Vitola: Robusto
Size: 5″ x 54 ring gauge
Price $12.00
Obtained From BLTC as a review sample
Background
This cigar wasn’t something that I had heard about before Dave’s reviews. He was kind enough to send me one of these Last Rites cigars to try. You can read his overview of the cigar here. The cigar is comprised of Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers, a Honduran binder with an Aged Ecuadorian Maduro wrapper. They come in four different sizes, a robusto, a box press robusto, a gran toro, and a box press gran toro. They come packed in 20 count boxes. This was my first experience with this cigar.
Prelight
The cigar was an even dark brown in color with a slightly purplish tint to it. The cigar was slightly lumpy with some fine veins to it. There was a bit of tooth and oil to the wrapper as well. When I gave the cigar a squeeze it was fairly firm with no soft spots. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got the aroma of barnyard with leather, nuts and chocolate from the foot. After clipping it and taking a cold draw on it I got notes of peanuts and leather with an ok draw.
Flavor
The cigar starts off with a lot of spice especially on the retrohale. The flavors I noted in the first third were of leather, wood, coffee, and cinnamon with a slightly sweet finish. The cigar also had a bit of bitterness to it, sort of like the cigar was a little young. The cigar started off in the medium-full range. The second third didn’t see a whole lot of changes in the flavors other than the spice died down. The final third was more of the same in regards to flavor. I did get a slight nicotine hit from it towards the end.
Construction
The draw was ok at the beginning but opened up to what I would consider pretty good by the time I got to the second third. The burn was pretty uneven at first but it eventually straightened itself out. The main band was placed fairly high up and I removed it fairly early because it was hitting my lips. When I did I found a lot of glue overflow. Luckily it didn’t rip the wrapper when I took the band off.
Value
To me a cigar from a new company coming with one of their first cigars at $12 is a little high. I would be a little reluctant to give it to try if I walked into a cigar shop and saw it sitting next to something I like for less money.
Conclusions
Overall it was an ok cigar. I do see that Dave’s and my experiences were quite different and would be curious to give it a try again to see if my cigar was a fluke or it just doesn’t hit my palate right. While not the strongest cigar it had a bit of a punch and wouldn’t be a good cigar for a new smoker or someone sensitive to nicotine.
By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 3.5/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 7.5/10
I had that initial bitterness from the start as well. I could never get that taste out of my mouth with either coffee or water. Maybe they really need some age.
Good to see I’m not the only one that experienced that bitterness.
A lot of great cigars out there in that price range and have not seen any reason to seek them out. Would give them a try if can get for a reasonable price and a vitola that was more to my liking.
A little disappointed in the review. Just picked up a Morphine from them and was really excited about trying it. Hopefully it will turn out better than this one.
Not that I was disappointed in your review, just about how the cigar turned out.