Went to my favorite local B&M yesterday so a friend of mine could get himself a stogie. He doesn't smoke regularly. I was going to give him one but he wanted to try the CAO criollo thanks to some recommendations on the internet. While there I couldn't resist and picked up the same cao sample pack he did, and oliva serie g maduro and serie v maduro. I decided to smoke the serie g maduro. Would have smoked more but it got dark and cold outside. It was also getting late by the time we finished. I live about 1.5 hours from his place.
The spoils! (along with the smokes I brought and planned to smoke, lol)
The Serie G is a very nice looking box pressed hand made stick. It tapers down at the foot a bit. The wrapper is smooth and you cannot feel any veins in it although you can see them. No soft spots in the stick.
It lit easily and burned easily as well. It is VERY spicy when first lit. It almost turned me off it was so spicy. The draw it quite looser than I typically go for.
1/3: It was very spicy through the nose for me. So much that I barely tried it again until the 3/3 point. It had a slightly uneven burn. I corrected it with a few strong puffs close together.
Odd how the ash started flowering out like it did...
the spice calmed down a lot and it became more creamy now. I tasted a bit of nuts and maybe some cocoa. It was strange; I could see sparkling things in the ash. The same that was on the wrapper. Not very certain as to what that is.This stick makes TONS of smoke! I love it!
It was doing some tunneling that was really starting to irritate me...
I decided to remove the band since it was able to slide off with little effort. Under the band the color of the wrapper was a little lighter....odd. I didn't get anymore pics of it, but I will tell you that during the
2/3: The nutty flavor got a little more prominent. I taste something through the nose now, but it's still a bit spicy to me so I can't do it much.
3/3: Not much change in flavor to me but the spice did mellow out a lot more and I was able to handle it through the nose now. Still cant identify the flavors through the nose though. The stick went out on me here. time to relight...the tunneling disappeared somewhere between 2/3 and now. It died on me again at which point I decided I was too cold outside and just let it go with about 1.5-2" remaining. I'd say it lasted a good hour. I would definitely smoke another of these, but I would let them rest a month or so in my cooler. I'm gonna let the V and CAO's rest for a couple months in there as well...Go out and try one! It was definitely a good medium bodied cigar.