Like the other cigar bloggers in my circle, I was recently contacted by Andrew Roth from the H.J. Bailey Company about their new venture into having their own cigar brand: Don Ramon. The H.J. Bailey company has been in the tobacco business for over 75 years and is the largest wholesale distributor in the U.S. Well, now they’re cigar makers too. I was sent the maduro and Connecticut churchills to review, so look for the Connecticut to come soon.  A Honduran puro, this 7×48 cigar is made for H.J. Bailey by the Camacho factory.

Appearance: This wrapper is dark!  That’s the first thing that struck me.  It is dark.  The band is elegant but not overly done.  No veins, no tooth, and no visible wrapper lines.  The cap is not perfect, but it’s very well done.  This is a good looking cigar.  Looking at them in the box, they’re consistent across the board in color, size, and shape.  The foot shows an even roll.  Looking good so far.

Taste: This thing lit well, and immediately brought moderate maduro flavors.  There was a sweet chocolate at first, but then some slight bitterness kicked in.  I think the acridity is due to the cigar not having enough age.  This will go away with some time, and it muted a little bit during the coarse of the smoke.  Now, I love a maduro cigar; they’re actually my favorite, but you can’t look too far for flavor variety.  It’s leather and chocolate, and this was a maduro.

Aroma: This is a maduro and it smells like a maduro.  Strong chocolatey tobacco will infuse your senses with their aromas.  The smoke was mild and woody.  Probably still not something the wife would like inside the house.

Construction: Feeling along the body, it is a solid stick.  It was consistent in its feel throughout, and I could feel no plugs or soft spots.  After cutting, the draw was a bit tight, but not overly so.  It did start to burn faster on one side than the other, but it quickly corrected itself and then burned very well the rest of the way through.  The draw loosened up slightly, too, with the heat from smoking.

Overall Impression: I gotta say that I think there’s some real potential here.  Good construction, nice looking, good maduro flavor… It’s all going to come together well.  I just think that they need to rest for a little bit.  I’ve got more and I’m going to put them away for a couple months to let them age a bit.  They’ve done well at other blogs, so I definitely think there’s something promising with these Don Ramons.

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So a little while back, there was a deal going for a 3 pack of Macanudo 1968′s in various sizes for around $10 shipped.  I figured what the heck, and bought them.   I don’t usually smoke Macanudos, as they are a bit mild for me, and tend to lack flavor, but I’d heard good things about this particular stick.  Being a newer smoke by Macanudo, I could think of nothing better than to review one for the loyal fans of Cigar Command, so here we go!

Pre-Light:  As I ran this cigar across my nose, I got some hints of spice, and heavy leather and coffee.  It smelled good, so I was ready to light up.  I cut it with my trusty Palio, and took a pre-light draw.  I got the heavy leather and a little spice on the un-lit draw, and the draw was just about perfect, with no stems or veins in the cigar to speak of.  This cigar looks to be well rolled.

1/3: As I lit up, I got hit with some peppery spice and lots of leather and wood notes.  The ash was a little flaky, but the burn was perfect, and the smoke was very abundant.  The leather was hitting hard, and its a flavor I enjoy, so I didn’t mind.  I was enjoying this smoke, surprisingly.

2/3:  As I started on this portion of the cigar and it was consistent with the leather and wood notes.  The smoke was still very abundant and the burn was even.  The flavors are good, but there are not a whole lot of changes.  So far, I am enjoying this cigar alot more than I thought.

3/3:  As I finished up this cigar, I was still getting the leathery notes, and the pepper came back stronger on the last third.  I was really enjoying this a lot more than I thought.  I didn’t have to re-light this cigar once, and I put it down quite a few times for extended periods.

Overall Impression:  Overall, I had some reservations about this cigar, as it was a Macanudo, and I have never had a Macanudo that I enjoyed.  As it turns out, I enjoyed this cigar, but I don’t know if its price point will be worth keeping these in my humidor.  From what I understand, these are a little spendy.  That being said, I am thinking about grabbing another 3 pack for 10 bucks if I can still do so.
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Pre-light: I ran the cigar along my nose as I usually do and found a fairly strong floral and spice smell to it. I don’t usually enjoy floral sweetness, but with the slight hint of spice I was also getting, I thought this might be a pretty good smoke. I sat back and clipped the head with my Palio cutter, and lit the end up, and below is what followed.

1/3: As I started in on this cigar, the first thing I noticed was that the wrapper was very fragile. I don’t know if it was the humidity that my humidor was at or not, but I don’t usually have cracking problems with my other cigars. This one cracked at the foot, but was still smoking decently. I was getting some nice peppery flavors, but the overall taste was somewhat floral and sweet. The draw was a little tighter than I would have liked, but it wasn’t un-tolerable. Lots of sweet smoke coming from this cigar, and at this point its pretty enjoyable.

2/3: This is the point where the problems started. I mentioned the crack in foot of the cigar when I first lit it up. Well, this time, it decided to crack again, at about the 1/2 way point. It was still smoking decent, just not looking decent, so I continued with the cigar even though it had cracked. I was still getting mostly floral and some slight spice flavors, but I started to get distracted by the crack in the wrapper, as I could see it going farther and farther down the cigar.

3/3: I continued to smoke this cigar, but the wrapper was all but falling off at this point. It had cracked badly, and the flavors hadn’t changed much. They were very floral, and the spice flavors died down toward this portion of the cigar. I finally couldn’t deal with the crack in the wrapper anymore, as the whole cigar was wanting to come unraveled, so I put it out.

Overall, the flavors were enjoyable, but with a wrapper that fragile, it was really hard for me to enjoy the cigar to the fullest. Again, I don’t know if it had something to do with the way it was stored, but I wouldn’t think so, since all my other cigars seem to have no problem in my humidor. I think I might have to pick up a few more of these, in a few different sizes, and give them a shot to see if the wrapper issue was just a fluke.

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