Does Foundry Cigars’ H2O Equal Water?

When last we visited the land of mad, but stylish, genius, Michael Giannini, we talked about a couple of the couple dozen blends released as part of a radical expansion of the Foundry lines in late 2013, specifically the Compounds, Elements and Musings releases of Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He). Today we will be examining one of the more unusual releases in the CEM program: H2O…or as some refer to it, “Water.” H2O has 3 distinct blends, all in the same vitola, all contained within the same box…and all sharing the same SKU…so we’ll never know for sure what the most popular is. Although that may be a moot issue since these are supposed to be a “one and done” release. The vitola is a 4” perfecto that look very similar to the Fuente Short Story size. They all share similar banding, with the letter of the compound in a large “typewriter”-style font with some mechanical detail surrounding it…which may actually be a closeup of an old manual typewriter, actually.  12 of each blend are held in the box these come in. I will look at them one by one…and see if H2O does indeed make water

H

This has the same one-letter symbol as the Hydrogen I smoked last year, but just to add a little confusion, it’s quite apparently not the same blend. The wrapper on this one seems quite a bit darker, a milk chocolate hue. The only information I could find on any of the cigars stated “Costa Rica, Mysterioso” for leaves used and there was no Costa Rican stated for the other Hydrogen. The prelight draw was surprisingly good for a cigar of this shape, although the flavor coming from the unlit cigar was pretty thin…just a general woodiness.

Once I got H fired up, I got a mix of flavors that included earth, cedar and pepper spice, but there was also a chemical note that wasn’t very nice. Thankfully that went away after a few puffs. As the burn opened up into the widest part of the perfecto, I noted a radical increase in earthiness…almost a wet forest earth. The pepper spice diminished fairly quickly, but the cedar hung in there. Not much later, the earth and cedar was joined by a note of espresso and a slight sweetness.

As I went on the H got a little muddy in the middle, but recovered flavor-wise in the end with smoky, earthy flavors that really hit my palate well.

2

The 2 has the darkest of the 3 wrappers used for this little collection. Quite dark, actually, I would call it a dark chocolate brown. The cold draw on this one was excellent like the H, although this had a distinct cocoa powder flavor. The cocoa exploded into action upon ignition, overlaying an earthy base. There were also subtle notes of anise and nuts, along with just a touch of pepper spice on the retrohale.

Puffing through I got plentiful dark chocolate notes with just the right amount of sweetness, along with earth and espresso bean, all wrapped up in a full bodied, oily smoke. The pepper that was around at first died off, but it really didn’t mater as the rest of the cigar was very pleasing.

O

Finally, O has the lightest of the 3 wrappers, although it’s not nearly as light as, say, a Connecticut Shade. This is more of a toasted caramel coloration. The cold draw was slightly tighter on this cigar with flavors of wood and hay. The opening flavors after lighting were of cedar, with a slight sweetness and a bit of toast.

When the O opened up into the widest part of the cigar, the overwhelming flavor was of cedar but with a good balancing sweetness and a bit of earthiness that balanced the affair nicely. 

After all three, I can definitely say that H2O does not add up to tasting like water in this case. I was surprised and pleased by how all three had a distinct flavor profile and all three were quite enjoyable. In the end, I have to give the nod to 2, though, as my favorite.

This article originally appeared on Tiki Bar Online