Victor Calvo Gold Robusto (5x50)

It has been a long, long time since I have written a cigar review.  Hell, it's been awhile since I wrote anything other than an article or two for a newsletter about being a new daddy.  In case you didn't know, my wife and I welcomed a son into the world in late January, and my life has not been the same since...

Smoking cigars has gone from a twice daily necessity to a twice weekly luxury it seems.  I have still been at it, but I have not been smoking anything new at all.  I have been sticking to the old knock arounds with religious verve of late.  However, recent travels have taken me to some locales that have allowed me to get my hands on some things I don't see very often.

This smoke is one such selection.  I don't see this smoke on the regular, as a matter of fact I can't say that I have seen it at all anywhere until I found it in Ft. Lauderdale.  I bought several, all of which I intend to put the hairy eyeball on with one of my famous reviews.  It might be 2035 before I get to them at the rate I have been going, but I am going to give it the old college try.

This cigar presents with a sort of mundane everyday appearance about it.  Nothing screams out, smoke me!  The band work is jejune at best and does not add to the overall impression at all.  The wrapper is somewhat toothy, but it has a lot of veining and seems loosely applied in some areas and that makes me concerned about burn issues as we move along with the show.  The pre light draw shows some hints of pepper, but there is a metallic thing going on here that has me on edge.  The pre light aroma has some hints of wood, mainly cedar, and some touches of earth as well.

The cigar opens with a profile that is unforgettable, in that it is so vile and bile churning that you will never be able to purge the palate punishment from your neural pathways.  You will try, with electroshock, a lobotomy, heavy drinking, pills and other methods such as forced bleeding, leeching, witch doctor visits and the like, but it will not work!  You will never forget this awful opening.  The flavors are a putrid mix of something like borax and water from a mason jar that old pennies have been sitting in.  Some have accused me of hyperbole in the past, but in this case I need to be able to describe the horrific scene in full detail.  The draw, sadly, is great.  It is wonderfully fluid and delivers plenty of smoke, so much smoke in fact that I am hoping for a plug ASAP.  The burn is a monstrosity, canoeing from the get go with large segments of wrapper falling unsmoked into the tray and onto my pants.

I soldier on though, ever the weary warrior in the struggle against cigar mediocrity and unfortunately nothing really changes in the first half.  The taste of old pennies has blessedly left the picture, but what is left is not great either.  There are some hints of old, dusty wood here, kind of like something from an old attic.  There are still some notes of some sort of soap or detergent here as well, not quite floral but definitely soapy in nature.  The back of the palate gives some impressions of earth, but there is a muddled quality here that has me struggling for answers.  The draw continues on and my palate is molested with scads of inferior tasting smoke.  The burn is slightly better, but still temperamental.

The final half of the smoke is a futile search for something to like, alas I can only like it once I have extinguished it in the ash bin of cigarbage.  The profile never shows anything worthwhile.  The flavors just continue on, unhindered in their putrescence, as if the maker of this smoke hates people with any type of taste at all.  The draw is solid to the end.  The burn had issues throughout.

The finish was a gift from the higher power.  I usually don't react so viscerally to a smoking experience, but this one was just that bad folks.  Do yourselves a favor and smoke something else.

Appearance- 85 mundane
Taste- 70 the lowest I can go, all though I had considered going lower
Construction- 74 the burn was disaster
Strength- 75 medium maybe, hard to tell when everything is so bad
Overall- 74.75 one of the worst I have smoked