Cigar:            Consuegra #30

Size:             50 x 5.50"

Wrapper:          Hon, E

Binder:           Hon

Filler:           Hon/Nic/DR

Flavor Body:      Mild-Med

Stength:          Mild

Country:          Hon

Date Received:    2004-06-07

Suspected Age:    6 months

Vendor/Price:     Gift from JP, ASC (Thanks!)

Beverage(s):      Water

Smoke time:       1:10

Date:             2004-09-05

Posted to ASC:    2004-09-06

Overall score:    3.0/5.0

Overall:    Maybe this would get better after a few years.  It was a gift (Thanks, JP!) and it may be a few years old.  I hope not.  After writing this I checked my notes on the Connie #9.  Similar experience.  Initial pepper then sweet toastiness, then a discordant ash note.  Burn problems.  Harsh in the back of the throat.

Ambience:   I am watching a cute, young, petite brunette in low rider jeans with chin space and a butterfly tattoo above her crack preflight a Cessna 152.  Oh, baby, lots of ambience, and all of my favorite things.  Harvey Field, Snohomish, WA - S43.  The sky is blue and cloudless, the grass green and the orange windsock and yellow jump flags flutter in the wind - 10 knots with gusts to 15 out of the NW - about 45 degrees off the runway.  Fair number of tire squeeks this late afternoon.  I need a set of numbered placards to grade the landings.  Sunny, cloudless sky, the morning and afternoon clouds have completely dissapated, 70F.  After a 3 hour flight I'm sitting on the grass outside my hangar in a blue fabric foldup chair wearing my old straw cowboy hat, and about to cut a Consuegra 30.

Skydivers whoop and holler as they manuver into the landing zone 50 yards away.  The 35' wide runway is 25 yards beyond.  Brunette just took off.  The jump plane, a Cessna Caravan turbo-prop (600 HP) takes load after load up to 13,000 feet and the morons jump out of a perfectly fine airplane to become meat bombs.  The pilot prides himself on beating the meat back to terra firma.  He slips that thing from about 10,000 feet and you can hear the air screaming around the airframe. 

Here comes a chopper - noisy, overly complex, squirrely fuckers.  I hate them.

Screams and hollers come from the sky and the meat bombs pop their canopies at 1500 feet becoming parasails.  The tandems are easily discernable by their 4 dangling legs.  The jump plane lands, again beating the meat back to earth.  The colored canopies catch the low sun, glowing.  At a few hundred feet they spill air, going nearly horizontal, swoop in recklessly fast, flaring at the last moment for standup landings.  Some of these folks are really, really good.  You have to have 200 jumps before you can land at the airport.  Babes run out squealing to the landing zone, and I think I catch a whiff on the wind.  They come to watch their men jump, and all of them are young enough to be my daughters.

The brunette has returned from her flight lesson, and is tying down the plane.  My thoughts are testimony to how long the little woman has been away.  You know what they say about women with tatts on their asses.

Construction:     Construction looks fine.  Some medium veining with a bit of tooth.  Firm with a soft spot near the foot.  Nice toffee aroma. 

Cut & Prelight:   Cut well.  Nice draw - some resistance.  Nutty draw flavor with some pepper on the lips.

First third:      Initially some pepper with huge green nuttiness.  Bit low on the smoke volume.  The greeness waned greatly and the pepper increased.  At 1.5" into it the pepper is fading.  What remains is a mild sweet toastiness similar to the prelight draw.  Burn is a problem, and it is not the wind.  One side does not want to burn.  I can feel the firmness down one side.  Flame corrections.

Second third:     Settled down to a pleasant mild smoke.  Sweet toasty finish is developing.  Burn is still a bitch.  Some back of the throat harshness.  Recut the head and it helped but did not cure the burn.  Some ashiness entering.

Third third:      Getting harsher and ashier which is spoiling the sweet toastiness.  Abandoned it at about 2".