Firstly I would like to apologize for my several month disappearance. What started as a broken laptop ended up a myriad of excuses in life that distracted me from these writings. I'm back now, for the time being, and hope to resume regular updates.
So our friendly rep from House of Emilio visited the shop the other day bringing in his marketing buddy. His friend tried to order some pornography on our cable box, only to be thwarted by our passcode. We all had a good laugh at this guy's expense (he was smashed after his team lost some sporting event, the nature of which he could not clearly articulate).
Anyhow, this rep left me with the new Ezra Zion FHK, one in their honor series. Last time I tried the cigars from their line, I was not that impressed, but Ezra Zion (and House of Emilio, in general) have been gaining traction in the last six months. I still, as of yet, have very little desire to stock their products. But that may change in the future.
To be honest, I hesitate to call myself "old school" due to my age in this industry being unusually low. However, I find House of Emilio's twitter-heavy ad campaign to be kind of a turn off. I guess anything that brings more notoriety to a growing cigar brand is good, but Twitter lacks the "soul" of the cigar industry, seeped in tradition and history. I compare it to the Belgian and German beer markets, where the purity law is the final word in manufacture and the New and Bold are dismissed. Part of me knows it shouldn't be so, part of me accepts it in my classical tobacconist training.
That being said, I love American craft beer. Their bold flavors and bolder ideas are really dominating the market right now, and if you love beer, and haven't tried something out of the smaller craft market, you're missing out.
And so, I smoked the damn cigar.
It was a longer vitola, about seven inches, and a smaller ring gauge. Halfwheel.com indicates I was probably smoking the "Truth" vitola, a 7x44. That seems about accurate.
At first, this cigar was brilliant. It's siren song of bolder flavors in it's smaller ring gauge drawing me in, initially drawing on delicious nutty tones early on. If someone had wanted me to really enjoy Ezra Zion as a brand, they'd done their homework on that honeypot.
Then, strangely, as flavorful as the cigar was, it suddenly all came crashing down. The back half of the cigar was utterly flavorless, tasting of stale cigarettes. It was the strangest thing. Imagine getting into a brand new 2014 Ford Mustang 5.0 and speeding down the highway in a luxurious and unapologetic rear-wheel drive space shuttle. Then, halfway to your destination, suddenly it transforms into an early Prius. It's still moving, but what's the point?
I put it down with about two inches to spare. Life is too short to smoke shitty cigars.
Maybe I got a bad one, I'm willing to acknowledge that. Either way, I'm not going to write off Ezra Zion completely. The market still seeks them out as viable, so I will continue to monitor them. But for the time being, I won't be scouting for anything they make before breaking into a Camacho or Pepin Garcia.
3/5, and I wish I could do more.
-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: Some cheap bundle Conerico (I'm sick as a dog right now)
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