tigger

Looking forward to the humiliation. 😂

"Best" is very subjective. More often than not, if I'm smoking a short cigar, it's a Hoyo De Depute.

Agreed. I was at Gillette, and they were all playing together at a new level. Some of the interplay between Jeff and John is spectacular. An already booked trip to Banff next weekend and a just-finished kitchen renovation are the only reasons my wife and I aren't headed to Colorado this weekend. And I had to push back pretty hard to convince her that it doesn't make sense to go. I kind of had to commit to most of Deer Creek through Colorado next summer to get her to back down. 🤣

Firefly. No question about it.

It was tough for me to choose what to smoke for this weekend's review, as these are three of my preferred sizes, and they are all represented pretty well in my humidors. I decided to go with the Juan Lopez, as I hadn't had one in quite a while. Initial impressions: Nice, oily wrapper. Sweet tea and leather on both the cod aroma and cold draw. Much looser draw than I like. 1st Third: The first inch was fantastic, with honey, baking spice and bready flavors. After this it got disappointingly tannic and hot. I'll split the responsibility for this between loose construction, and my not having paid enough attention to the frequency at which I was puffing. 2nd Third: Tannins/acidity doiminate, as I struggled a bit to slow down my drawing frequency enough to let things cool down, but not require a relight. Toward the end of the 2nd third, things began to improve. Final Third: While never getting back to the pleasure of the first inch, things improved greatly, with bread and floral notes all the way to the end. Overall, this was a medium-bodied, quite strong cigar. I'd give it an 89 (which is a B+, and not bad at all). Had I been more mindful, and the construction been a little better, it would have scored in the 90's. I look forward to trying one again in a few months.

It's looking like Foxboro is the only one I'll actually be at this summer. But we'll probably catch a few streams around our fire pit too.

Wish I could could say better of it, but this cigar had a very loose draw, not much in the way of pre light aroma or flavor, and was, for lack of a better word, insipid once lit. I put it aside after the first third and smoked a Partagas 898 for around the same dates. The Partagas was excellent.

Hoyo du Maire, then Punch Punch.

Happy Birthday Di!

This was my first thought. Upon further review though, I think I agree with the original premise. Upmanns have a wonderful tobacco core, but with more "other" flavors weaving in and out. VR, to me, have much less "other."

The Puros Indios Chief of yore was pretty eyebrow raising...

I answered no, as I don't currently utilize one. I did for a bit a few years ago out of curiosity about it's utility as a medium of exchange.

Fair point.

I find turning the thermostat way down helps push things along.

As a whole, the Pythons were funnier than anything I see listed above. I've always felt that the whole was greater than the sum of it's parts with them...