Roma Craft Intemperance EC XVIII Faith

Posted by Shawn

April 24, 2012

Intemperance is the new and first line of the Roma Craft Tobac company. Roma Craft is the brainchild of Skip Martin and Michael Rosales. The Intemperance line is produced in Esteli, Nicaragua at the Fabrica de Tobacco NicaSueno factory. They come in two wrappers, a Ecuadorian Connecticut (EC XVIII) and a Brazilian Arapiraca (BA XXI) with four vitolas in each line.

The Intemperance name is from the history of prohibition. The logo is inspired from a propaganda/political print from 1855 by A.D. Fillmore.
“In the last sixty years, this anti-smoking movement has grown in influence and power much in the same way the temperance movement before it grew. We believe that it is well past time to initiate our own modern intemperance movement.”
For more information on the whole Intemperance lines click here.

Wrapper: Ecuadorian Connecticut
Binder: ?
Filler: ?
Vitola: Perfecto
Cost: About $6.50
Source: Purchased from sampler
The Intemperance Volstead Sampler

First Looks: The EC Faith is adorned with a light tan colored wrapper that has minimal veins tht ends in a small open shaggy foot. The feal is somewhat soft, but not spongy or hard; with no overly hard or soft spots. There are no major blemishes such as sun spots. A 1/4″ cut off the head reveals a great draw.

First Third: The small ring gauge of the shag foot easily lights up with minimal toasting time. First tastes I get are of light woody and somewhat nutty notes. A spice note is also present that hits me on the tip of my tongue. A slightly sweetned note of pistacios is what I’m going to say what tyhe nut note reminds me of. The spice towards the end of the first third turns creamy, still not overpowering. The burn is even producing a 1″ ash, that fell into my lap…

Second Third: Working into the second third, I got a few tastes of an undertone that reminded me of the aftertaste of a hot cup of coffee. But, its still maintaining the woody and slightly nutty notes as the first portion. The spice is seeming to ease off slightly and is less than it was at first. The draw is still dead on, but the burn is starting to get slightly wavy, but needing no touch-ups yet. Suprisingly, I get nothing much on the retrohale, just a tad bit of spice on the back of the mouth. Towards the last part of this portion, I’m starting to get a malty tone to the smoke and a little more spice is starting to creep back into the smoke.

Final Third: The woody notes get alot “darker” than they were at the first part of the smoke. The dark wood quickly evolves into a a chocolate, but not a rich chocolate, taste with some spice still lingering in the background. The burn evened off a good bit towards the end with an excellent draw still. Towards the nub, the smoke got a little sour. But this was more than likely due to me smoking it too fast (im really enjoying this!). A simple purge and let it sit a few minutes to cool and the sourness went away.

Final Thoughts: Overall a good cigar. Its has varying strengths of spice that pop in and out at very random times that really kept me on my toes. The draw was almost perfect with a 1/4″ cut off the cap. The ash was grayish that usually held for about an inch or so. The burn started great, which is unsual for my experience of perfectos. Usually I have to do a few touch-ups to even it off. Not a singel touvh-up the the Faith. Varying flavors of light & dark wood, nuts, & a showing of chocolate towards the end.

Deffinately worth a try. Im glad I got the sampler, I got to taste each one of the wrappers and vitolas, deffinately something to look into. The BA is a little stronger than the EC. Some may like the EC more, some may like the EC more. We’ll let you decide which one you like the most.