Review: Top Shelf Signature Select Black

[tx_tuff]

Top Shelf Signature Select Blue

Size: Corona Gorda 6X52
Wrapper: Corojo '99 Jalapa Valley, Nicaragua (high-priming)
Binder: Criollo '98 Esteli, Nic
Filler: Criollo '98 Jalapa Valley with 1 Esteli Ligero (high-priming powerful) leaf
Price: $5.75
Source: www.topshelfcigar.com

Appearance, Construction, and Pre-light:
A medium redish brown with slight veins, nice firm feel with a round triple cap. The band is printed on thin paper and is very basic. I think these cigars deserve better bands. Wrapper smell was of rich tobacco with a light coco smell, at the foot the smell was of coco with toasted nuts. The smell of this cigar was very good! Upon cut the cigar had an easy draw and a pre-light taste of toasted nuts.

1st 3rd:
An easy light up with a good draw and a lot of smoke. Started out with a mild taste of a earthy tone and nutty flavor. It had a nice thin burn line but wasn't burning very striaght. A nice gray ash that seemed to be holding on very well. I did have to touch up the burn once during this part of the cigar. Before getting into the 2nd third it was turning into a med smoke with more nutty flavor.

2nd third:
Ash is still holding on at the point of the cigar. Cigar is still drawing good and once again with a lot of smoke, I love the amount of smoke this cigar is producing. The burn is still not striaght but not bad enough to touch up. The nutty flavor is turning more earthy. The ash feel off at about the half way point of the cigar. The nutty flavor is coming back some but this is a med cigar at best. Retro-hale is dry with just a little spice, after the retro-hale there is some spice in back of mouth with a dry hay flavor.

Last third:
The burn is still off and the cigar is getting soft or spongy. But there is still a good draw and plenty of smoke. But it seems to be losing its flavor and has turned into a dry smoke with the smallest hint of pepper on the finish. The ash held on untill I put the cigar down and the burn started to correct itself, so just like the Blue it onlt fell off once at the half way point.

Thoughts:
This was a good smoke, but was milder then the Blue and kinda died in the last third of the smoke. I wish the flavor would have been just a tad more with some complexity with it, it is almost there but just falls short. I would pick the Blue over the Black but would recomend to give it a try if you get a chance.

Score: Just off of the Blue because least flavor and it got spongy in the last 3rd. 85

[tx_tuff]

Added the price of the cigar.

[saxmanJJ-cl]

I put up a special on these on the site here.