Cigar Review: Joel Sherman 75th Celebration

Vitola: Churchill-ish
Size: 7.5″ x 46 ring gauge
Price $19.00, MSRP
Obtained From SmallBatchCigar.com as a review sample

Background

The cigar I will be reviewing today was created by the Nat Sherman cigar company to celebrate their CEO, Joel Sherman’s, 75th birthday.  These cigars are made in the Quesada factory and they are comprised of Dominican fillers and binder with an Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade wrapper.  These cigars come packed in a really nice piano black boxes and each box contains 10 cigars with production is limited to 2,500 boxes.  The cigar I smoked for review was the first one I was able to smoke.

Prelight

The golden-greyish tan wrapper on this cigar was very oily.  Not something you see a lot of, but something I’m seeing more from the newer crop of cigars with Connecticut Shade wrappers from Ecuador.  The cigar showed some veins and was slightly lumpy.  The band is classic Nat Sherman.  Very nice and understated but very classy as well.  The cigar was slightly firm to the touch without any soft spots.  When I put my nose to the wrapper there was lots of hay and leather with some barnyard from the foot.  After clipping and taking a cold draw on it I got an ok draw with a light amount of sweetness.

Flavor

The cigar starts of with the flavor of hay with a hint of spice and a slight bitterness.  The cigar was definitely mild to start.  The flavors only changed slightly to hay and wood with some bits of spice and cream on the finish.  The cigar didn’t really get out of the mild range during the second third either.  The flavors in the final third were pretty much the same as the second third.  The cigar barely got into the bottom end of medium range by the end of the cigar.  I got no nicotine hit from it at all.

Construction

The draw on this sample was definitely too tight for my liking.  I tried to use the bleeder tool from my MTX to open it up but it didn’t really help a lot.  The burn was ragged at times but never needed a correction.  The top band did have too much glue on it and it was stuck to the wrapper.  It unfortunately ripped off a small piece of the band when I took it off.

Value

I thought this cigar was a little high priced.  I know it is a limited edition and Nat Sherman cigars have traditionally been at the higher end of the spectrum but It wouldn’t steer me to it with the $19 price tag.

Conclusions

Overall, I was kind of bored with the cigar.  There weren’t any bad flavors from the cigar, just not very much flavor at all.  This could have been due to the tight draw not letting enough smoke though.  It could also just be that this cigar wasn’t blended for me, as one who hasn’t ever met a cigar too strong.  Someone who enjoys a mild cigar or looking for something to start their day off with probably enjoy this cigar.  Aside from the minor construction issues (which shouldn’t happen on a limited edition cigar IMO) this was a very traditional Connecticut Shade cigar.  If you’d like to give them a try our sponsor Small Batch Cigar has them for sale here.  One other thing our discount code ‘leafenthusiast’ still works and will continue to work for all of your orders.

By-The-Numbers

Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 3/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 7/10