Blind Exchange: Review No. 5
Today I’m wrapping up the final installment of the Blind Exchange. It’s been a great exercise/experiment, and I look forward to doing more in the future. Most of all I need to actually put together an un-banded fiver for Charlie to smoke through.
So the #5 cigar is a toro with medium shade brown wrapper. The wrapper has a delicate vein structure, and excluding the banged up section from where I dropped the cigar, it’s in very nice condition. Pre-light aroma is leathery with a hint of sweetness. I estimate the ring gauge to be 52.
Reveal & Reaction
Generally I’ll give a cigar the time to change my mind, but in the case of this Reyes Family Vintage there was just no hope. The bitterness in the cigar was so intense that it really masked anything else. At about the half way point I could begin to pick up on some nuttiness, but the bitterness was still a major component of the smoke. To further compound my distaste for this cigar I had terrible burn and draw issues. Despite repeated attempts to correct the crooked burn, the cigar still burned far from straight. The cigar also had a tight draw that produced little to no smoke. Frequent draws were necessary to keep the cigar burning.
The Reyes Family Vintage was a huge disappointment to me and I don’t think I could ever recommend someone to try it. However, I don’t think I should be too surprised to find out this is the cigar formally known as the Puros Indio Viejo. When I reviewed that cigar approximately a year ago, I had a similar experience.
With all that said, please don’t let this experience deter you from trying other Reyes Family products. They make a number of fine cigars, the Vintage just doesn’t cut it for me.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Great video! This just goes to show, you cant always have winners each and every time you light one up ;)
I had a few Reyes family cigars a year or so ago myself, but I never tried anything else since back then. I may have to try a couple to see if I like them myself or not. Well maybe not this cigar, but others in their line ;)
Mike