Cigar Asylum Cigar Forum - Roxy Dominican Robusto

Picked up a fiver of these from Andrew (BlkDrew) who has started rolling his own cigars. Tried one ROTT and it was pretty good, but tonight I had a 2nd one after some rest in my cabinet humi. Worthy of a full review, and I felt like telling a story anyway; sometimes it's all about the setting :)

After a year of living in Seattle, we moved to a new home on the east side in September. Beautiful home, up on a hill overlooking Lake Washington, but we really missed having a hot tub here. Finally pulled the trigger this week, and had our tub moved to the new home. Not a simple job due to the big hill, as it required a crane to get it onto our backyard deck:
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...ke/HotTub1.jpg

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...ke/HotTub2.jpg

So after a day of being snowed in (it only takes a couple of inches of snow around here), I grabbed a Roxy Robusto to smoke in the tub while the snow continued to fall.

Paired it with a glass of Beaulieu Vinyard Rutherford Cabernet and settled in to relax. The construction of the Roxy was really outstanding; very impressive as I think he'd only been rolling for a couple of months (or less) when he made this fiver. After a thin cut with my palio, the prelight draw was spot on; I could tell this was going to be a good burn. That proved to be true, as the burn was within 1/2 mm of razor straight all the way to the nub. Good amount of smoke, but not overpowering.

Andrew described the cigar as "dominican blended filler, Havana binder, and havana Prime wrapper 52x5." I would describe it as medium strength and body. First third was really smooth, with a slight nutty flavor. The flavors really blossomed in the 2nd third. Strength picked up a bit, and I tasted hints of cocoa and caramel. This was definitely the best part of the cigar.

The final third started to get a bit strong, but a couple of purges brought it back to my liking. I smoked it down to about 1/2 inch nub, and enjoyed every minute of it. It held the ash for a solid inch or so, and the construction really shined all the way to the end.

I had originally bought the fiver just as a novelty, and to support a BOTL who's learning to roll, but this cigar definitely surprised me with both quality and flavor. I'm usually a bit of a CC snob, but this was one enjoyable cigar. I really look forward to the remaining three in my humidor! :tu

Great work Andrew! You have really produced a winner! :tu