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La Aurora - Barrel Aged

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  • j0z3rj0z3r Posts: 9,403 ✭✭
    Fourtotheflush:

    I am curious about the posts about smoking cigars wrong.  Are they implying that former cigarette smokers tend to smoke their cigars too fast?  I am not a cigarette smoker, but think that I am a fast smoker and am always telling myself to slow down and enjoy the smoke.  As a newbie what are the reported methods of the 'puff puff draw' then wait etc?

    Curiosity is killing me, as I never seem to have enought time to smoke so I alway feel like I am rushing a cigar in.

     

    I wanted to throw in my two cents on this question. I'm not, nor have I been, a cigarette smoker. That said, I also smoked cigars hard and fast when I was just starting out. It probably took me about a dozen "bad" cigars to finally come into a more "cigar friendly" pace, and even at that I was smoking fast. It certainly takes some time, I feel, to really attain that patience and set a proper pace. I find that the more cigars I smoke and the more experienced I get (I'm still rather inexperienced), the more I don't want to smoke the cigar fast, but rather slow down and really savor the competing flavors and aromas that a nice cigar will give you. As far as that goes, I'm rather fortunate as I don't have a busy life...ie, no family of my own to spend time with, just work and then home, so it is not hard for me to spend some quality time with a good smoke and really take my time.
  • Big DanBig Dan Posts: 69
    ya u r lucky well i hav a girlfriend who supports me in my hobby but she doesnt like smoking around her so its difficult. but i do find time to do it usually while im doing my homework or just relaxing. i still dnt hav the patience i feel like im wasting it if i dnt constantly smoke it but it takes practice. and i just started out so i hav to give myself sum time to get the hang of it. i didnt get the thing about how the more u smoke u still feel inexperienced? im considering smoking cigarettes and cigars at the same time for a while just so i can suck down a cig and then savor the cigar
  • urbinourbino Posts: 4,517
    It helps if you have something else to do while you're smoking, Dan, and an ashtray. Take a book or an iPod or whatever you like to do that can be done where you smoke. Get you cigar lit, put it on the ashtray, and get into your book or whatever. You'll eventually settle into a rhythm of glancing up, getting your cigar and taking a puff every now and then.

    If it's just you sitting there with a cigar in your hand the whole time, it's going to be hard to not puff on it constantly.
  • rusiriusrusirius Posts: 565 ✭✭
    Big Dan:
    ya u r lucky well i hav a girlfriend who supports me in my hobby but she doesnt like smoking around her so its difficult. but i do find time to do it usually while im doing my homework or just relaxing. i still dnt hav the patience i feel like im wasting it if i dnt constantly smoke it but it takes practice. and i just started out so i hav to give myself sum time to get the hang of it. i didnt get the thing about how the more u smoke u still feel inexperienced? im considering smoking cigarettes and cigars at the same time for a while just so i can suck down a cig and then savor the cigar
    Are you trying to switch from cigarettes to cigars? I've seen quite a few people in my life (including my own father) try that path and it just didn't work... Well, let me qualify that statement though... They were all trying to "quit" cigarettes by switching to cigars... Figuring cigars were healthier of course...

    The problem is, it's just not viable... The thing is, as pointed out in my other post, a cigarette is designed to deliver a large and fast dose of nicotine... (and other things, but we'll get to that in a moment) A cigar just isn't designed to do that... A cigar will typically deliver a lower dose of nicotine and at a very slow pace... From my years of cigarette smoking I remember one of the great "joys" was getting that first cigarette of the day because I'd always catch a little "buzz" off it...

    I NEVER get that off of a cigar... No matter how strong it is it's just absorbed too slowly to have any real effect like that... At least on me...

    The other issue comes with the nicotine itself... I don't care WHAT they say, I honestly don't believe nicotine is the main addictive portion of cigarettes... To begin with, if nicotine was truely the SOURCE of nicotine addiction, then the nicotine patches would have a ridiculously high success rate... Instead the actual figure is something like what? 8-12% or something like that??? Now don't get me wrong... I'm not saying nicotine isn't habit forming... I just don't think it's the MAIN habit forming substance... I personally think all the extra additives and crap they put in the cigarettes are what cause the addiction... Why do I think that? Simple... How many people do you know that smoke "good" (i.e. we're not talking swisher sweets and white owl here) cigars that are addicted?

    When I was a cigarette smoker if 2 hours went by and I hadn't had a smoke I was already getting in pretty bad shape... Irritability, the shakes, etc... At MOST I have one cigar a day... If I don't have time one evening and can't get one in I don't freak out, I'm not going nuts trying to figure out how I can get one in regardless... I don't get all crazy wondering if I can get up extra early or stay up extra late to be able to get one, etc... Skip 1 day, 2 days, a week, a month... whatever... It doesn't matter... Sure I enjoy the cigar, I like to smoke them, but if I can't it's no biggie...

    Tell me how many cigarette smokers can do that?

    Anyway, the point being... No matter what your thoughts are on WHY, the fact remains that cigar smoking is wildly different than cigarette smoking... Cigar smoking fulfills a .... desire... Cigarette smoking fulfills a NEED.... Unfortunately when you have that need, cigar smoking just won't fulfill it because of it's differences...
  • Big DanBig Dan Posts: 69
    your exactly right. im not trying to quit cigarettes ive been smoking on and off for like 3 years im not addicted to them i can go weeks without having one and b fine but when i don have one i suck it down haha mayb im a little addicted haha and ya i dnt think its the nicotine either it has to b other ***. however cigars are more of a passion for me its a hobby i enjoy every aspect of them from drying the leaves and wrapping to that last draw.
  • MarkbbMarkbb Posts: 196
    I've quit smoking cigs. for the last 5years and have been a 2 pack a day for over 30years, I was off and on cigars but now I enjoy every evening a cigar or 3, and I really don't have no craving for cigs. but a nice smelling full bodied cigar thats when the sliva glands get going...and the La Aurora cigar Barreled aged they're a good cigar also!
  • webmostwebmost Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I stopped by my favorite B&M the other day, and my cigar geek suggested some $8 smokes they were clearing out for $4. They do this kind of thing. They have so many different cigars cycling through that they are always looking to clear shelf room by marking down or by shipping it out to their satellite stores. The whole front window of their den is blocked with stacks of boxes of stuff octracized from the shelf.

    One of these is La Aurora Barrel Aged #4s. Been there couple three years. Time to move it out. You unwrap this sucker and O my Cheese is Gowd, what an aroma. Strong tobacco with sweet dark rum. Rough glossy wrapper, kinda lumpy, dark, tastes like leather and rum. Uncapped with some effort, leaving a twist of wrapper dangling. Tight draw unlit tasted again like leather and rum.

    image the label color matches Ocelot, my old K75

    Lit with one match toasting the foot, giving off an aroma of oak and rum. Maybe it's just my imagination, knowing how this wrapper was aged in a rum barrel, but I really got the barrel flavor throughout. Smooth. Tasty. Nutmeg in the retro. Not long before the rum began to numb my tongue. Very yummy. The ash was rough and fell by itself at a mere 5/8", The aroma was outstanding, rum and nutmeg. Smoke volume was modest. The years it had aged in the humidor room at the store really were apparent, in that everything was so mellowed together, kind of creamy without cream flavor.. Early reviews of this thing written years ago sometimes complained of a bad burn, but this was slow and steady. By 45 minutes, this thing was kicking my behind my fingers were even getting numb -- flavor getting stronger -- oak and rum and nutmeg. Wonderful aroma. Love the retro. Beautiful experience. An hour in, I got distracted by a honey do which itself was interrupted by a fresh college graduate peddling home improvement door to door (ah, the job market these days), during which interruptions she died. Was a bit sour for a hit or two when I relit her. Then right back to strong creamy sweet rum oak nutmeg. I nursed this nub down to an inch by the ruler, and still sweet.

    Had a sweet honey stinkfinger all night. But, alas, the morning mouth was atrocious. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. in disgust. Had to get up and brush. By six, it had given me heartburn, and I brushed again. I was ready to coronate this corona the new daily and go score a box; but this aftertaste is awful. I like a good morning mouth. Hate this. Knocked off a full star rating. No wheeze.

    I give it three and a half stars. Four and a half for the party, minus one for the after party.

    “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)


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