffs. Little hints of it here and there of this floral tone made me excited since I do enjoy it and is the reason why I label Graycliffs as "different" from other cigars. This was VERY faint and really did not last very long. More of that burnt wood taste would also make an appearance sometimes a bit too harsh. Draw and smoke the same. Burn got a bit better but I needed to touch it up a few times to the point where I started to notice. I also started taking some sips of my coffee (Folgers I believe) and felt that it complimented nicely by the smoke.

3/3rd: For a very brief instant I caught something sweet, like caramel or toffee, that changed into an almost coconut flavor . I have never detected something like this in a smoke and got very excited over it. Sadly, it went as quick as it went. This final third seemed that all flavor went out of it, except for a really harsh burnt flavor that I did not care for which eventually made me put it out a tad early. Also, it started going out on me and I had to apply a flame to it more and more. Smoke and draw remained about the same.

Smoke: Surprisingly good amount of white smoke produced. I would say an enjoyable amount.

Ash: Very brittle; flaky. Had a hard time keeping it on for any real period of time.

Final Impressions: This one kind of left me a bit of two minds. There was SOME complexity to this smoke but the problem was that it did not last for very long. Different hints (this really was all it was) would pop up and quickly exit the building. If there was more of this it I would have said it was one heck of a smoke.

Also, smoke and draw were pleasant but it had burn problems throughout. Never really took on a nice even burn. The other thing I notice was a nice little nicotine buzz. I smoked right after a light lunch and was having some coffee. I did noty expect to get a buzz off of this smoke but sure enough I did. The thing to note was that, much like the flavors, the buzz quickly went away.

Would I smoke this again? I have a few in the coolidor so the answer is yes but only if I had NOTHING to do but sit around and enjoy the smoke without anything else on the mind. Would I purchase some more of these? I would say no. Instead I would go for the normal Graycliff blues.

I hope you guys found this review helpful. Off to play with the new addition to the family

Stay strong and happy smokes!

[gvarsity]

Thanks for the review. Never have had anything from the greycliff line. They seem to get kinda of mixed reviews for the price point. I think I just have to head down to the Bahamas again and try them at the factory.