So, continuing on from my earlier post of cigars smoked last month in Havana…

6.  Montecristo Churchill Anejados.  Sep 2008 “URO” coded, and priced at $335 CUC’s for a 25-box.  Not a bad smoke.  Better than the RyJ Piramides Anejados.  But still fairly uninteresting.  Toasted tobacco, some vegetal tinges, but no richness.  Was able and enjoying it enough to relatively smoke these to the end, but just barely.  Sad to say, these are very one-noted to me really.  Might be an overly large and expensive version of what some refer to as a “yard work cigar”, for when you’re doing other stuff that’s pre-occupying you.

7.  Cohiba BHK 52.  I’m more of a BHK 54 fan, and even so, not overly much of a BHK fan at all – I find they’re a bit much ado about nothing, and nowhere near as good as aged Siglo IV’s, CoRo’s, Espy’s and Lanceros.  That said, I did have a chance to have a solitary current production one that was a gift from a special friend-of-a-friend.  It was quite nice.  Very nice actually.  Tea, honey, strong flavours of fresh grass and herbs, fresh leather, even a slight sweetspice note with some mild hazelnut chocolate.  Just wonderful.

8.  Montecristo Especial.  Jun 2014 “ARG” coded, priced at only $7.15 CUC’s a stick.  I grabbed a few sticks from a newer-coded box of these I cracked into at the Casa Del Tabaco in the basement of the Hotel Nacional.  Was able to kick back and enjoy one of these in the courtyard at Conde de Villanueva (yes, the peacocks were there, but they were hiding in the back cafeteria area, secluded with their new chicks from November).  A very nice cigar.  Dark, dry cocoa tones, mild coffee tinges, leather and rich toasted tobacco.  The draw was perfectly resistant, and the ash and burn was amazing for such a youthful cigar.  Really debated about picking up a box, but already have a few resting at home, and found some other interesting boxes instead.  Most of the boxes of these Especials that I found looked similar, had the same date codes relatively, and looked to have equally amazing construction.  They smoked wonderfully, if not just slightly closed – would love to try another one with another year on it.

9.  LFDC Siboney 2014 RE Canada.  While it was offered but I chose not to partake in this, Yannick and Nicky did a bit of a tasting of them one evening when we were on the back terrace at the Nacional.  Some similar notes were picked up compared to my review of these from November.  However, similar to Simon’s recent review of them, they did note that some of the harsh sour tones were mellowing out.  As Nicky said, “not near ready yet” (as if Yannick’s face in that blurry final picture didn’t say that enough!), but apparently somewhat improving.

10.  Corona custom roll, from Juanita at Melia Cohiba.  Picked up a couple of her coronas and Churchills (only $2.25 CUC’s and $5.20 CUC’s a stick, respectively), and tried one of these coronas – had as a good-morning cigar with a cappuccino.  Not the greatest one of these I’ve had.  Fairly bland actually.  Weird bunching to the filler at the cut head.  Very faint flavours.  Light cedar wood and hay, nothing overly interesting.  Had a second cappuccino to finish the cigar off and make it worthwhile.  Will be lying the rest down for at least a year before I try another sample.

More to come shortly to finish this off.

Cheers all.