Por Larranaga Panetela OEB FEB 07

[Cam]

thanks for your great honest! review

Cam -

[marco polo]

Nice review, I like these little smokes :-)

[smk819]

I have liked the first half of the cigar, but find the second half to have a bitter taste, Not a bad golf cigar though.

[Mark Twain]

I ordered a box from the Czar just before Rob posted this review. I've smoked two of the cigars and I concour with his findings. When they're on, they're a wonderfully flavorful cigar for the price. When they're off, like the two I smoked, they tend to fall apart in your hands. :-(

[El Presidente]

Por Larranaga Panetela OEB FEB 07

Quick review of one of my favourite little cheapies.

Overview of the good:

* Always Flavoursome.

* Medium bodied

* Sweet caramel note which to me is Por Larranaga.

* Inexpensive and delivers simple defined flavours.

Overview of the bad:

* Chronic underfilling. Waiting on a new shipment as current stocks are underfilled to a point where I would classify them as defective.

* Some questionable construction issues outside of underfilling. You get great boxes and dud boxes and little in between.

This Por Larranaga Panetela certainly looked the part. Well rolled with a rough but oily wrapper. Smeel at cold is all dung and tobacco.

Clipped the cap and the draw was over easy (as is often the case). Pure tobacco on the lips.

Fired up the foot and straight into a medium bodied profile combined with charred wood earthy tobacco flavour. Little peeper through the nose. It doesn't take long for some of that caramel sweetness to rise through the earthy/ woody core. The combination works so well with this cigar as it gives the Panetela a "lift" in complexity that I don't find often around this pricepoint. The burn is irratic with the ash flaking left right and centre. I can seldom get a great ash on these although I continue to try. The Panetela must shake its head and wonder what sort of moron would even contemplate it. There is no doubt that this cigar is meant as a quick inexpensive cigar delivering true Habano flavours. Anything else is false expectations.

I love the flavour consistency of this cigar. Into the mid section and it has not diverted in body or flavour profile. Yes...probably one dimensional but I like the flavour dimension it has (who could not like toasted tobacco, charred wood, earth and caramel?). Dropped the ash on my keyboard for the second time.

I find that the Panetela smokes better young than the Long Panetela big brother (Montecarlo). Montecarlo has a tendency of being sour in the first year or two but I don't find this with the Panetela. I enjoy this cigar as a morning cigar or a filler cigar when I don't have time for something larger but still yearn for an earthy habana hit. I take them camping and fishing because I don't cry when one goes into the water like I do when my Cohiba Robusto's do.

No change wit this cigar into the last third. Pure Habano goodness. Not overly refined, rolled in a hurry, probably using some secondary tobacco but there must be some quality leaf in there to come up with that Caramel sweetness which is consistent and a trait of these cigars.

This time the ash drops on my trouser and it is about to say goodbye to another quality 25 minutes with a cigar that has become a constant companion over the past few years.

86 /87 (100).