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What does a newb think this tastes like?

webmostwebmost Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
I am baffled by cigars reviews. I'd like to be able to walk into a cigar store and say "I like XYZ" and have the guy understand what I am talking about. Likewise, I'd like to be able to read a review, and understand whether I'd like it. I am very far from that. So I figure I'd try to identify what a cigar tastes like to me, then compare a review, then maybe some of this can help me steer toward an understanding of how to describe stuff..

For example, tonight I am trying a C&C Corojo robusto I picked up at the store this morning. I am about two-thirds way through it. Cheap enough at four bucks. Okay cocoa colored wrapper... nothing special. Feels a little loose, and draws loose too. It won't last real long, I don't think. Lights easy. Plenty of smoke. The smoke from this cigar reminds me of a hay barn. Especially when I blow it out through my nose. The wrapper smells like molasses and tastes like red oak. There's no bite to this smoke at all. Very gentle on the tongue. Most of all, if you like a hay barn, this is it. nOtherwise, boring. Even the speckled redhead I live with (a skittish bird with a distinctive giggling song) says she likes the smell. She's a farm gal, so likes the hay barn analogy. That's good. The ash doesn't cling as tight as I like. For some mystery reason, I am very attracted to a stout long even ash that doesn't sag sideways and fall off. For a robusto length, I wouldn't want to knock the ash off more than twice or thrice. This has fallen off four times already. Can't figure out why I find that important.

Now I'll google up a cigar review somewhere and see what, according to them, that means.

Stogie Guys say: "Notes include molasses, toast, graham, and a soft spiciness that lingers in the finish..." The only thing I got close to there was molasses. I can't see the toast nor the spice at all. The soft, yes. I ought to have said soft, instead of no bite. The color is like a graham cracker; grahams have molasses, I think; other than that... I don't see it.

Anyone here familiar with this cigar? How would you describe it? Am I close at all?

“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

  • kuzi16kuzi16 Posts: 14,633 ✭✭✭✭
    at some point it doesnt matter what others taste. it just matters what you taste and do you like it.

    read my "developing your palate" thread in my signature line.

    i cant stress how important keeping a cigar journal is to developing your palate.
  • 0patience0patience Posts: 10,665 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ok. Stupid question warning.

    Am I the only one who likes to smell the actual cigar BEFORE I light it up. Sometimes, the smell of the cigar before I light it will give me a lot of an idea of what it will smoke like. I guess I'm odd, cause there are times I get a really good smelling cigar, where I savor the smell for some time, before I will light it up.
    In Fumo Pax
    Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.

    Wylaff said:
    Atmospheric pressure and crap.
  • j0z3rj0z3r Posts: 9,403 ✭✭
    I don't think that's odd at all Tony. A good visual inspection, smelling the foot and the wrapper, tasting the cold draw...all those are part of my pre-light ritual. Granted I don't do that with every cigar, but when a cigar is new to me, I try and get as thorough a feel for it as possible.
  • webmostwebmost Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    0patience:
    Ok. Stupid question warning.

    Am I the only one who likes to smell the actual cigar BEFORE I light it up. Sometimes, the smell of the cigar before I light it will give me a lot of an idea of what it will smoke like. I guess I'm odd, cause there are times I get a really good smelling cigar, where I savor the smell for some time, before I will light it up.


    Yeah, shoot, I should've written that up too. I do all of that. I guess because that's the way I try wine. We're riding to a bluegrass thing at a winery today. I know I'll roll a half dozen tastings round the glass, smell them, inhale them, and all that before it ever goes in. Likewise with a cigar, before lighting. The look of it, feel of it, smell of it, the taste of it wetting the end with my tongue, how the caps pops off, how it draws, and what it tastes like when you draw cold. Next time I'll delve into more detail. I left too much out.

    Kuzi, I have to disagree with you. It does matter what someone else likes. It certainly matters to me that I need to be able to tell the cigar geek at the store what I like. And that I can understand what a reviewer likes. I have read your "developing your palate" guide, but I can't say I got a whole lot out of it. I'll read it again, I'm sure, a couple times. I think I need to identify what I taste first. Then translate that to all those common terms like cedar, pepper, and such, that I just can't relate to. Maybe I should get a stick of cedar and taste it.

    I do need a better taste memory.
    “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)


  • RhamlinRhamlin Posts: 9,011 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It takes a long time to really develop your Palate. And what you've had to eat, drink smoke that day will affect what you taste. Most of the time I can't detect all the flavors some people say they detect in a cigar. My thing is I either like it or I don't. And to me the inspection of a cigar is part of the enjoyment.
  • kuzi16kuzi16 Posts: 14,633 ✭✭✭✭
    0patience:
    Ok. Stupid question warning.

    Am I the only one who likes to smell the actual cigar BEFORE I light it up. Sometimes, the smell of the cigar before I light it will give me a lot of an idea of what it will smoke like. I guess I'm odd, cause there are times I get a really good smelling cigar, where I savor the smell for some time, before I will light it up.
    i mean have you read any of my cigar catalog? a preight smell and taste is pretty much mandatory.
  • kuzi16kuzi16 Posts: 14,633 ✭✭✭✭
    webmost:
    Kuzi, I have to disagree with you. It does matter what someone else likes. It certainly matters to me that I need to be able to tell the cigar geek at the store what I like. And that I can understand what a reviewer likes. I have read your "developing your palate" guide, but I can't say I got a whole lot out of it. I'll read it again, I'm sure, a couple times. I think I need to identify what I taste first. Then translate that to all those common terms like cedar, pepper, and such, that I just can't relate to. Maybe I should get a stick of cedar and taste it.

    I do need a better taste memory.
    taste is very subjective. google any fairly common cigar with the word "review" after it. click on the first 5 reviews that come up and you will get different tasting notes from all of the different reviewers. rather than looking for exact flavors, look for blenders that you know you like, or cigars that you know you like and what country that tobacco comes from. use that to talk to the cigar geek. tell him you that you like tobacco that is from Honduras, or Nicaragua, or you like the way Don Pepin Garcia, or Nestor Miranda blends. that takes a subjective taste out of it and still gives you something that he can latch on to.

    trust yourself first is what i am saying. you may love or hate my reviews, but in the end you are looking for a cigar that you love; not a cigar that I love.


    that is one of the reasons that i suggest getting to know flavor outside of the cigar world. look to understand the smells of coffee, leather, cedar, toast, and other flavors that are fairly common in cigar reviews.
    take an active roll in taste and and smell. dont do it passively.

  • 0patience0patience Posts: 10,665 ✭✭✭✭✭
    j0z3r:
    I don't think that's odd at all Tony. A good visual inspection, smelling the foot and the wrapper, tasting the cold draw...all those are part of my pre-light ritual. Granted I don't do that with every cigar, but when a cigar is new to me, I try and get as thorough a feel for it as possible.
    Tasting the pre-light draw. That is one part I often get stuck on.
    You know, when you get one of those that the pre-light draw is so tasty that it is hard to get past it and actually light it. LOL!

    Kuzi, I apologize man. I have not read your catalog site. I have a hard time reading blog sites and all, cause I often get lost in the wording. A lot of blogs tend to forget paragraph structure, which I find that as my eyes grow older, become more important to me.

    I will make it a point to check it out.
    In Fumo Pax
    Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.

    Wylaff said:
    Atmospheric pressure and crap.
  • beatnicbeatnic Posts: 4,133
    Just smoke a sht load of different cigars!. Your tongue will guide you. Don't ever get stuck on one cigar.
  • j0z3rj0z3r Posts: 9,403 ✭✭
    0patience:
    j0z3r:
    I don't think that's odd at all Tony. A good visual inspection, smelling the foot and the wrapper, tasting the cold draw...all those are part of my pre-light ritual. Granted I don't do that with every cigar, but when a cigar is new to me, I try and get as thorough a feel for it as possible.
    Tasting the pre-light draw. That is one part I often get stuck on.
    You know, when you get one of those that the pre-light draw is so tasty that it is hard to get past it and actually light it. LOL!
    Haha. I've done that a time or twenty myself, because you just know that once you light it that taste is gone.
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