Romeo y Julieta Churchill 12DCRC

[Bijan]

My penultimate cigar from the Christmas sampler.

Short review this time. Cigar starts out cherry. Then uneven burn with a runner. Then some charcoal. Then it seems the first half is under-filled. Doesn't burn right. Feels quite spongy and loose. After 20 minutes of struggling I cut the cigar just over halfway. Wrapper is a bit damaged down to the wrapper. Burn improves get some light rosewater. Then charcoal again. I would say the cigar is over-humidified despite the fact that all the other sampler cigars were fine and stored in the same Tupperware. I give up after another 20 minutes just before the RyJ band.

Final rating 0/5. Practically unsmokeable.

I have a box of these so maybe I will revisit with hopefully a non dud example.

[Goodfortune]

Sorry you got a dud

[JohnS]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

Final rating 0/5. Practically unsmokeable.

I have a box of these so maybe I will revisit with hopefully a non dud example.

The odds are that the next one will not be as disappointing as this one.

[ChangBang]

Is charcoal a flavor that indicates storage or construction issues?  Sounds like you got one that was in the same box as mine!  Only reason I didn't give up is cause I was watching football and would've just lit up another cigar anyways.  Can't win em all, hopefully the box you have blows this one away.

[Cabinet89]

If a cigar is over humidified then returned to normal for some time will this cause the issues you mention or is that mostly experienced when a cigar is smoked in the over humidified state?

[Bijan]

Just now, ChangBang said:

Is charcoal a flavor that indicates storage or construction issues?  Sounds like you got one that was in the same box as mine!  Only reason I didn't give up is cause I was watching football and would've just lit up another cigar anyways.  Can't win em all, hopefully the box you have blows this one away.

Charcoal (when not overpowering though) is a flavour I do get with Romeo and Juliet cigars, especially Mille Fleurs and similar. But at least after cutting it in half there was a dense thick acrid smoke that I associate with over-humidified cigars. 

[Bijan]

2 minutes ago, Cabinet89 said:

If a cigar is over humidified then returned to normal for some time will this cause the issues you mention or is that mostly experienced when a cigar is smoked in the over humidified state?

Mostly in over-humidified state, eventually cigar if stored at property humidity would go back to a normal state. The under-filling in the first half if that was actually the case wouldn't be fixed but at least the second half would have been ok, and maybe it would have also burned better in the first half, though possibly too fast and too hot.

[TobaccoRoad]

Hate you got a dud. But I agree that the odds are definitely in your favor for a good one on the next try.

[Bijan]

@JohnS @TobaccoRoad

I just looked it up my last RyJ was on October 16th. First from the box and probably without much rest and it smoked OK. It's been 55 days since then, so probably pretty well rested.

At the time I thought it would be my last Churchill and DC for the year, but weather's been ok.

[mprach024]

Bummer, duds happen but they always make me sad.  Be anxious to see you review another one, I love RJCs.  
 

btw you are a monster, already crushed that sampler lol

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, mprach024 said:

btw you are a monster, already crushed that sampler lol

Still got one cigar left (Siglo VI), debating whether to crush it tonight or tomorrow 

 

[mprach024]

51 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Still got one cigar left (Siglo VI), debating whether to crush it tonight or tomorrow 

Lol.  Well I’d say either smoke it before the snow or next spring!  That puppy deserves your attention.  Enjoy and hope you have a great experience those can be amazing.

[Bijan]

Revisited this today with another example form a BEL ENE 20 box.

Warmer today at 7C/45F. Had to turn down the heater at times and took off the gloves halfway through.

Burn was better, flavours were better.

First third: Starts out cherry, then charcoal and cherry in a flavour combo @VKUTT describes as cherry cough syrup.

Second third: Turkish delight and then rosewater at times, and cherry liqueur.

Final third: Mainly charcoal, I stop at the band.

70 minute smoke time to the band.

Would rate between 3/5 and 3.5/5. Probably closer to 3 due to the last third. I could see that this could near more rest/aging to mellow out the charcoal.

[Cabinet89]

Well that's better than the last one at least.  That heater looks like a patio warmer for sure too.  This one was 0.15g lighter than the last which isn't much difference.  I would suspect that the weight tolerance at the factory when assembling cigars is probably more than +/- 0.15g.  I would think they probably don't use cigar weight as a quality check, but rather ring gauge and length.  I work in manufacturing and quality assurance.  If you put too many criteria related to similar attributes on a product you will never have anything that passes.  We have some items graded by weight and length.  Some graded by circumference and length.  Very few are graded by weight and circumference and length.  The more "natural" a product is the more variation you see (food, cigars, etc).  The more precision constructed something is the more you can control it, albeit at a cost (screws, nuts, engine manifolds, sheet metal).

I would also expect the difference in weight between cigars kept at 65%, 69%, and 72% can't be very much.  That would be an interesting test to hold a few cigars at a constant humidity for 30 days or so, check the weights, then move to a different storage condition, allow to stabilize, and check again at a couple different humidities to see how each changes in weight.  I bet it would be very slight but that's just my gut feeling.  It seems you have a very accurate scale that can weigh in thousandths of a gram.  I also have a very accurate scale.  I may try this.  Unless this is already well understood and could be the reason you are weighing to begin with.  In any case glad you had a better experience with this one.

[Bijan]

@Cabinet89

Here are two Siglo V I weighed today. Official weight is 11.86g.

The heavy one was almost 39% overweight. Went all the way with perfecdraw but still too tight. Dry boxing at 59-60% from 65% storage.

The lighter one was about 15% overweight just on the high end for a lower RG cigar. Perfecdraw just as far and draw is snug but not too tight. Probably going to smoke this one tonight.

These can come 5% maybe 10% underweight so that's almost 50% variance! But I'd say most cigars are -5% to +15%.

As to ring gauge and length they vary a bit but generally not to this extent ring gauge varying more than length. So you are probably right.

I might do the experiment with weighing a cigar then storing at different humidity and weighing again.