Alec Bradley Spirit of Cuba Habano Review

[fitzsmoke]

Here is the description from Lil Brown website:

SPIRIT OF CUBA HABANO Blend: Wrapper: Habano Binder: Honduras Filler: Nicaragua, Columbia, Honduras The Spirit of Cuba Habano is hand made in Honduras. A dark, rich and oily Habano wrapper adorns this Cuban Sandwich filler cigar. It combines trimmed premium grade tobacco leaves rolled around a central leaf that runs the length of the cigar. Compared to other cigars in this price range, the Spirit of Cuba Habano cigar offers cigar smokers a unique high quality smoking experience. "The introduction of the Spirit of Cuba Habano demonstrates our commitment to offering cigar smokers a quality smoke at a surprisingly affordable price." Rubin said. Alan Rubin, President of Alec Bradley Cigar Co. explains it this way. "This construction method offers greater stability, slower burn rate and a longer ash than short-filler cigars." As Rubin puts it "It just plain smokes like a premium."

My experience: This budget stogie has been lurking in my humi for about 3 months. This one was the Natural version. Looking a medium-golden brown with a fairly smooth wrapper and no splotches or lumps at all.

Applied butane flame to the foot and underway rather quickly. Initial taste; smooth and very mild. About one inch into the burn, some rich light spice comes into play. About the half-way point it is tasting very nice with a mild to medium strength. At approximately two-thirds gone hit a small pocket of ammonia flavor and some bitterness. Hung in there and it smoothed back to a nice medium mellow flavor. Smoked it to about the inch and one-half point. At that point I was starting to get a little tongue-bite so I let it expire.

Construction: 7.5, Appearance 8.5, Burn 7, Flavor 6 to 7.5, Value 9.5.

Would I buy this again? For just a hair over $1.00, a real good yard 'gar.
I won't be buying a bundle at this time as I want to try the corojo version first. Construction would have been a point higher but I had a small flap of wrapper pop up about half-way. Could have been me bashing about the yard but the wrapper was on the thin side.

Total avg. score: 7.8 (Only as a value cigar) out of 10. Against all challengers about a 5.

[smellyfeet]

I had the churchill version last Xmas, it was in a sampler pack from indulgecigars.com . Quite smooth and mild with hardly any flavor at all, costs around $30 a box. I would buy other budget cigars instead (Flor de Oliva, La Vieja, etc.), but all in all not as bad a some other yard 'gar brands.

[fitzsmoke]

Originally Posted by smellyfeet

I had the churchill version last Xmas, it was in a sampler pack from indulgecigars.com . Quite smooth and mild with hardly any flavor at all, costs around $30 a box. I would buy other budget cigars instead (Flor de Oliva, La Vieja, etc.), but all in all not as bad a some other yard 'gar brands.

I agree. But I would smoke another if offered.

[Baric]

Interesting review-sounds too mild for me, but thanks for the information!