I am sharing a couple of posts from my cigar friend Dave. He is putting our reviews on his blog page so you can look for future posts on our cigar thoughts. Here are the latest posts. Check it out at http://compacdave.blogspot.com/

The Pastor and the Shrink - Cigar reviews for your mind and spirit - The Alec Bradley Tempus
Randy and and I smoked the Alec Bradley Tempus - Terra Nova 5 X 50 today (9-28-09). we were both excited to smoke this cigar as we have heard good things about it. The Alec Bradley Tempus is a combination of Honduran Criollo’98 wrapper blended with Corojo and Criollo filler from the Trojes region of Honduras.It is an attractive cigar with a medium brown color. It has two ornate bands including one on the foot. It is firm to the touch and beautifully constructed. After clipping the cigar Randy indicates that the draw is great. I find the draw to be very good as well offering just the right amount of resistance. After lighting the cigars we have two very different first responses. Randy reports that he experiences the cigar as fairly mild with a little spice on the finish. I, on the other hand, perceive the cigar as quite spicy and medium to full in taste. We are both impressed that the cigar burns well and does not need to be tended to.After less than an inch we both loose our ash. This is surprising, because generally we have found tightly packed cigars to hold their ashes. After an inch Randy's cigar is burning well, I have a slight wavy and uneven burn, but I do not touch it up as I want to see if it will self-correct. The smoke has a brownish tint to it, not the more normal light gray color and for some reason I find this off-putting. Randy notices that the smell of the cigars he is picking up when he is not smoking is quite strong and much different than how he is experiencing the cigar as he smokes it.Both cigars went out in the same place about 1 inch above the label. Mine went out even though I was holding it and had not laid it down for several minutes. At the half-way point Randy reports that although he perceived the cigar had started fairly mild it had built to a more medium flavor. I thought the cigar was a medium to full and it had stayed consistent while I had smoked it. It continued to have a bite to it that I was not impressed with. I also found the secondary smoke to be very strong and sharp - almost acrid.After smoking 3/4 of the cigar I abandon it. I was having some real burn issues (having to re-lite it it again) and I was simply not enjoying this cigar. I smoked a couple of medium to full body cigars over the weekend (Elo Gio & 5 Vegas Series A) and really enjoyed them, but not this cigar.Randy finished his and felt that it had stayed in the medium category for him with only minor burn issues. He said he could think of a number of medium body cigars that he would prefer and "that this one was nothing to write home about". Nor, did he think it was worthy of going on the wall, me either!Scores:Dave - 2 I was very disappointed. After all I had read I expected to love this cigar, but instead I could not even bring myself to finish it.Randy - 2 Randy was more positive about this cigar than I was, he believed it was better than a lot of twos and pretty close to a 3 - just not quite.To be fair we will probably need to smoke this again. After all, this cigar received a 94 rating from Cigar Aficionado and was in their Top 25 cigars of 2008. A lot of people really liked this cigar, but they don't smoke in the Man Shed. So the label goes in to the trash.Next up for us is the Padilla Miami - until next time, Smoke em if you got them!
Posted by Plains Sailor at 8:13 PM 0 comments
Saturday, September 26, 2009

The Pastor and the Shrink - Cigar reviews for your mind and spirit - The Oliva Master Blend 3
Randy and I are in the Man Shed enjoying a lovely cool evening (9-25-09). Tonight we are joined by Randy's son-in-law Brett and our pal Justin Sherfick. Randy and I are both smoking the Oliva Master Blend 3. Neither of us have smoked this cigar before, but we both enjoy many of the cigars produced by Oliva.Here is what the Oliva website says about this cigar - Master Blends 3 is the third offering in a series of limited artisanal blends. Liga Maestra is specifically blended to deliver the richest characteristics of Nicaraguan ligero fillers and Broadleaf sun-grown wrappers. It is a complex cigar crafted for the most developed palette. Wrapper: Broadleaf Sun-Grown; Binder: Nicaraguan Habano; Filler: Nicaraguan Ligero. It sells for between $8 and $12/cigar. But, we got ours as part of a sampler and paid much less than that.Tonight we are pairing these cigars with the award winning Oatmeal Stout from Liquid Bread brewery in Hays. We are still waiting for the Porter to come back in season.We both felt that the cigar was well constructed but not particularly firmly packed. It was mostly solid to the touch but there were a couple of spongy sections. After clipping the cigars we both felt that it had a good draw and the initial taste was a strong spicy flavor but not bitter or harsh. The cigar burned well in the beginning and produced voluminous smoke. The flavor mellowed considerably but continued to be moderately strong and enjoyable. We decided it had a spicyness with an earthy quality to it. It had a bitterness reminiscent of a strong cup of coffee so it was very enjoyable.For the first half of the cigar it burned perfectly, creating a solid ash that when it fell off I was able to pick up without it falling part. There was also no tunneling or blooming evident in the ash. The ash was mostly white and very compact. All of these are signs of how well constructed the cigars is.We both experienced burn problems in almost exactly the same place. Just above the band the cigar seemed to have a soft spot and both of us experienced our cigars going out. I had a burn problem after relighting that required a touch up. After that the cigar again burned perfectly.Overall we liked this cigar but did not love it. We thought this cigar was reminiscent of a Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 or 1992. Both of these are also strong and flavorful cigars but not at all harsh or acrid. We could both think of a number of cigars we enjoyed more that cost much less than this one, but we would not turn it down if it were offered to us.Our scores:Randy - 3Dave - 3With that the band was ceremoniously placed on the Wall-of-Fame.Next up for us the Alec Bradley Tempus.
Posted by Plains Sailor at 10:44 AM 0 comments
Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Pastor and the Shrink - Cigar Reviews for your Mind and Spirit
As Randy Gibbs and I spend many evenings in his Man Shed enjoying cigars we decided to also start doing reviews of the cigars so we could remember which ones we liked. We developed the following rating scale:4 - Great Cigar - one we will definitely smoke again, would not hesitate to recommend to a friend and that we would keep in our humidor.3 - Good Smoke - Cigars we enjoyed and would definitely smoke again but have some area of weakness.2 - Okay Smoke - a Cigar that was not terrible but had a number of areas of weakness - we probably wouldn't go out of our way to smoke, but might lite it up when we were golfing or doing yard work.1- Never Again - a bad smoke that we probably did not finish and would not smoke again.We have vowed to force ourselves to put the cigars we rate in one of the above categories so as to avoid the 2.25, 3.5 or 1.75 scores.In making our judgments we will look at these areas: Construction, Burn, Draw, Flavor and Cost.In future postings Randy and I will smoke the same Cigar, but tonight (9-19-09) we are going to be reviewing two different Padilla cigars. Randy and I both enjoy some of the Padilla brand cigars - especially the Padilla 1968. Which has made the Cigar Wall of Fame in the Man Shed.Randy is smoking the Padilla Achilles Corojo Edicion Especial 2006 - Toro size. He has paired his smoke with a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout. Randy indicates that the cigar is a light Coco brown color and is spongy to the touch. After clipping and lighting this cigar Randy reports that it has a mellow flavor and that it has a good draw. Although early on it burned fairly evenly it did develop some problems later and required relighting. Randy believes this was probably due to the loose construction of the cigar. He found that the cigar needed a lot of tending or it would tend to go out. Randy smoked the entire cigar and gave it a rating of 3.The taste was consistent and enjoyable, but the construction and subsequent burn issues did hurt its overall score.I had the Padilla Obsidian Limitatdo Edicion Especial - 2006, Belicoso size. I paired it with an O'Fallon, 5 Day IPA, given to me by my brother Rob. This cigar has a Maduro wrapper and is quite attractive, very dark in color almost black. It has a dark label as well which is unusual. This cigar is well constructed and very firm to the touch. After clipping the cigar the first thing I notice is that the draw is very tight, which makes the cigar somewhat difficult to lite. I'm hoping that the draw will loosen up as I get further into this cigar.The cigar starts with a very bold and spicy flavor and I'm a little worried that it will be to strong for my taste. The cigar initially burns well and the few minor burn problems that occur are generally self-correcting. As I get into the second third the cigar's flavor mellows out and is quite enjoyable, but the draw continues to be very tight.I ended up abandoning this cigar after smoking about two-thirds of it. The draw was just to tight, causing me to have to work to hard and significantly reducing my enjoyment. The cigar was also becoming a little bitter toward the end.I'm giving this cigar a score of 2.At our next get together Randy and I will be reviewing the Oliva Master Blend 3.Until next time - Smoke em if you got them!