I'll preface this by admitting full well that I don't generally enjoy larger RG cigars, and typically smoke 46RG and below. That being said, this cigar blew my mind. I've always had fondness for the Neanderthal line, and with this cigar, I think Skip and Mike finally distilled their goal into the perfect package. It's squat and buff, in your face and unrelenting, and yet you keep wanting to come back for more. My total smoke time was 1 hour 55 minutes, but with a nubbing tool I could have squeezed another 10-15 minutes out of it; very impressive for such a short cigar. If you're a fan of strong cigars with a complex variety of flavors, regardless of vitola preference, I recommend you get your hands on one of these as soon as you can.
"Just a great cigar. Held my attention throughout, and it was a shame for it to end. For such a long burning smoke that's a real accomplishment. Flavors were all right in my ballpark, but a little different than the typical peppery sweet blends that are typical of that profile." -John I. (John I.)
In my most recent trip to Nicaragua I was fortunate to attend Puro Sabor 2018. Puro Sabor is a celebration of the Nicaraguan cigar industry and the people who make it so wonderful. I had previously been to Nicaragua once before, in the fall of 2015, and I was so grateful to be able to go back again. Since there's so much to cover about this trip I'll break it into a series of different articles each covering different aspects of the trip itself. One theme that I hope you'll notice in all of these articles is the people. The people are the most important aspect of every piece of the cigar industry in Nicaragua. Nothing is more important to the industry than its people and it's the relationships that make the cigar industry in Nicaragua so beautiful and so wonderful.