VigilantE Sun Grown by Rocky Patel & Esteban Carrera
VigilantE (Rocky Patel and Esteban Carrera)
Country: Honduras
Wrapper: sun grown Honduran
Size: robusto
Price: Discontinued so it doesn’t matter, making this review rather pointless.... but they used to be about $7.
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I got this cigar about 6 months ago from @TAB at our previous home, when he was getting rid of bunches of cheap sticks for the price of postage. He sent me 10 so it cost me about 60 cents. He must have had it for a while because it was discontinued about 7 years ago, and the cellophane is pretty yellow. I had hopes for this cigar, thinking the sun grown wrapper would give it some interesting flavors. It also wasn’t super cheap back in it’s day, and it has plenty of age. And some pretty enthusiastic reviews on old forum threads.
The name of the cigar is just stupid – especially that it has a meaningless capital “E” at the end. I like the smiling sun - like you see on old medieval maps - but it doesn’t fit with the name. It's like naming a cigar The Widowmaker and having a pink unicorn on the band. Are you listening, Caldwell?
Pre-light draw is like stale red wine, left forgotten on the kitchen counter when you go away for a week and come back to find it has grown little islands of mold which are floating on top. Kind of sickly-sweet like overripe fruit. The cigar feels light and there are some big-ass veins, bordering on branches. And those bumps look like leprosy.
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First few puffs are mild and cedary, but why do so many bad cigars have that burning brown paper bag flavor? This does not bode well. There’s also a nasty little bite which I suppose I could call “pepper” if I were in a charitable mood, but it’s really more like hundreds of tiny ants biting the inside of my mouth.
There are some prominent earthy, mineral flavors coming through, and a lot of toast. Burnt toast. It’s funny how so many descriptions of cigars say they taste like toast, as if that’s a good thing. I like toast as much as the next guy, but usually with jam or honey for breakfast. Not burnt to a blackened cinder and rolled up in tobacco leaves.
The burn is good, but the draw is pretty tight. I’m starting to wish it was tighter and that some blockage would prevent this smoke from entering my mouth. The smoke itself is medium-bodied, and the strength is too. The smell is a little rank. Toast and dank rotting vegetables smoldering in a paper bag.
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Getting into the second third and now it's all brown paper bag, with the added sizzle of burning electronics. Did my laptop just have a meltdown? No, that's my cigar. What a revoltin’ development. My mouth is dry, my neck is stiff, and my head is starting to ache.
This actually tastes a lot like a generic General Cigar second (like Consuegra). It deserved to be discontinued, and I’m glad it was. I can’t think of any reason to smoke this cigar, and if it was the only brand left on earth I’d give up the hobby in a second and get into cosplay instead. In fact, it's so boring and one-dimensional that I’m not even inspired to express my hatred for it in any kind of creative way. I’m just disgusted – not by the cigar itself particularly, but by the fact that it even exists and that people out there liked it. It’s an existential nausea - the same kind of depressed, alienated feeling you get when you realize just how many fans Justin Bieber has.
I’ve reached the halfway point and it’s suddenly gone all spongey, and has decided to go out. It’s as if it’s aware of it’s own poor excuse for existing and has willed itself to die. I’ll respect it’s wishes, and won’t be re-lighting.
In the end, a picture is worth a thousand words:
http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/...psnula6c3r.jpg
