SCDLH El Principe - HP EML Feb15 -- PL+SC Review Comp 2016

[skalls]

So I had this cigar on Friday and 2 days later I'm getting around to writing up this review.  I had plans to do this after the game yesterday but I got all grumpy because my team lost.  Then I got into my scotch cabinet and well no review was happening.

I'm an anal retentive jackass, one of my little quirks is resting cigars for 3-4 weeks before I give them a try.  This is probably overkill but I want to make damn sure the cigar is acclimated to it's new conditions after shipping.  And lord knows how slowly the post office works sometime.  But since this is review week and I've only got 3 SCDH and PL cigars in my humidor here (TOS La Fuerzas in the OLH, dammit lol) I broke my rule and gave an el Principe a try after only 8 days rest.

Some people may look at these small cigars and scoff at them, but they don't know what they are missing.  Minutos are generally jam packed with flavors and are tasty little buggers to smoke.

Pre-Light:

Firmly packed but has a perfect draw.  Flavors I'm getting are dark chocolate, espresso and molasses. Wrapper is leathery feeling.  There's not a ton of oil content to it but there's enough to lead me to assume I'm going to get a lot of flavors out of it.  I'd prefer a darker wrapper, but I'm hoping for good things here.

First third:

I'm frankly surprised by the flavors.  I figured I'd get dark chocolate and some espresso based on the pre-light flavors.  I'm getting mostly molasses and cake.  I'm not disappointed but this cigar threw me a curve ball.  Body is mild-medium, no strength or youthful harshness, but admittedly given that this is 2015 cigar, my worry is the finish of this cigar is going to fall off.  I don't want it too though because the flavors are certainly interesting.  The smoke output isn't really where I want it to be.  The smoke is whispy and dry.  The finish isn't terribly long lasting.

Second third:

The burn isn't good.  I won't fault the cigar for this too much since I am rushing it.  That said it's not terrible, just not where I want it to be.  The molasses has died down a bit and isn't up in your business anymore.  The cakey bits has increased a bit along with some cooking spices that are very faint.  The smoke output thankfully has increased and that was sorely needed.  The finish is more long lasting now too.  The body has been flirting with medium levels but hasn't quite stuck with that level yet.

Final Third:

The burn has been complete crap.  I know it's not the cigars fault because the big dumb monkey smoking it didn't let it acclimate.  But it's annoying me.  It's also getting colder outside and I'm not wearing enough clothes, which further proves that the big dumb monkey is very very dumb.  Thankfully though this is a wee little cigar chock full of flavors.  The molasses and cooking spices both really asserted their dominance here.  Cake is still in the background.  Smoke output has continually increased throughout this third too.

And true to form I wasn't paying attention to where the label was and singed it.  Attention to detail is not present here today apparantly.  The flavors unfortunately went to a grubby earth quality shortly after I took the label off, luckily that was at the tail end of the cigar and I pitched it after only have 3 puffs of that as it got very warm.

Final Thoughts:

This is a cigar that will be firing on all cylinders in 6 months.  I really won't have more than 1 chance to smoke one of these in the next 6 months anyways (Fargo winters) so when spring arrives these will be ready to go.  I dug the flavors, I actually enjoyed the curveball it threw me at the start.  Burn time ran about 40 minutes.

88/100  

I'm being a bit harsh on the score because of the youthfulness at the end and the burn issues.  The former was really disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, because the flavors were just on point.  The burn issues I don't believe are related to construction, but rather a lack of acclimation.  Remove both of these and I think the cigar is around a 90-91.  I'm not sure what the upper point is for these, mostly because I don't think this is a box that is going to survive another 18 months.

[TheMonk]

El Principe does usually work well for me, although I agree it needs to rest a bit to soften some harshness. Very nice review!

[JohnS]

Bring on the Fargo Spring! I hope they settle by then and they turn out 'awesome'!