Cigar:            El Rico Habano Habano Club Redux

Size:             48 x 4.88"

Country:          DR

Wrapper:          ECSU,N

Binder:           Nic, Ligero

Filler:           Nic, Ligero

Flavor Strength:  Full

NicotineStength:  Full

Date Received:    2005-04-19

Suspected Age:    > 9 months

Vendor/Price:     CigarBid, $2.60

Beverage(s):      Water, Deschutes Black Butte Porter

Smoke time:       1:00

Date:             2006-02-02

Posted to ASC:    2006-02-02

Overall score:    3.0/5.0

Overall:    I have really been wanting to try these again.  Interestingly, I loved the first of these and wrote a glowing review.  The repeat performance was not so glowing.  It is a good cigar, full flavored, with much leather and some cocoa, but not much else.  Maybe it was the food I ate, maybe it was my changing palate, maybe it was my biorhythms, but I only got just over half-way, it bittered up a bit, and I became bored with it.  Seems they are going for power at the expense of flavor.

Ambience:   Evening in the sunroom with driving horizontal rain rattling on the windows behind me.  Listening to a live SeaTac ATC feed and working on year-end reports.  Stayed home today to await the cable tech to have the broadband enabled.  Took them all of 10 minutes.  And so ends a four month saga of Comcast/Earthlink finger pointing.  10 minutes after the tech left, the wireless was up and running, so no more pirating a neighbor's unsecured wireless and no more dial-up when necessary.  Yes, my wireless is fully secured :-)  Spent some of the day rotating beds (uptairs to downstairs to upstairs), and spent all of the day working remotely by laptop and blackberry.  It was a more productive day than most spent in the office - why is that?

Construction:     Dark milk chocolate colored wrapper with small veins, even light mottling, oil sheen, some tooth, and double cap.  Firm, with no soft/hard spots. 

Cut & Prelight:   Strong, sweet aroma with some floral tones.  Cut well.  Good draw.  Lip tingling.  Draw flavor, sweet dry hay and sweet black pepper. 

First third:      Initial powerful, eye-watering, blast of pepper.  Half inch in the sweet pepper has pleasantly settled down.  Leather.  Cocoa.  Spices.  Firm, compact ash, held to an inch.  Long aftertaste, slightly sweet. 

Second third:     Full flavored.  Leather, cocoa, and spices.  Pepper has waned.  Bittered up a bit.  Got bored and abandoned. 

Third third: