I really enjoyed the Reserva Miraflor by Guillen Cigars and I had high expectations for their second regular production blend, the Goviado. This 5 x 50 robusto is a Nicaraguan puro and it met up with the expectations.





The wrapper is nice and silky with just a few minor veins and the color is quite light. The cigar has a full barnyard aroma and a fine predraw. After lighting I can taste a peppery toast that leaves a dry feeling in my mouth. Soon I discover some chocolate on the background. I can also taste a slight leather flavor while the toast is disappearing. After about ½ an inch, the flavors become warm and they get an undertone of earthy flavors.



After an inch the toast returns with some chocolate on the background. Some puffs later I also get some wood and once I reach the mid of the cigar some nuts accompany the wood. The nut flavor grows in strength as closer I get to the end. I nubbed this cigar.



I get lots of thin smoke from this cigar, first the smoke is a bit brownish, but it turns bluish later on. The ash is medium dark and firm. The draw and burn are great. This is a full flavored, full bodied cigar that caused a bit of vitamin N overdose.



Would I buy this cigar again? Hell yeah!

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 8 / 10
Aroma third part: 8 / 10

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I have to give a lot of credit to Steve Saka, president of Drew Estate. Before he created and released the Liga Privada #9 I would take a walk around the block to avoid touching anything with the Drew Estate name to it, but after smoking a Liga Privada #9 I wanted more of those. And then there came the Flying Pig, a fat funny looking stick that made its way to the top 5 of my "want to try" list. I tried it, and loved it.



The flying pig is made from the same blend as the normal Liga Privada #9, so it has a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper, a Brazilian binder and Honduran & Dominican filler. The wrapper is nice and dark and is almost veinless, it looks like a small bomb. The cap has a pig tail, but that was expected with a name like this. The cigar has a full barnyard aroma. The construction feels good, but the predraw is a bit easy and leaves a delayed pepper flavor on the tongue.



Right from the start I can taste cacao, mild bitter and earthy flavors. After a few puffs I can also taste some herbs and spices, like seedless red peppers. After a third the flavors mellow out, the pepper and the cacao disappeared, the herbal flavors and the earth are now the only flavors noticeable.



Halfway the aftertaste becomes a mild creamy chocolate flavor but unfortunately the chocolate doesn't stick around, the creaminess does. Close to the end the cacao returns.



The draw starts off a little bit on the loose side but gets better. I get a lot of smoke from this cigar, medium thick and it has a blue shine to it. The cigar has a strange shape, and just like perfectos I can't get it to burn straight in the beginning, but after a correction the cigar burns quite well. The ash is white, compact and firm as you can see on the pictures. The cigar is full flavored and medium/full bodied. There is hardly any build up of tar. It lasted me little over an hour.



Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, yes, yes, I want more. I bought 2 of those in a box split and promised the other cigar to a friend, but fortunately he got a box of his own so I have one left to smoke.

Appearance: 9 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 8 / 10
Aroma second part: 8 / 10
Aroma third part: 8 / 10

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This Danneman artist line HBPR was advised to me by Hartman cigars, a local Amsterdam cigarshop. It is a 5 x 50 Nicaraguan puro with a light colored wrapper with some small veins and a light aroma. The band is quite simple but tasteful.





I can taste some wood, but it is very mild. After about half an inch there is a mild leather flavor which grows slowly in strength but it keeps mild. After a while it becomes a bit sweet and also a bit creamy. At 2/3rd of the cigar there is a mild and light chocolate flavor, again a bit creamy with a light sniff of white pepper. Closer to the end the creamy chocolate disappears and it’s wood and white pepper.





All the flavors are ‘a bit’ or ‘a little’ and that is a shame. Flavorwise it is a good cigar, but the flavors are just too mild for me. Construction wise, flavor wise, draw wise, burn wise I can’t say anything bad about this cigar, except that it is way too mild for my taste.



Would I buy this cigar again? Maybe, it is a very nice cigar but a little on the mild side

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 6 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 8 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10

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Some time ago, Camacho cigars made a viral advertising campaign called ‘the black band project’ that was supposed to take care of all the prejudice there is about Cuban cigars versus Non Cuban cigars. Everybody, well, almost everybody as the demand was bigger than Camacho expected and there were problems with the shipping, that signed up and watched the video’s got 3 cigars for free.





The third and final cigar from the box was a 4 ½ x 50 (petit) robusto with the original name 50/4.5. This cigar is the first all maduro cigar in the world and consists of 5 different Honduran maduro tobaccos. The dark wrapper is almost black and very oily. There are just a few veins running over the wrapper. The aroma of the cigar is peppery chocolate and quite strong. The construction feels good. The predraw is on the loose side and gives me a dry raisin flavor.



The sweet coffee I tasted wasn’t what I expected but after a few puffs I for the expected pepper boost combined with mild chocolate. The coffee and chocolate fade away quickly and I am left with a sweet black pepper.



The chocolate returns pretty quickly on the background. After an inch and a half the strength of the pepper tones down a bit and half an inch later the chocolate becomes the dominant flavor with pepper as a support. At the 2/3rd point the flavors change again, the pepper grows and becomes the dominant flavor until the end.




The draw is on the loose side but the smoke makes up for it, lots of thick white smoke. Smoke this in Vatican City and people think there is a new pope chosen. The burn is straight and the ash is firm and white. It took me 75 minutes to finish this cigar.



Would I buy this cigar again? Yes, me likey this cigar.
Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 6 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 7 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10

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Some time ago, Camacho cigars made a viral advertising campaign called ‘the black band project’ that was supposed to take care of all the prejudice there is about Cuban cigars versus Non Cuban cigars. Everybody, well, almost everybody as the demand was bigger than Camacho expected and there were problems with the shipping, that signed up and watched the video’s got 3 cigars for free.





The “B” cigar in the package turned out to be the Honduran puro Camacho corojo in a 5 x 50 robusto size, or as Camacho likes to call it, the Monarca. The wrapper is smooth, dark and oily and the construction feels good, especially compared to the Black Band A (Camacho Connecticut) that I smoked earlier. The predraw is fine and I get some wood and raisin from the predraw.



I can taste a mild bitter coffee with a peppery aftertaste in the back of my throat, although the pepper disappears soon. The bitterness disappears too and is replaced by some mild chocolate. All the flavors lose some of their strength.


After about an inch I can taste nothing, all the flavors are gone until a mild chocolate shows up again and the chocolate brings his buddy hay to the party too. The texture of the flavors is creamy. At 2/3rd the flavors gain some power and get a bit creamier. Some spices show up too. At the end I can also taste some pepper and nuts.



This cigar lasted me 90 minutes. For 90 minutes I had lots of medium thick smoke, firm silver gray ash. The burn was a bit off, but I never had to correct it. This is a medium flavored full bodied cigar.



Would I buy this cigar again? No, this was a nice cigar but nothing more than that.
Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 6 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10

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