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I had a late lunch at work yesterday and took the 10 minute walk from the harbour to the sea front. I don't usually smoke while at work but it has been a stressful week and I remembered that I had a tubed RASCC in my jacket pocket from the weekend, I presumed it would be far too dry by now but would light it up anyway. The blast of concentrated Ramon Allones flavours took me by surprise, strong dark fruit with cocoa. It was dry and the smoke was a little harsh but the flavours were amazing, it was burning really quickly so I had to go slow, even the smallest of "sips" yielded large volumes of smoke. I was into the second third after only about 10-15 minutes, the fruit died down and a rich nuttly flavour replaced it with touches of wood. The smoke wasn't too hot but it was dry with a fair bit more mouth spice than I would expect, again I presume this is was down to the condition of the stick. I finished this smoke in about 30-35 minutes, going as slowly as I could, by comparison a RASCC straight out of 65% RH storage can often last me an hour.
This experience really got me thinking about just how much the condition of the stick effects it's flavour. Since the stick was dryer and was burning faster that meant that the rate of tobacco combustion vs air intake was greater which led to more concentrated smoke. The trade off was a fast, dry smoke which was a little on the harsh/spicy side and needed to be treated gently. I had previously thought of dryboxing a cigar as something I didn't need to do, something that was only needed if you kept your sticks up at 70% RH or were worried they were too wet. Now I am questioning whether I could benifit from finding the sweetspot between the moisture content of a cigar straight out of my humi and this RASCC, increased flavour but with a longer, cooler burn. It's not that I don't get great flavours from RASCC normally, this box has been really nice so far, but this stick had flavour to spare.
On the other hand, I presume the ash being so black is a sign of incomplete combustion so maybe I wasn't getting the best the tobacco had to offer because of that. I suppose it could have been that this was the best stick from the box and it would have smoked just as well, if not better, straight out of the humi. I'm just thinking out loud really, thought I would share the experience and see if any other BOTL have had similar experiences.
2011-09-01 13.36.53.jpg
This experience really got me thinking about just how much the condition of the stick effects it's flavour. Since the stick was dryer and was burning faster that meant that the rate of tobacco combustion vs air intake was greater which led to more concentrated smoke. The trade off was a fast, dry smoke which was a little on the harsh/spicy side and needed to be treated gently. I had previously thought of dryboxing a cigar as something I didn't need to do, something that was only needed if you kept your sticks up at 70% RH or were worried they were too wet. Now I am questioning whether I could benifit from finding the sweetspot between the moisture content of a cigar straight out of my humi and this RASCC, increased flavour but with a longer, cooler burn. It's not that I don't get great flavours from RASCC normally, this box has been really nice so far, but this stick had flavour to spare.
On the other hand, I presume the ash being so black is a sign of incomplete combustion so maybe I wasn't getting the best the tobacco had to offer because of that. I suppose it could have been that this was the best stick from the box and it would have smoked just as well, if not better, straight out of the humi. I'm just thinking out loud really, thought I would share the experience and see if any other BOTL have had similar experiences.
2011-09-01 13.36.53.jpg
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