Ave Maria Holy Grail Unknown (49NRW)

[ChangBang]

In honor of hand cannon territory, I chose the biggest cigar I had.  Here we have the Ave Maria Holy Grail 7.1" x 58 beast that I bought when I was just getting back into the cigar hobby.  Not sure how this stacks up in weight, but figure I'd weight it anyways since I was deciding between this and a Gurkha governors private blend at 6x60.  That weighted  2 grams less, so went with this one.  

Aroma is barnyard and overwhelming spice and stings the nostrils a bit.  Right after I lit it, I heard some a pop and the wrapper split maybe from the foot and up about 2 inches. Probably should've dry boxed as it went from 70% to 25% rh.  Oh well, next time.  Draw is fine once I get past the nipple.

This thing starts off full of spice with black pepper being the overwhelming flavor.  I'm not really a fan of this and struggle to get past this.  The spice eventually dies down and becomes a light leather and nutty flavor.  That being said, the spice is always there lingering in the background except when it's punching me in the face which happens back at the 2/3rd.  Struggle through the spice/pepper which is accompanied by a bitter flavor this time around - just a rough spice.  It does fade away and is replaced with a woody/cedary note which is nice.  

From probably half way through the 2/3 to the end, it alternates between that rough spice and woodiness.

I was watching MNF and it lasted till about end of the 3rd qtr being around a 2hr smoke till I had my fill and put it out.  Burn needed some touchups due to the wrapper splitting but otherwise wasn't too big a deal.  

I give this a 1.5/10 as the flavor profile really isn't my thing and was a struggle, if you like overwhelming spice/pepper this is the cigar for you!  Can't wait till I smoke my next cigar to get this memory out of my head lol