Tercio | CigarCraig's Blog

This week was challenging. I had a tooth pulled on Monday, and I’m not altogether sure that one or more of the medications I’m taking isn’t affecting my palate. Let’s start out with my pre-procedure cigar, a Nomad SA-17 Shorty, which is 4″ x 56. I’m unsure of the provenance of these cigars, they were a generous gift from a friend, and I want to say that they are pre-Ezra Zion because they have Fred’s twitter name on the band, but anecdotal evidence would suggest that they were recently purchased. If I recall, these were made at A.J. Fernandez’ factory, and has a San Andrés wrapper over Nicaraguan guts. Perhaps it’s a bit uncool to smoke a cigar right before going to the oral surgeon, like eating Oreos before going in for a cleaning, but it is what it is. I knew I was going to be taking a few days off from cigars, nobody wants dry socket! This is a great cigar, loads of earthy, coffee and cocoa flavors. Burn was perfect, and this little cigar lasts almost an hour. Many thanks to Phil for sharing these with me!

On to some new stuff! Like I said, after a couple days off cigars, and between an antibiotic and a rinse, my palate may be off, or maybe not! I tested this theory by smoking a cigar from Kevin at Trash Panda Cigars, the Cert Maith Bruscar. I hope Kevin made sure this name wasn’t already trademarked before using it! Cert Maith Bruscar is Gaelic for “Real Good Trash”, in keeping with the Trash Panda theme, and is an homage to Kevin’s probably 8th or 9th great grandfather, who came to the US in 1679 from Ireland, around the same time my ancestor came from The Netherlands. This is a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper cigar that has a Cameroon binder and fillers from Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and US. I typically like the combination of Broadleaf and Cameroon, this is an interesting blend. The first time I smoked this my wife commented on the aroma, which she characterized as fruity. This is consistent with what I perceived as the dominant flavor, which I called citrus. I struggled to gut much else around the citric tang, it was a good cigar, performed well, and certainly was unique. I smoked a couple of these (before and after dental work) and had the same experience. On paper I’d expect this to be a cigar for me, in practice, while it was a good cigar, I’m just not sure about the dominant citrus flavor. This just might be me, as Kevin said he didn’t get that from this cigar.

New from Forged Cigars is the La Gloria Cubana Corojo de Oro. Last year they had the Criollo de Oro, with a hybrid of Criollo and Pelo de Oro tobaccos. This has a hybrid of Corojo and Pelo de Oro (I think that means “golden hair”, it’s a narrow leaf if I remember correctly from my visit to the Garcia’s farm in 2011). I’m much more a fan of Corojo than Criollo, and I liked the Corojo de Oro much more than the Criollo de Oro. This was a 6″ x 50 toro, with a Ecuador Habano wrapper, the hybrid tobacco as the binder, and Brazilian Mata Fina, Dominican Piloto and Nicaraguan Ometepe in the filler blend. I found this to be a well balanced cigar, with some sweet earth, and some spice. I’m not sure how many La Gloria Cubana marques there are now, I like a lot of them (the Serie S was a miss for me, and I love San Andrés), but it just seems like I don’t see many of them in stores.

Finally, I tried a new Macanudo Inspirado, the Tercio-aged. Tercio refers to the practice of wrapping the bales in palm bark to age as opposed to burlap. In this case, the Dominican Piloto Cubano filler component is aged in Tercio, while (because they mention that specifically and omit the rest), the San Andrés wrapper, Indonesian binder and Columbian fillers are aged in burlap bales. For me, this cigar was a great representation of the concept of body vs. strength. The flavors were very interesting, some baking spice, sweet earth (again) and some pepper spice. The smoke was very thin, not a lot of body, but the flavor was there. It was a little strange, and I’ll have to revisit this again. Maybe it was just me. I liked the cigar overall, might me my 4th favorite Inspirado (another line with a lot of extensions!).