Cigar Mold

I earlier posted, then quickly removed, a rant about Plume versus Mold. Thankfully, my rant received the proper attention, which is to say my bullshit was called, and what I was presenting as Plume was actually revealed to be Mold.

Totally not Plume

As an apology to the /r/cigars community I so love, I went out and purchased a potato-quality microscope with a VGA sensor eyepiece attachment to discern what I was looking at. Sadly, quality is about what you'd expect from the camera, so you're going to have to trust me as I present my findings, which I will back up with observations from the regular optical eyepiece, which obviously had a much clearer picture.

Here we go:

Between 40-80x magnification

Between 40-80x magnification

So these first two picture you're looking at are regular, healthy, leaf taken from an unaffected part of the cigar in question, a Romeo 1875 Numero Dos Tubo. Can't apologize enough for the tough-to-work with quality, and I may back these up with my friend's stereoscope in the near-future, but what I was looking at wasn't far from Butcher's Paper (or Brown Craft Paper), it looked coarse, light shone easily through it, very sort of "fuzzy" in it's quality.

Between 40-80x magnification

This next image is taken from an affected part of the leaf, and pretty clearly shows a sort of "sea" of white fluffy mold. Almost spiderweb like in appearance. So that clears it up, it was definitely mold.

Finally, I took a picture of a piece of mold I removed from the leaf to attempt to get the maximum quality out of my potatoscope.

Between 150-300x magnification

Although it may look slightly crystalline in this fuzzy image, it's actually got that same spider-web like appearance on the regular ocular. Imagine balling up a larger web, and the appearance wouldn't be far-off.

So, again, though science is never completely infallible in it's observation, and barring the possibility of some small insect civilization on this box of RyJ, we're looking at mold, it's pretty clear.

As a final note, please understand that the reason I cannot list the exact magnification of the images is because the digital ocular doesn't list one. The regular eyepiece spans from 10-20x magnification, making the three subjects 40-80, 150-300, and 300-600 power total. Since the camera lists no magnification, I'm forced to list the potential range achieved by the subject alone.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner

PotatoScope: Fun for the Whole Family!

El Beest by Blue Mountain Cigars

Next in my lineup of Blue Mountain's products is the comically named "El Beest".

That is not a typo.

I'll start with some observations, then we'll read the technical specs together, then I'll smoke it and cough up a review.

This sample given to me by the BMC rep was, like it's predecessor, rolling around in a trunk for a few days before it reached my hands. I treat all hand rolled cigars with respect, so I immediately put it in my humidor for reconditioning. It's been a few weeks since it entered the proverbial hyperbolic chamber, today, it will meet it's end in battle.

The Beest, as I realize calling it "The El Beest" is redundant like "ATM Machine" or "PIN Number", features a relatively dark wrapper. I'm not sure whether they intended for it to be a maduro but it certainly could pass for one. The industry has been blurring the lines on what constitutes a maduro lately, with some maduros being the same shade as an average sun grown. Not really sure what the jam is here, but El Beest is dark. Alright, I give, I looked it up out of curiosity, they call it a Nicaraguan Habano Criollo wrapper. What a mouthful, no pun intended.

So aroma pre-light is full of spice, fairly well expected from it's Nicaraguan origins. I don't smell much else, save for perhaps the barest hint of remaining ammonia.

Cap construction is a little odd. The cap goes over half an inch down the body of the cigar, and is finished with a pig-tail. I guess in theory that's good, since cutting the cap lends to your cigar unrolling, but it wasn't done very artfully.

The label is ridiculous. It reminds me of some failed 3D rendering for a creature that might have appeared in the Avatar movie everyone was raving about a few years back. Somewhat like a Saber-tooth Tiger might look like casted in a Super Mario Brothers game.

If that's El Beest, I'm not scared.

BMC seems to only sell this cigar in one vitola: robusto. While I can't fault them for their choice of a pretty standard size to introduce this cigar, a greater array of sizes will showcase the flavors of the tobacco better than giving up and saying "Guys, we're taking the easy road. Roll 100,000 robustos and box them up."

Disappointingly, many industry newcomers make this mistake. The more intense flavors of this cigar might have fared better in a wider ring-gauge, like a toro gordo. However, the robusto does another thing, it normalizes their price to a modest 6.50 MSRP per stick. That's probably to their benefit.

So I light up, and I'm immediately tasting pretty average Nicaraguan spices. There's a strong earth note early in the cigar, like a metallic earthiness. I also taste a lot of leather, but not like a pleasant "we just walked by a Wilson's" leather, it's more like a "You just put a new saddle on an old horse and tried to sell it to me", leather.

Body is fairly full, note over the top. They got that right. Supposedly their filler/binder blend is a Nicaraguan Ligero, but I can't imagine they've used a Ligero as a binder, because it doesn't burn well. However, looking down at the burn lines of my cigar, maybe they did...

Even though the core ash is solid and holding, I've had to ash this cigar multiple times because the wrapper keeps burning off in big flaky chunks and landing all over my shirt. It's kind of like going on the shark tank with a mustard stain on your khakis. They know you mean well. But that won't stop them from staring at the flaw.

I'm nearing an inch into the cigar and getting an herbal note in the tobacco. It's a pretty standard Oregano/Sage note, kind of muted behind the earth notes.

Draw remains fairly open. I did not dry box this cigar at all, and I used a fairly conservative straight-cut, so their Torcedors are probably fairly skilled. One cigar is hardly a fair judge of the overall consistency offered by their rollers, but my sample appears solid. I guess the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

I'll update this review if anything changes, and I'll certainly be fair about it, but right now, I'm issuing a tentative score of 2.5/5. This cigar is painfully average, but might be worth it or the average smoker due to it's low price point. If you're looking for a budget stick and you like earthy Nicaraguans, pickup El Beest.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner
Current Smoke: El Beest, Robusto