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Nub Sungrown drumstick

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I love riding to the FX Smith cigar factory. The motorcycle ride begins with rolling meadows and farms. About 45 minutes on, I stop at Spready Oak on Rt 1 in Conowingo for breakfast. Then across the Susquehanna dam, up the other bank, and cut right diving into the best that Merryland countryside has to offer. Woods, farms, hills. An hour farther on, the road abruptly becomes bad, the shoulders disappear, there are tar snakes, potholes, and that's how you know that you entered Pennsylvania. For the next hour deciduous boughs overhang your way, streams are frequent, ponds, bridges, reservoirs, culverts, one lane underpasses beneath abandoned train tracks, the ride gets twistier and tighter, punctuated by long dormant mill towns which those railroads used to service. But you know what is the best part? The best part, the whole point, culminates when I open the door. Because that's when tobacco odor hits me in the face.

I remember the story of the rich Texan visiting Britain who admired a bowling green and asked the caretaker what he needed to do to get himself a lawn as fine as that at his club back in Texas. The caretaker replied: "Well, it's simple, really. First, you plant a good quality sod. Then you roll it twice a day for four hundred years." Likewise this odor. First, you get a good quality leaf. Then you roll cigars out of it for a hundred fifty years. A handful of tobacco molecules every day and all night times a century and a half turns these bare pine floors dark mahogany, the naked knotty pine walls dark mahogany, the bare pine rafters even dark mahogany, and the entire space chock full redolent with the Attar of Tobacco. If you built a house from this old wood you would never see a skeeter. I have long said that if you worked in a bakery you would not need to eat. Just the aroma is nourishing. Well, if you rolled at FX Smith, you would not need to smoke cigars.

The moment I slid this Nub Sungrown drumstick out of its cellophane out in the garage, that's what hit me. I took a step back. I opened the door to the house and cajoled Bearswatter out to the yard. We sat in a pair of green plastic Adirondak chairs under the elms watching my Yellow Orinoco sprouts grow in their new bed. For a full twenty minutes, I just sat there sniffing the drumstick. Attar of Tobacco.

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It says "Sun Grown" right on the label. But it doesn't have any of that sungrown tickle. And the color is more brown. I would guess Habano. Smells like FX Smith. Tastes like earth, cedar, distant pepper. Firm throughout. The wrapper is tight on the conical part, but as it goes round the bulb, naturally, the wrapper edges are loose. It feels awkward, with so much weight in the bulb. Uncaps easily. The unlit draw unleashed a floral note. Distant pepper again. Attar.

I torched it with the whighter just to try the device out. That might have been a mistake. I think the flame was too aggressive. A big match would have gently warmed the bulb end, whereas this heated the bulb too quickly. As a result, I got an uneven start. The burn was halfway round the bulb before it straightened out.

Volume was immediate. Earth, cedar, floral attar. Mid-bulb, some chocolate developed. Pepper never stung. Rico. Sabroso. Fascinating to watch smoke creep round the bulb at you -- rather like snow flakes floating round your motorcycle helmet shield in Winter. Post-bulb, leather supplanted the distant pepper, and the floral note grew. But the real treat was having it nestled in Dan Reyes' stogie stand on the Adirondak arm beside me. This drumstick is an olfactory orgy.

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I do not see how this stick could be enjoyed without Dan Reyes' stogie stand. Too awkward without.

The one drawback is a serious one: It is way too short. Here you are just getting immersed in a world of mellow when the dang thing starts getting hot between your pointer and thumb. It even seems like the conical shape concentrates heat. I have no problem with the odd shape. It just needs to be two inches longer. It's that simple. It's like the sound of tires in your girlfriend's driveway and you have to pull out and bolt out the back door with your shoes and shirt in your hands quick before her parents come in.

That's why I give this four stars instead of the full five.

Fine toasty first rate stinkfinger, cedar and chocolate. A pleasant morning mouth. A damp wheeze.

BTW -- This stick came from Rain. It was sitting right beside La Aroma de Compost. The day was heavy overcast leading to rain. Every five minutes, I'd feel a droplet, in fact. Zero burn issues. Smoldered happily for two three minutes at a stretch.

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)


Comments

  • gripnripgripnrip Posts: 502 ✭✭✭
    Thanks for the review-I always enjoy your posts, writing style and reviews. Never been much of a Nub fan but may have to give this one a try.
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