Cohiba Exquisitos - MTS ENE 21 (FreeJul24)

[Tdm_86]

This is one of the cigars I brought on holiday to Crete. I’ll do reviews of some of what I brought for the review weekend. My ‘Crete series’ if you will. Nighttime at the pool lends itself well for smoking, a very light breeze at 28° C with low ambient humidity, perfect.

Pre-light

A fairly dark wrapper, with a barnyard aroma. I cut this à la méthode de Ayala (peeled the cap with my fingernail) as I didn’t bring a cutter. Cold draw is hay and toasted tobacco. Quite a tight draw.

First half

Tight but manageable draw, it’s spicy on the draw like a rye is spicy (grassy/green) with a coffee and citrus spine on the palate. The finish is creamy coffee. It’s taking longer than expected to reach the halfway point, probably because the draw is so tight. At about 20 minutes I reach half.

Second half 

The draw remains tight. Still tasty, the grassyness has completely disappeared. The draw flavor is a bit minty, I suspect because the draw is tight I’m overheating it a bit. The palate is deep and dark coffee, but with an unexpected vanilla edge. Weird, but tasty. The finish is nutty and oily. 
 

Conclusion 

As far as Exquisitos go, this was a weird one. Normally, I’ll get more of a typical linea classica profile out of these. Not that this was bad, just different. Most likely that was because of the tight draw. The other ones out of this box I’ve had were more in line with what you’d expect out of base Cohiba. Smoke time was the best part of 45 mins, courtesy of the restricted draw. 

86/100

[Nevrknow]

I have 2 boxes of those exact ones. 3 months ago they were indeed weird. Tight draw, perfect draw mildly helped. Then BAM. Now they are off the charts. Stored at 65% 70*. I hope yours turn around for the better like mine did. Maybe a tad more time?

[Tdm_86]

10 hours ago, Nevrknow said:

I have 2 boxes of those exact ones. 3 months ago they were indeed weird. Tight draw, perfect draw mildly helped. Then BAM. Now they are off the charts. Stored at 65% 70*. I hope yours turn around for the better like mine did. Maybe a tad more time?

Others from the same box have been fine, more in line with what you’d expect. Par for the course.