This review is for sjn1117 #20.
A slightly oily sheen to a paper-bag brown wrapper, with some small but noticeably veining, and noticeably seams. However, the fill is nice and firm, producing a perfect draw. Smoke production is nice and thick, and the burn is good, wandering a tad but always correcting itself. I nice firm, stark white ash holds nicely for about an inch and a half, tapping to reveal a perfect cone. All in all, performance is above average on this one.
Starts out fairly light and mild, with some light wood and clean tobacco notes. Just a bit of a sourness in the background. Soon, there is a nice gentle spice that enters making this a very enjoyable start. Towards the midpoint of the smoke, it is consistent with the start, with just a bit of intensity growing from the spice, and less of the clean tobacco note. Unfortunately, soon after the midway mark, it develops a sour, ashy note the builds and is tamping down the enjoyable parts. Not particularly terrible, but not a good complement to the nice start. Definitely affected my opionion of a cigar I rather enjoyed for the first half. Maybe I just cought a bad leaf or something, as really I was enjoying this one for the first half. 3 stars, but would have been a 3.5-4 if judging what I experienced in the first half.
So what did I smoke?