Cigar Extra: Intemperance BA A.W.S., IV

I got too involved in smoking the cigar and forgot to take a photo…you know what they look like, though.

Vitola: A.W.S. IV (Lonsdale)
Size: 6.5” X 44 ring gauge
Price $7.50
Purchased at Maxamar

Background

One thing about a RoMa Craft event…Skip brings extras. Of course, there are plenty of sizes of all the different lines to be had, but he tries to bring a few things that don’t make it onto every retailer’s shelves. For the Maxamar event in September, he brought a few boxes each of the Intemperance A.W.S. IV, a blend available in both Ecuadorian Connecticut and Brazilian Arapiraca wrappers. I picked up a couple of the BA versions.

I’ve enjoyed the Intemperance BA line quite a bit since they were introduced, especially the Short Robusto size, which I found was almost exactly perfect to fill the space of my drive home from the cigar shop on Saturday nights…and for a nice price, too! This size is something I couldn’t pass up.

The Intemperance BA uses Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers, an Indonesia binder, and the Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper leaf that I mentioned before. And if you haven’t heard about these cigars by now, the name is a reference to the Temperance Movement and Prohibition which swept over this country almost a hundred years ago:

Following the ratification of the 18th Amendment, an intemperance movement was born. The Volstead Act had effectively turned every consumer, merchant and producer of alcohol into a criminal; organized crime took root…

In the last sixty years, this anti-smoking movement has grown in influence and power much in the same way the temperance movement before it grew. We believe that it is well past time to initiate our own modern intemperance movement. (From the RoMa Craft website)

Notes

The wrapper on these is not quite as oily as the Broadleaf they use on the CroMagnon, but it did have some nice visible oils and was the color of milk chocolate. Giving it a sniff, I picked up notes of leather and cocoa powder. The foot had a richer earthiness. The cold draw was great, tasting of dry cocoa powder, earth and some red pepper.

Initial puffs of any Intemperance don’t feature much wrapper influence as the foot is left slightly shaggy. This gives you a chance to experience the filler by itself and in this case it was grassy with a bit of earth to it and little if any pepper. After a few minutes, though, I got shades of dark chocolate and a healthy dash of pepper spice, along with a distinct black coffee note.

I never considered the Intemperance BA to be a strong or full-bodied cigar…and in most vitolas it isn’t. In this size, though, it packs a punch in terms of body almost from the get-go. I asked Skip if he had done anything with the blend to make it punchier in this size and he told me it had the same percentages of filler as the others in the line…it’s just in this size it smokes much different.

I paired this stogie with some Ryemaggedon by Corsair Distillery. Could be this was just a little too spicy of a beverage to go with the cigar, but only by a bit. Bourbon would have been a better pairing.

The cigar continued to display a very nice amount of sweetness and earthiness, although the pepper spice diminished quite a bit as it progressed.

I should have bought more of these when I was at the event.