Bolivar Fuerte Petit Bolivar EMS Review

[Eichen]

Man what a crappy day at work! What's the remedy? Smokin' in the car and listening to a college radio station... It's amazing how a good cigar can turn around a bad day. I pulled this out of the cooler yesterday. It still felt as squishy as a sponge, so I dry boxed it for a day. That seemed to fix it. These things smell wonderful. Maybe even a bit barn yardy. It came out of a box with 11 2001 penciled on the bottom.

BF Petit Bolivar EMS
Size: 4.50 x 35
Wrapper: Ecu Sumatra
Binder: Conn Broadleaf
Filler: Honduras and Nic

Appearance: Tiny little cigar with a dark brown, might as well be maduro Ecuador wrapper. A bit lumpy. Not really oily looking but not dry either. The cap wasn't nearly as sloppy as many of the products I see from HATSA. Plenty of room to clip. The bunch looks even at the foot. Why do they bother banding these?

Construction: Cuts easy with very few bits o' tobacco. The draw was dead on perfect before and during the smoke. The burn started out a touch uneven but it corrected itself quickly and remained near perfect throughout. The ash was light grey and held well. Pre-ash was a pretty narrow black band. No flakes. I'm impressed.

Taste: Dry taste seemed to reflect my impressions of the pre-light aroma. It's earthy over a vegital base with a touch of sweetness -- molasses, if I want to get fancy. Aroma has a kind of rotting leaf or maybe even barnyard kind of smell. It's rich and pleasant. During the smoke the flavor starts off with a good deal of spice. It smoothes out nicely and takes on an almost creamy character. After about 1/4, I noticed a strong straight up sugary sweetness that remained very prominant until the last 1/3. As the cigar burned past 1/3 there was a good dose of earthiness and maybe a bit of woodiness. The earthy flavor seemed to gradually meld into the vegital base (it kind of tastes like a leaf smells) flavor while not completely dissapearing. It's the kind of flavor that seems a common element in many of HATSA's cigars. In the last 1/3 all of the flavors seemed to be in good balance, nothing really dominated. The aroma seemed mostly earthy/woody, when I could smell it, with a touch of sweetness. The finish was long and earthy. They must've used a crowbar to pack a huge amount of flavor in this short panatela. Med-full strength, smooth cigar.

Value: Easy to find at slightly under $1.00/stick! Tasty too!

Verdict: I didn't expect too much from this stick really. I had one fresh OTT. It seemed pretty good but it didn't knock my socks off. A month of sitting in my cooler really seemed to do something for it. I'm looking forward to smoking more soon. Villazon seems to be making a lot of good small cigars. Flor de A. Allones #5 (5.25 x 3 is a favorite of mine. I've heard a lot of good about the Hoyo Sabrosas too. The Petit Bolivar makes me want to give the Hoyos a try.

After this cigar got warmed up I could tell it was going to be a good one. I smoked it for just about 50 minutes. I picked it out thinking that it would make a nice cold weather smoke but it lasted longer and had better flavor than a bunch of coronas that I've had. If you like Villazon cigars, this one won't dissapoint.

[cybergar]

Very nice review!.....just wanted to add a small footnote if folks like the BF's with a little larger ring gauge but at roughly the same length as the PC try the Corona...5.5 x 43 also...excellent

[cybergar]

oops! I just noticed the Petite is 4.5 in length........well you know what I mean anyway

[Eichen]

Thanks! The stange thing is I prefer the smaller stuff from this line (the same holds true for the Flor de A. Allones line). I tried the Cuban Corona and the Corona sizes of the line and I definitely preferred the Corona. It's really not that much smaller but for some reason I preferred the flavor.