Big Al's Cigar Blog

Hoyo de Monterey Double Corona cigar review  3/11/2023 Its been a long time since I've smoked a Hoyo cigar but they have always been pretty consistently good.    The regular blend and the Excalibur have been their most sold and best blends, at least in my experience.  This one is 6.75 x 48.    Long and skinny.    Equadorian Sumatra wrapper, Connecticut broadleaf binder, and Dominican / Honduran / Nicaraguan fillers.    These have been made in Honduras for a really long time.   Pretty flavourful right away.    A little toasted caramel taste.    Been drinking coke and Cazadores tequila.    Seems to bring out the sweetness.    Not mild, but still smooth and easy smoking. Very slight spice left on the palate, but very good flavor of sweet dark root beer like taste left lingering.    And it only been like 5 to 10 minutes. Check out the ash.    I haven't had very many split out the ash like this.    These have only aged 2 or 3 months in my humidor.    So far, seems well aged.   It

Partagas Cifuentes Enero cigar review 3/8/2023 Partagas has been making these lower priced smokes for like 10+ years.    I bought a few boxes a while back, like probably 10 years ago.    This one is from that batch.    I had to look this one up and I really couldn't believe these are still available.   They were about $3 each back then and about $5 now.   It's an all Dominican puro with Corojo wrapper. Pretty mild at first.    Has that classic first Dominican flavor of sweet graham cracker flavor that has a papery and cedary taste.   I guess some describe this as creamy.    To me it's a little too much bite to call creamy.    It is mild but has some strong aftertaste.    Good aftertaste of sweetness and some spice. But still kind of has a slight bite instead of just flavors left on your tongue.   Yeah I know I'm being a little too critical for a lower priced cigar, but you need know what you are getting for 5 bucks.  You are getting a great rolled cigar from some fine r

5 Vegas Cask Strength Toro cigar review  3/6/2023 5 Vegas has been a steady and great brand of Esteli, Nicaragua for many decades. I've been a fan of the brand all of my 20+ years of cigar smoking.  This one has a red Corojo Nicaraguan wrapper with Nicaraguan binder and combo of Nicaraguan and Honduran fillers.  Um, it is not single barrel whiskey cigar but supposedly influenced by the strong alcohol content. These are stronger than most 5 Vegas smokes, but not really full bodied. Really good mild flavors right away. Like a spicy caramel Christmas spiced coffee flavor.  I need to add that I've had a few of these aging for maybe 5+ years. I see they still sell these. Are mine the same? I don't know. All I know is these seem to have aged very well and are really smooth and flavorful. Still pretty mild after first inch. Leaves a pretty good mild sweet and spicy taste. Half way through and it definitely has picked up strength. Sweetness has changed to more earth and raw