Cigar Review: Exceptional Premium Cigars

Cigar: Exceptional Premium Cigars
Size: 5 3/8 x 52
Wrapper: Ecuadorian
Binder: Nicaraguan Filler: Dominican
Price: $99.99 for 50 at 2 Guys Smoke Shop

With my previous post, I finished off my look at three cigars from some of the bigger players in the cigar industry. While I was thankful to get a closer look at those offerings, each of those cigars were in the $10 to $12 range, which for me is usually right outside of my normal price range (minus a once in awhile indulgence in that $10 to $15 range). My inclination after that is to look towards finding a nice value cigar to compensate for the slight uptick in cigar spending. Well, I think I found one. I saw a post from Barry Stein at The Cigar Authority a few months ago discussing this particular cigar and the monster deal on them:

“The alleged story is that a very well known “boutique” cigar manufacturer, who has been around for a long time and makes wonderful cigars, had a little mishap in his factory in the Dominican Republic. To make a long story short, he took the insurance money and 2GuysCigars.com got the cigars, a ton of them. The outcome is this; he wins, we win and now you win.

I kept the post in my Reading List but eventually, curiosity got the best of me and I placed an order. After a couple months of smoking them, I figure that it might behoove me to share my thoughts on these.

I found no construction issues with this cigar, or really with any of the group that I have smoked. Light wood was the predominant pre-light flavor notes. After a punch and light, my first noticeable flavor notes were light wood and leather that was smooth on the palette, hitting right at medium body. About twenty minutes in, a hint of spice crept into the flavors but stayed to the background. The halfway point gave me a touch of sweetness to the flavor mix. This however did not last because by the time I hit the last fourth of the cigar, the strength of the cigar became amplified to medium-to-full body range. Heavy flavor of leather and spice finished the cigar. The final smoking time was 1:26.

For this cigar, I encountered no problems. The draw was balanced right away with the punch. The burn stayed even through almost the whole cigar, with me making a slight burn correction near the end. The Exceptional Premium held its ash very well, great for ash magnets like me. And since I’m been through probably 30 of them, I have nothing but great things to say about this cigar.

By-The-Numbers
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 4.5/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 9.5/10

To recap the Exceptional Premium Cigars:

• Here is your new value cigar for 2015. I feel comfortable saying that because it is mine. Everyone that I have shared this with loves it.
• The leather and wood flavor notes combined with the medium bodied strength should make this agreeable to all ranges of cigar smokers. The strength increase at the end should not share anyone off.
• As of writing this, they are out of the wheels of 50. I can promise you that once they are available again, I’m buying another wheel.

As always, thank you very much for reading and I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.