Cigar Review: Blue Mountain Cigars El Beest

Originally published at Tiki Bar Online

Robusto, 5.5” x 54 ring gauge / ~$8, MSRP

A couple weeks ago I was in my regular shop when Daniel Moyal from Blue Mountain Cigars stopped in. After talking to him for a while and getting to know him and the company he handed me a couple samples to try and review and see what I thought. This was the first one he handed me, and is one of their newest releases. It a Nicaraguan puro with what he said was triple ligero with a Habano wrapper. They only come in this one size. This was the first one I smoked.

First off I had a little trouble getting a picture of the cigar. The cigar was a bit crooked, lumpy and the foot wasn’t cut straight. It just didn’t want to cooperate, which explains the not so great picture. The wrapper on the sample was a nice reddish brown with a good amount of oils to it. In spite of being lumpy the veins weren’t that prominent. The logo on the band reminded me of The Thundercats and in spite of the silver foil embossing the band looked a bit cheap to me. The cap was a little sloppily applied and there was a pretty big tear that looks like it was held down with vegetable glue. Putting my nose to the wrapper I got an intense leather aroma with barnyard coming from the foot. When I gave it a squeeze it was fairly firm and I couldn’t find any soft spots. After clipping it and taking a cold draw on I got a sweet fruity flavor with a tight draw.

The cigar starts off with lots of spice with a nice wasabi like burn on the retrohale. After taking a few more puffs on I got notes of sweet maple with hints of leather and earth. The cigar started off medium bodied in spite of the amount of spice coming from it. The draw was a little too tight for my liking, and the burn was crooked. The crooked burn could have been from the wind that was gusting while I smoked it. A couple of holed punched by the bleeder tool on my MTX helped the draw a bit.

As I moved into the second third the spice did town down in intensity but never really went away. I started to get a lot more maple/molasses sweetness from the cigar as well. The flavors stayed pretty much the same leather and earth as the first third. The draw while a bit more open was still too tight for my liking. The burn did start to even itself out.

Once I moved into the final third the spice did start to come back but it wasn’t as intense as the first third. I did get a slight nicotine hit from it but nothing too overwhelming. The flavors changed a bit to grilled meat, cinnamon and leather with lots of sweet maple in the finish.

Overall I really enjoyed this cigar. I was definitely surprised by that because I really didn’t know what to expect from it. I do wish that the draw would have been more open as I would have been able to get more flavors from it. I do think I would like to smoke a couple more to see how consistent they are and if they are all just as good.

Body: 7/10
Strength: 7/10
Complexity: 7/10

AFP Scale

Prelight: 1.5/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8/10