Cigar: Crazy Alice
Size: 4×52 (Figurado)
Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
MSRP: $7.60 per cigar or $60.80 per box of 10 from Serious Cigars
Sample gifted to me by my friend Matt
My friend Matt, whom I have mentioned a number of times over the years, was kind enough to send me a care package of cigars recently. The Crazy Alice, made by Deadwood Tobacco Co. and Drew Estate, was a cigar that Matt made special mention of, discussing the unique size and shape of this flavored cigar. Given that I rarely review flavored cigars and the need to expand into lesser-seen vitolas, I was more than happy to give this one a shot.
No construction issues found on the cigar Matt sent me. The appearance of this cigar is great; it has the feel of a hastily hand-rolled cigar…or something else a person might roll on their own if you get my drift. The pre-light aromas brought notes of chocolate, mocha and holiday spices while the cold draw gave flavors of chocolate and gingerbread to the palette.
Everything up to this point was great. And then I started smoking the cigar. The light gave me a balanced draw with likely the most amount of smoke I have ever seen in a single cigar, especially given the size of the cigar. It was overwhelming and took on an interesting aroma. The strength of the Crazy Alice falls around mild-to-medium bodied while the opening flavor profile consisted of chocolate (part from the flavored wrapper) and holiday spices. Six minutes into the cigar I began noticing a slight bitterness on the aftertaste. As smoking the cigar carried on, this bitterness began to grow and grow. It reminded me of the aftertaste of a dark stout beer…except that someone burnt it. By the 21 minute mark, this was all I could taste from the cigar. This finished out the cigar, with a total smoking time of 0:39.
The cigar held together well with no burn issues (minus the foul smelling smoke) but it was the flavors from smoking it that really killed this cigar for me.
By-The-Numbers
Pre-light: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 2/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 7/10
To recap the Crazy Alice:
- This was one of the first times in recent memory that I have had a truly bad cigar. I have to think that it is because something happened to this particular cigar to have given it such a foul taste.
- The plan for this one is to pick up a couple more and see where it stands in the near future. Once that happens, I’ll follow this cigar up in a ‘Smoking Chair’ article.
A big thanks to Matt for this cigar and others (you’ll see one of them reviewed in the future), even though it didn’t turn out as expected. Thank you so much for reading. I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.
