25. Victory
This was an 8” from the Po Boy III basket. The band was pretty interesting; gold and black with an statuesque image that looked like something you would see over the archway leading into an Art Deco period municipal building or library. The wrapper was medium brown with lots of wrinkles near the foot. It was pretty soft throughout and appeared only moderately full on the end. The cap appeared to be applied pretty well compared to what I’ve seen lately. There was only one very hard vein on the backside of the smoke. The cap cracked slightly when it was punched and the cigar had an incredibly loose draw. The flavor was nutty and reminiscent of black tea.
This stick started off quite well. In fact I actually said the word “Wow!”, out loud to myself as I drove down the highway puffing on it. It was woody, with a mild to medium profile. Not that stout, but generally it had more oomph than most of the Po Boys. There was a little bit of spice that I wouldn’t categorize as “peppery”, but more “zesty” with a slightly acidic overtone. The most interesting part was about halfway through when I swore I picked up on a faint mint flavor. Very much like snapping off some fresh spearmint from the garden. There were a couple issues to cite however (of course)… The burn was generally good, but it tunneled when it hit the “knottier” parts of the stick. I think the rest was so loosely filled that it settled down to a lower Rh quicker. Secondly, the cracked cap began to shed into my mouth about a third of the way through.

The single best part of the cigar: The minty freshness. It was like rolling some Winterfresh gum into my cigar.
The single worst part of the cigar: The construction was the struggle with this stick, particularly the cap.
Overall rating on a scale of 1-10: 7.2 (The flavor was good enough to boost the score. I think if I had cut, rather than punched this might have made it into the 8s)