It was yet another perfect weekend afternoon in Wellington's resurrected summer... so I pulled out a cigar I never had before, a San Cristobal La Punta (in the batch i just sent out). Pick the right cigar for the right time, I say - so I sniffed the foot to verify that it was no nicaraguan monster or tannic terror lurking beneath that "colorado casi-claro" wrapper. The gentle vapours emanating from within allayed any fears so I deployed my useless matches, and after half a packet, she was alight.
The draw on this one was quite loose, so much so that I had to rein in my huffing instincts and gently sigh inwards instead. The resulting dry harshness on the palate wasn't helped by a small hole in the wrapper and binder a cm or two above the foot, a problem which soon disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Thereafter everything fell neatly into place.
The relatively standard cedar base of the habano was smoother than usual, almost silk-like. It carried an edge of turmeric and cinnamon through the nose. An unusual and most becoming sweetness wove itself around all this, tasting somewhat like the cane sugar from those coffee sachets, but leaning towards maple syrup, with the added flavour of a muscat-like dessert wine. A decent hint of salty cumin developed half way in, with sweet paprika, and white pepper if i forgot my tantric discipline and lapsed into full puffing. But otherwise, it was a steady light-medium bodied delight. I never dared to spoil it with a drink, but the gentlest of drams might have done for it (e.g. Tomatin). This La Punta was on point.
This is the sweetest cigar I've had in a while... the only Cuban coming close to it was a young Juan Lopez no.1 about 5 years ago (which lost 90% of its sweetness after a year's age). As these are only one year old, they will be no different and I don't expect it to maintain this level of sweetness for long so smoke now and enjoy. I would recommend it mid-afternoon on a clean palate.
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| The money shot |
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