IanMcLean68

Are these essential oils, extracts, or just artificial flavours? Does this mean we now need to expand our flavour wheels to include fake artificial versions of flavours? Those vials look like the vials that LorAnn artificial flavouring agents come in. Apart from the obnoxious clouds, sickly sweet artificial flavours are what turned me off the idea of vaping. I might not mind the occasional artificial coffee, chocolate, raspberry or banana flavour in a sweet/lollie, but I would not want to associate these flavours with cigars.

The Black Sheep of the Montecristo Cigar Box

[redacted] I don't want to jinx the last game 😉 Hoping to see a 3-0 clean sweep!

Best cigar this year so far for me has been a Diplomaticos Bushido I smoked a week or so ago. It only just gets in under the 7 year mark, at just over 6 years of age. With a perfect construction and burn, at this age this one had turned into pure magic. 99/100. I only have two left now unfortunately.

I think the dog that did that should probably go to the vet for a checkup.

Happy birthday Di!

The beak would have been the problem, as I also mentioned, if the creature was in fact a blue ringed octopus. But I got that wrong, the creature the guy was supposedly going to lick was a blue bottle, so the stinging tentacles would be the issue.

Its OK, I got the creature wrong anyway. Still, as long as he avoided the tentacles.

Removed my comment, the creature in question was a blue bottle not a blue ringed octopus

My two smoking buddies. Burmese. They are like the dog of the cat world. Intelligent and vocal. Known to remain playful and kitten-like right through adulthood, and can be rather naughty at times. They like to play fetch, chase, and typically follow me everywhere in the house. They have a fascination with following me into the bathroom. There is no such thing as privacy when you have Burmese cats.

I think the word most used to accurately describe this sort of English gentleman is "dandy". Those stocking socks sure do take the cake.

SLR are definitely unique when it comes to box aromas. Not available anymore, but the SLR Serie A I felt always had a unique box aroma not shared by any other Cuban cigar. Good boxes from beyond the early 00's have a distinct aroma of fresh kid leather and green apple. That aroma does translate through to the taste of the first third of the cigar too. I love the cedar, honey and lemongrass aromas from a good box of Cohiba Linea Clasica. Particularly lanceros, but also robustos and esplendidos.

There is so much colour variation in this box. It seems that the counterfeiters still have not learned the concept of cigar colour grading!

I have always wondered what Henry Clay cigars were like, due to the Rudyard Kipling poem The Betrothed. "There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay; But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away --"