The Non-Cuban Batch

Thanks to Senor Hindrik's trip to the U.S. we have acquired some non-cuban cigars. As you will find out, they have quite different flavour profiles. Different terroirs, shall we say.

I chose these as they are the brands that have been getting Yankee stogie smokers excited for the past few years - pretty damn expensive as a result. As the store i ordered them from didn't have enough singles in stock, you won't quite all have all of the following list but doubles of some and none of others (in rough order of size):

• Arturo Fuente Hemingway - Short Story: the cigar tapered at both ends that many of you have already tasted. Starts out sweet before turning to mint and pepper. Dominican tobacco but with a Cameroon wrapper. 
• Ashton Virgin Sun Grown - Tres Mystique: i tried this with Scott recently, very pleasant smooth caramel allspice sweetness to start, full bodied, but just after half way gets quite peppery. Dominican filler with aged wrapper leaf from Ecuador.
• Ilusione Epernay - Le Elegance: long skinny cigar, nicaraguan "puro" (all tobacco from the one country), meant to be mild, spicy tea-like but i haven't tasted it yet. Also meant to be a good match for champagne but i sincerely doubt it. 
• Nub Cameroon - 464: getting into the serious sizes now, this very short but very fat (464= 4"& 64 ring gauge - enormous!!) doesn't look like much but will take well over an hour to smoke. Cameroon wrapper, nicaraguan tobacco, pleasant smooth spice and medium body from memory. This one can do a handstand on its ash - time for a photo comp!!
• Arturo Fuente Anejo - #48: this one is a big boy dressed up in cedar and red ribbon, dominican but the wrapper has been aged 6 months in cognac barrels.
• Liga Privada T52 - Corona Doble: huge cigar but all i could find of this brand. Tobaccos come from all over the place - wrapper from Connecticut (US), filler from DomRep, Nic, Honduras and binder from Brazil. You'll have to get together and share this one.

Non-cuban cigars are generally aimed at the U.S. market (where you can't buy cubans at least officially) and so the general marketing trends aim for Strength, Size, Sweetness, Dark wrappers, Fancy boxes and gimmicks that change every year. The ones above are all pretty expensive so have really good construction (like the expensive cubans). They like to mix and match tobaccos from all over which makes for some interesting cigars; in general each tobacco is quite recognisable and the filler most often from nicaragua, honduras or dom rep. The one thing that sets cuban tobacco apart, excluding its radically different flavour of course, is its complexity of flavour once well aged. Non-cubans are known for many things but complexity is not one of them. 

One last note: they are so different from cubans that it is best to store separately (eg in a ziplock bag) to avoid cross-contamination of flavour. They are also generally better stored and smoked at higher humidity i.e. 70%.