Nestor Reserve Maduro

Nestor Reserve maduro box-pressed torpedo
$8/5 pk., Size:6.5", Ring: 54
Honduran wrapper, Cameroon binder, Honduran and Nicaraguan fillers.

Have you ever smoked a cigar, then realized that writing about it would be twice the waste of time as smoking the cigar in the first place? Yeah, this cigar was that good. However, I shall press on with this review as a public service.

This cigar is darker in person than it seems on a computer screen. It's a shade of brown that only espresso beans aspire to. It may also leave a brown stain on your lips and/or fingers. Still the wrapper was veiny and glossy, as one would expect from a $1.50 cigar.

The cigar seemed awfully light, and the middle parts soft, and the fairly loose draw gave rise to the suspicion that there wasn't much tobacco in there. Once lit, the burn line was all over the place. Still, I didn't want to waste any more torch fuel on it, so I let it meander about. It never canoed, or ran more than an inch, so I let it be. Funny thing about the burn line, for a quarter inch ahead of it, the wrapper swelled like the blistered skin of a hot dog.

As for the flavor; at one point there was one. In smelling the wrapper, and again in the cold draw, I was getting a bitter, dark chocolate taste. Once lit, the flavors were really subdued, almost imperceptible, or maybe so blended that I couldn't pick out anything definite. Somewhere near the middle, a faint pepper flavor emerged for an inch, then disappeared again. That's all I can say for that topic. It was nowhere near the description ".. rich and robust taste with a wonderful aroma and exquisite construction".

The Nestor Reserve is not an H.P. Lovecraft horror story. It just struck me as a somewhat bland cigar. Which is a shame, because a mild cigar doesn't have to be bland. Still, most of the time, you get what you pay for.