Reviews of Royln's 30

So Royln's 30 bomb has sat for about 2 days and I was eager to get into them. Then i had an idea, I have never really "reviewed" cigars before so why not take these 30 cigars, pop my review cherry here on Ccom, and do a little review journal on them. Thanks to Royln for including me in this epic bombing run and hopefully i do him justice here.

First one out of the box is the old school Pepin blended 601 Green label (not to be confused with the current blend. Someone with greater knowledge correct me if i am wrong, but the blend was changed correct?) Per Royln this cigar is 2+ years old and as i said to him had a cello that was about as dark as he is.

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Upon taking it out of the cello the Oscuro wrapper is dark, smooth and oily to the touch. The perfecto is pretty much perfectly rolled and i don't see a blemish on it. Some really nice work done by the roller. The cap clipped nicely with my xikar guillotine and took to the flame perfectly.

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You will have to bear with me on the flavors, I'm still a relative newbie and can't pick up all the crazy flavor notes some reviewers can, so hopefully over the length of this thread you will see me picking up some different notes. The initial flavors off of the cigar are pepper and almost a bitter dark chocolate. The pepper isn't overwhelming but definitely there on the retro. The chocolate is like a baking chocolate, not much sweetness to be had yet.

The ash held for the first third of the cigar and then dropped on its own (into the stinky not on my lap thankfully) At the 1/3 mark the pepper is muted and only there on the lips and the bitter chocolate is in full effect with some.....maybe.....leather in there.

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The flavors remained the same throughout the cigar. Not much complexity to the cigar. Straight forward bitter chocolate overtone with leather thrown in there from the 1/3 mark on down.

The construction was darn good on this cigar. Burn line was perfect throughout the cigar, and the only small issue was that the band pulled up the wrapper a little when i took it off. (probably my fault) With about an inch left it got a little too hot and it was time to move on

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Overall it is a solid cigar that I would smoke again, but i wouldn't go out of my way to grab a 5 pack.

Any critiques from you veteran reviewers would be welcome.

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Comments

Puff_Dougie

Great review, Brian! And great idea to work through the 30 cigars! Can't wait to read what's next!

Chemnitz

Great review, Brian. That is some yellow cello.

Puff_Dougie

brianetz1:

This picture, though, is a little bit... uh... crack-housey. LOL

smoke_em_if_you_got_em

Great idea and sweet review there Brian. Please note the cigar was in my possession 2+ years..no telling how long it was aged before it was sent to me...glad you enjoyed it.

ddubridge

I like it. I like it a lot. Cant wait to see this develop.

Rain

Figurado?

brianetz1

Rain:
Figurado?

Perfecto!!!

Bigshizza

Dang!! Skills revealed!

pelirrojo

Double perfecto?

brianetz1

pelirrojo:
Double perfecto?

yep, double perfecto.....it was a pretty cigar....part of what drew me to it

brianetz1

So I had an interesting week with something going on every night and even had a major storm roll through that knocked out my power for about 20 hours and knocked about half a tree down in my yard. Well after the final cleanup this afternoon i was hunting around my humidors and figured i had earned a premipremium and this La Palina Mr. Sam appealed to me. On top of that, this 235lb man is running a 5 mile mudrun tomorrow and i figured "If I die, i want this thread to end with me reviewing a good cigar."

One thing about me is that i am a huge SUCKER for nice packaging, and all the La Plaina cigars have that. I love the old school bands on these cigars. The accent band with Mr. Sam in a fancy script fit right was a nice accent. Things like that really make a difference in my mind. I love me some Romacraft cigars, but presentation isn't their strongsuit and i would really have an issue paying more than 6 or so for their cigars because of that fact. Call me crazy.

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So i cut this with my trusty Xikar and lit it up with a single flame torch. Initial flavors to me were wood that comes through on the retrohale. The kind of taste of wood that you get when sitting next to your smoker when you are using cedar to smoke a nice pork butt. I also got some pepper in there too. Not a bad start.

The burn got a little wonky shortly after I lit the cigar....maybe because of how i lit it or the wind, but something to keep an eye on.

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After the first 1/3 the pepper faded and the flavors settled in with the woody flavor becoming the dominant flavor with a little sweetness mixed in....kind of a dry sweetness in there. I'm really enjoying this cigar and the only thing that bothers me is that the burn line is still a little crazy and i have had to touch it up a couple of times. The ash is very flaky, but held on until i got to the first band. I should have tapped it off before it got there because it fell in my lap while taking a puff. I survived, but there was a scare there for a minute.

At the 2/3 mark the pepper came back not just on the lips but on the back of the palate. With this cigar i never really got hit with the pepper on the retro like you do with an AJ or Pepin, but after the little break in the middle of the cigar it was there along with the continued woody overtone. The burn never got razor sharp, but evened out enough that i didn't have to touch it up.

In the final third i picked up a little coffee...not heavy, but a little something more to mix in with the wood and pepper that stick around until the end. The burn remained a little uneven, but corrected itself enough that i didn't have to mess with it. The flavors remained there til I nubbed it out.

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Overall i really liked the flavor profile of the cigar and the strength ended at a medium maybe a little medium full, but just barely. This was a great example of a cigar that was FULL on the flavor scale but didn't overwhelm with the strength....too many times if you want full flavor that covers the whole palate you have to deal with a strength to go along with it.

My final impression of this cigar that it was great, but not great enough to live up to the 12.50 MSRP.. I am a pretty price conscious smoker and that will play into my reviews. There are plenty of cigars in that range that i would pick up before picking up this premipremium. The burn issues really bugged me with this one. Any of the other cigars i have picked up in this range have been light it and forget it smokes.....i would love to hear anyone else's experience with this.

I would say this is a cigar that i would pick up 1 or 2 of to keep in my humidor and would enjoy when smoking, but wouldn't go out of my way to grab it. I really appreciate Royln passing this onto me. As being as cheap as i am, i am not sure i would have ever grabbed one of these and it was a great way to reward myself after a tough week.

Puff_Dougie

Nice review, Brian! By the time you work through these 30 sticks, you'll be ready to open your own review blog!

smoke_em_if_you_got_em

Another sweet review Brian. The Mr. Sam was a good smoke for me...but I enjoyed the Allison much more. Keep those reviews coming

Rain

Yard gars.

smoke_em_if_you_got_em

Rain:
Yard gars.

A$S