Featured Cigars - June 2013

Punch is one of the oldest Habano brands, founded in 1840 by Don Manuel Lopez of Juan Valle & Company and intended for the booming British market. The name Punch is drawn from a famous comic book "Punch & Judy" in which the clown, Mr. Punch, is still seen today on every box with his sly smile and cigar. Unlike most medium-bodied Punch cigars, the Bareknuckle has kicked it up a notch and is a smooth full-bodied powerhouse. This baby is jam-packed...

The Ave Maria Lionheart is more than just its stunning band. The cigar itself, hailing from Esteli, Nicaragua is a stellar creation designed for those seeking a full-flavored, medium-bodied handmade of the highest caliber. Panelists found the construction to be spot on and the flavor rich, smooth, balanced, refined and complex. One member summed it up with, "This is one of the most complete cigars I can recall." The wrapper is a gorgeous...

Graycliff Platinum Series… the name just says it all! What makes this cigar worthy of being platinum is the rare, one time a year production using tiny allotments of vintage, hand-selected tobaccos. With that said, only a measly 80,000 cigars are produced each year. This medium to full bodied beauty is loaded with the flavor of pepper, notes of wood and earth, and a long finish of sweet cedar and cream. All that flavor comes from the super...

This little Robusto produces a lot of smoke but the draw is cool and easy. The ash—a nice white color—is firm. The smoke started out with a cocoa and spice blast that settled down by the first inch to the flavor of cocoa with nuances of nuts. By the end of the first third, the taste transitioned into woodsy flavors without losing the light spice. Occasionally, we detected nuances of cinnamon. In the last half, the woody flavors gave way to...

The Sosa Belicoso is a simple, elegant cigar that is full with flavor and yet extremely smooth. It starts with a tantalizing combination of Dominican and Honduran long-fillers that’s held together by a Honduran binder and finished off with a dark Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper that’s dripping with oily goodness. Once lit, the medium-bodied bouquet of cocoa, earth, and pepper are met with a tobacco core...