This was September’s cigar pick for our monthly club. I was excited to see that it was a Don Pepin Garcia pick this time, and one that I had not had before.
I smoked 2 of them before writing this post, one Saturday afternoon, and one Sunday evening. The first one started out a bit hot and very spicy, but quickly mellowed into a mild-to-medium smoke with hints of leather. The second one wasn’t hot at all, was smooth all the way through, and I got the same hints of leather and some earth tones to it. There was plenty of smoke and the flavor was quite good, but I think that I still liked the Blue Label better.
The cigar burned a bit unevenly towards the end, but this didn’t affect the flavor or quality at all, in my opinion. I look forward to smoking the other 4 sticks I got.
Don Pepin Garcia, Herfers.com Club
Don Pepin Garcia Vegas Cubanas
I haven’t written a post about these before, but I know I have smoked some. This cigar started with quite a punch in spice, but quickly mellowed into a nice woodsy, earthy smoke. The flavor resembled that of Oak. There was plenty of smoke and a great draw.
I smoked the first 1/3 of this stick one night and let it go out, then picked it up the next day. After a very short dry spell, it returned to the earthen woodsy flavor from the previous day. I would like to smoke another one of these, but it won’t make my top 10 list.
La Flor Dominicana
cameroon cabinet, cigar reviews
I smoked this cigar a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t written a blog post about it yet because I didn’t want to just rip it with my first instinctive response. Now that I have had time to gather my thoughts, I am gonna write it.
This cigar was awful. I know that it was made by Pepin Garcia, who is just about my favorite producer right now, but this one was horrible. The draw was tight, the smoke very, very light and the cigar didn’t stay lit. It had a very bold body to it, almost too much so, because I went to bed that night with a headache and not feeling well. There was no nausea like I have read some cigars will do to you on an empty stomach (never experienced this myself) but I didn’t feel well at all.
I am hoping this was just a bad stick. I have one more that I will try and force myself to smoke some day, but for now I don’t think I ever want to try this one again. I hope all Padillas are not this way.
Padilla
padilla cigar review
I bought this one just the other day at the Grapevine Cigar shop just because I was in the area. I lit it up and smoked half of it right away. It was quite good, tasteful with a flavor that I really didn’t recognize, plenty of smoke and a good draw.
I picked up the cigar 2 days later, last night, re-lit and smoked the rest of it. The flavor was still 100% present, plenty of smoke, good draw and not dry at all.
This was a really good smoke, good quality, good wrapper and good taste. I want to get another one and see if I can distinguish a flavor this time.
J Fuego
cigar review, cigar reviews, J Fuego 777
Many times for Labor Day we will take a trip down to Galveston TX to spend the weekend with family. This was the activites for this weekend, so when we got into town, I asked my wife to lookup any local cigar shops and she was able to find Hava Cigar Shop on her Blackberry.
We stopped by here on the way out of town yesterday and I asked my normal question that I do when in a new shop, “What do you guys have that no one else does?” The tobaconist there was most helpful and took me into the back where they stored some cigars in a humidor that wasn’t for the public. He showed me some Camacho cigars that he said the owners of the shop picked up from traveling to the Camacho factory and these cigars were the ones that were new, non-production blends, ones that didn’t make it into standard production, but were tested for production and then later changed in some way. I picked up 3 different vitolas and smoked the first one as soon as I got home.
The cigar started rather bitter, but I have noticed that many cigars do, especially ones that I am not famliar with, maybe it is some kind of mental thing. I pufed through the first bit of the cigar, and the flavor developed into a smoky, peppery flavor, with a hint of cream. The pepper as quite strong and always present, but I didn’t believe it to be over abundant. The smoke was cool and there was plenty of it, I continued retro-hailing the smoke all the way down to the nub and it never got hot at all. The flavor remained constant pepper throughout the entire smoke. Pepper isn’t really one of my favorite cigar flavors, but this was a really good cigar. I might have to call the shop and have them ship me some more, but I need to smoke the other 2 first 
Camacho
camacho havana, hava cigar shop