San Lotano Connecticut Review (churchill)
drpepperdude
Posts: 298
7 x 52
I've heard so many good things about this new cigar that I made a rare trip to my brick-and-mortar stogie shop to pick up a connecticut and maduro version of this tobacconist-only line. So last night I lit up the connie and started typing between commercials on T.V.
Pre-light aroma is of extremely sweet hay. Veins on the cigar are thin and few. The connecticut wrapper is a darker golden brown than the usual connies I've smoked and enjoyed. I admire the muted green, red, and yellow band and the secondary yellow-gold band announcing the connecticut disposition of the stick.
After toasting the foot, the first few puffs after lighting gave off the aroma of a pleasant mild cedar and the taste was a tangy wood flavor. I fudged the lighting a bit with a bit too much flame on one side, but it soon corrected itself and burn is even.
There is abundant amounts of smoke after each draw and plenty of resting smoke from the foot.
After perhaps 15 minutes of smoking the long stick, the body is decidedly in the medium range and the flavor is what I would call a very woodsy taste with surprising depth; not complex in any sense of the word, but a solid presence of cedar and citrus with a medium finish and feeling of fullness in the mouth.
This is the second A.J. Fernandez cigar I've smoked (first was a MoW Virtue) and at this point I'm enjoying how it feels on my palate. Ash is holding firm at 3/4ths of an inch and I gently tap it into my ashtray to avoid any mishaps for my first experience with this cigar.
I retrohale before the stick creeps to close to the 2/3 part and the wood flavor becomes much more intense as a result with just the right amount of light spice (magnified through the nose).
I'm definitely enjoying this cigar more than anything else I had enjoyed this week and I'm not even at the halfway point of the stick.
A small amount of smoke is beginning to stream from the foot of the stick during each draw and I realize this is probably the best quality burn I've personally ever experienced from a cigar. The smoke produced from each draw is becoming more abundant.
While the strength is still holding at dead-center of medium, the flavor is still a tangy tobacco and finish is dry while the aroma from the cigar has become significantly sweeter. I'm impressed with how long the ash goes before it comes off.
At the halfway point of the stick I come across the first negative of this review; I remove the secondary "connecticut" band by unwrapping it gently and a small flap of the wrapper raises up where it was, most likely to just a bit too much glue.
The flavor has moved into a strong but still straight-forward tobacco flavor; there is more power than I usually get from a connie but it is still firmly in the medium range. Strangely enough, the cigar tones back down by the time I remove the main band and resumes it's woody qualities albeit with more of the flavor you'd expect as you enter the last 1/3'rd of a cigar.
The draw, while always good, really opens up at the end and there is copious amounts of smoke with each puff. This churchill is a full two hour smoke and while the strength is never beyond a medium-full, the final 3rd has me buzzed and the draw is becoming warm.
I nubbed the cigar despite the fact this connecticut punches above it's weight strength-wise than any of the other connies I've smoked. An excellent nightcap for light-weights like me and I look forward to smoking one again.
I'm definitely going to age several in my humidor and I can't wait to try the maduro wrapper!
Comments
dont forget about it.