Cigar Review: Jaime Garcia The Fox

Vitola: Toro
Size: 6″ x 50 ring gauge
Price $7.99 MSRP
Obtained From Doc Stogie Fresh’s Central Coast Herf

Background

As some of you are aware I was invited to Doc Stogie Fresh’s annual Central Coast Herf that happened a couple weeks ago.  To give you a little background on Doc, I started listening to his podcast when I was a new cigar smoker and was able to learn a lot from him on cigars and libations.  A couple years ago we met in person and he has invited me to a couple of his Annual Central Coast Herfs, and I was lucky enough to go to this year’s, which I think is the third time I’ve been able to attend.  You can hear about the latest event on his podcast here.  The cigar I’m reviewing today is one of the cigars that Fox Cigar Bar donated to the event.  Thank you to Fox and Doc for the event.  From what I can find out about the cigar that is a different blend than the regular Reserva Especial, and it is a Nicaraguan puro with a corojo oscuro wrapper.  They come packed in 20 count boxes, and retail for $7.99 each.  This was my first experience with The Fox cigar.

Prelight

The wrapper on this cigar was a very nice and even medium-dark brown.  The wrapper also showed a lot of oils and my fingers came off slightly oily after touching it.  There wasn’t much tooth to the wrapper though.  The second band definitely let you know this wasn’t a regular cigar, but the name “The Fox” was covered up by the overlap.  Also the second band was slightly off from the color of the top band and when I took them off the paper on the second band didn’t feel as thick.  If it were me I would have gone with a completely different color scheme for the second band rather than almost matching it.  When I gave it a squeeze there was a slight amount of give but no soft spots.  Putting my nose to the wrapper I got the aroma of leather with barnyard coming from the foot.  When I clipped it and took a cold draw on it I got notes of leather with sugar and salt with a slightly tight draw.

Flavor

The cigar lights up with the familiar Garcia pepper blast on the tongue and retrohale.  After a few puffs on it I started to get the flavors of leather and chocolate.  The cigar definitely starts off in the medium range.  Once I got into the second third the spice started to mellow out especially on the retrohale.  I noted flavors of cocoa, coffee, earth and wood, with a sweet and creamy finish.  The cigar was still medium strength in the second third.  The spice started to come back in the second third and the strength built to maybe medium-full.  The flavors in the final third were similar to the second third.

Construction

The draw on it was just a little too direct for my liking.  A couple of pokes from the bleeder tool of my MTX helped a bit, but not as much as I would have liked.  I also felt like I had to keep puffing on it to keep it lit.  The burn, while not razor sharp, wasn’t bad and didn’t get it tunnel on me like I’ve experienced with other cigar I have to keep puffing on.

Value

A shop exclusive from a large maker for $8 seems like a good deal to me.

Conclusions

I would have preferred a more open draw, but because of the reasonable price I would definitely give it another try.  It didn’t taste like a completely different blend than the Jaime Garcia to me.  It wasn’t as spicy or as strong though.  If you like the stuff from Jaime Garcia I would give this one a try.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10