Saint Luis Rey Reserva Especial No.5
In my quest for a quick smoke for when time is short, I came across today’s review. These come in a nice metal tin of 5 for an overall attractive presentation. I paired up with water for this review, but for you seasoned smokers, found this cigar goes well with coffee for a nice added kick.
Wrapper: Natural-Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Honduran, Nicaraguan, Peruvian
Size: 4.5 x 38
Price: 5 pack $17.00
Pre-smoke & Construction:
The reddish looking wrapper was a bit bumpy but had no major flaws. Sniffing the wrapper and foot revealed a hay-ish barnyard aroma. Squeezing the cigar from head to foot, I found it was a little spongy but wasn’t extreme. The pre-light draw was free, and had an earthy rich soil taste.
The burn required quite a few corrections, and the ash held for about a half of an inch. I think this was unique to this cigar, since the others I smoked didn’t need so many burn corrections.
Flavor:
The first third consisted mainly of pepper. It had a bite, but wasn’t harsh of irritating. Next up was a smooth earthy flavor that resembled a rich soil.
As I progressed into the second third, the bite of the pepper mellowed out a little but kept its “Zing.” The earthy flavors continued with an addition of rich woody notes. Every now and then the pepper would become a sweet spice, but for the most part it was pepper.
The last third didn’t offer a lot of change. The peppery punch went down another notch, but again kept a nice zing. An unidentified sweet flavor appeared more often then the second third, but never developed into a definite flavor. And finally… The earthy notes became more of a background flavor. Overall very enjoyable.
Conclusion:
This was a pretty good medium bodied cigar. The bad aspects were the burn corrections but I can let the cigar going out once slide. Despite the flavor profile being a bit one dimensional, I enjoyed this cigar.
