Top Shelf Black Label Review

[jdogg440]

Pre-smoke :
Wrapper was great. No dents/marks, or any veins that stuck out at all. Nice tripple cap, the edges of the caps (facing the foot) flared out the tiniest ammount, but didnt take away from the cigar. The cap was a little deep, took a 2nd run with the punch to get to the bottom layer. Firm feel to the whole stick minus 1 small spot about 1/2" in length about 1" below the wrapper. Pre-smoke draw was loose to deliberate 7 out of 10 compare to what I like.
The wrapper scent was of barnyard grassy hay. there was also another scent of either raisin/rum/tea or something a little sweet. i could never really be specific to what it was.

1st 3rd :
Light up was good. Started to burn great in the first 1" Right off the bat there was a peppery spice that made me think this would be a repeat of the blue label, but after the first 1" or so i got a mild woody flavor that started to over power the peppery spice.

2nd 3rd:
The peppery spice and the woody smoke taste got dissapated by a sweet maybe raisin/dark fruit flavor. The cigar started to burn unevenly at times, with a quick hit with the torch it was easily corrected.
Heading twards the soft spot that i found in pre-light the cigar became slightly bitter with a cedary/hardwood spice with the pepper spice returning and the sweet spice going away. The closer i got to the soft spot the more bitter it became. When the burn line hit the soft spot i put the cigar out to not leave me with a bad bitter impression.

Overall:
This was a good cigar, personally liked it better than the blue label due to the less peppery, more sweet/cedary spice. I would put this in the mild-to medium catagory. it produced tons of smoke, and offered a medium length finish. After drawing on the cigar it continued to put alot of smoke in the air, filling the room with a great tobacco/hardwood flavor. The Ash was slightly crumbly, with black streaks through modeled grey ash. Only needing to touch up the cigar a few times to keep a straight burn line, it could have been me who caused the black streaks in the ash. I would give this cigar a 7.5 on the ICRS score chart. The only things that took away from a better score was the soft spot that made the cigar near impossible to finish.