Ramón Allones Specially Selected (POL NOV 11)

[ayedfy]

The final of a bunch of aged sticks I was sent, and my first experience of Ramón Allones.

Ramón Allones Specially Selected. Box code: POL NOV 10. Vitola size: 4.8x50.

Cold observation: Great construction; very neat wrapper with a uniform milk chocolate colour. Cold aroma is soft and creamy on the wrapper, with some rich peppery spices at the foot. Draw is loose, with the cold draw bringing out very vegetal notes.

Opening third: Spicy, salty, full-bodied and surprisingly sharp for a stick that's had a few years rest. Some sour fresh lemon, and a sweeter chocolate orange flavour.

Middle third: A rum-like cane sugar note bursting out from nowhere and shooting right to the front. More chocolate orange creamy sweetness, and some pickled onion. Retaining a bold, full body.

Final third: Warm buttered toast and almonds. Quite the transition! Slight drop in body but doing well to avoid the back-third off bitterness suffered to many of the cigars I've smoked. Still quite complex and interesting.

This was a goodie. Despite the age, I still think this could have been improved by even more age to smooth out some of the sharpness in the first third.

86/100

[PuffDaddie]

Good review, one of my favorite cigars.

[dangolf18]

So are these '10 or '11?

[JPS72]

Thanks for the review.

[backslide]

most would rate a RASS a 91+ cigar all day long.

[BMack]

I love Ramon Allones! Great cigars and great prices!

[Ptowncigar]

Great review. Huge fan of RASS. Have you smoked the Allones Superior? Any similarities to the RASS?

[olotti]

I love fresh RASS, I just love the more fullbodied, spicy, fruit profile they have when young.

[nonameno]

Hi Ash,

I have a couple boxes with the same code. I enjoyed your review very much and find it very accurate.

Thank you for sharing,

Curtiss

[Charltonc]

I have had luck with 2011 RASS, but 2010 have been good.

[vink]

the 2011 I got are already really good too!

[fkim119]

RASS is one of my all time favorites however, I think they are almost unsmokeable young.

2-3 years of sitting does wonders for it.

[hiball99]

Thanks for the review just ordered some rass and looking forward to smoking one.

[cigarlover]

Great review another on my list to try.

[ramon_cojones]

This is my favorite cigar and I won't touch them with under 5 years on them. I don't understand the rating, an 86 is something I toss in the garbage.

That code is not uncommon and these are not considered aged uless I'm missing something?

[ZinZan]

86 is quite abyssmal, unless you've got extremely high standards. I have a couple of sticks from 2010 box, the last time i smoked maybe 6 months ago, it was definitely low 90s.

[ramon_cojones]

^perhaps op is unfamiliar with traditional scoring commonly used by cigar smokers? though i am not big on numbers but then he rated the cohiba pe a high 90s i think? either way it doesn't really matter

most would rate a RASS a 91+ cigar all day long.

even a bad rass is a 91, i've had a couple that were 98/99s but then they were 16-17 years old

[ayedfy]

^perhaps op is unfamiliar with traditional scoring commonly used by cigar smokers? though i am not big on numbers but then he rated the cohiba pe a high 90s i think? either way it doesn't really matter

even a bad rass is a 91, i've had a couple that were 98/99s but then they were 16-17 years old

My scale is 60-70: smokeable if offered, 70-80: maybe worth buying if the price is particularly good, 80-90: worth buying when you see it, 90-100: worth actively and obsessively searching for and paying higher prices for if necessary because it's phenomenally good.

I'm sick of seeing cigar reviews along the lines of "this is a decent smoke, tasty but with some rough patches and a little closed, so I'm giving it 92-93." What is the point of using a 100 point scale when you're going to put slightly above-average smokes in the upper 10th percent of said scale?

This RASS was a great stick and I would happily consider buying more if the prices were fair. I wouldn't worship it or go out of my way to hunt down particular boxes of it.

Oh, and I know they're not aged by normal standards, but given that I usually buy singles I rarely taste anything older than a few months, so as far as my experience goes, 2.5 years is an aged stick. I didn't mention the box code because I thought it was unique, just so people who might know more about cigars could know what batch I was smoking from.

[stargazer14]

'Unsmokeable young'? Diversity in peoples tastes keeps the business going I guess.

RASS has always been a great cigar young in my book.

Sure, they can get better with age but its not often cigars are this tasty fresh.

I have a few sticks aging but my MAY2012 are very hard to not smoke right now. Some of the best new sticks I have.

[ramon_cojones]

Unfortunately

My scale is 60-70: smokeable if offered, 70-80: maybe worth buying if the price is particularly good, 80-90: worth buying when you see it, 90-100: worth actively and obsessively searching for and paying higher prices for if necessary because it's phenomenally good.

I'm sick of seeing cigar reviews along the lines of "this is a decent smoke, tasty but with some rough patches and a little closed, so I'm giving it 92-93." What is the point of using a 100 point scale when you're going to put slightly above-average smokes in the upper 10th percent of said scale?

This RASS was a great stick and I would happily consider buying more if the prices were fair. I wouldn't worship it or go out of my way to hunt down particular boxes of it.

Oh, and I know they're not aged by normal standards, but given that I usually buy singles I rarely taste anything older than a few months, so as far as my experience goes, 2.5 years is an aged stick. I didn't mention the box code because I thought it was unique, just so people who might know more about cigars could know what batch I was smoking from.

That's cool and understandable about your scale and everything but if you want people to be able to relate (otherwise what's the point of raitng if nobody is familiar with your system) I would either adopt common practice or just drop the numbers entirely. I've never seen someone rate a decent cigar a 92-93 as you said btw. Once you get past the cohiba mystique created by marketing and pricing structures (and your palate develops further) you'll probably find the rass superior to most of those once you've been smoking for a while so for the price of the highly rated cpe I would buy a cab of rass. My comment about box code was directed to someone else who mentioned they had the same code, about 90% of them for that year was that code so it was an informational remark.

[SNJHabanos]

Thanks for the review and photo....Looks great and sounds like a winner. Cant wait to get my hands on some of them.

Thanks Again.

[ayedfy]

Unfortunately

That's cool and understandable about your scale and everything but if you want people to be able to relate (otherwise what's the point of raitng if nobody is familiar with your system) I would either adopt common practice or just drop the numbers entirely. I've never seen someone rate a decent cigar a 92-93 as you said btw. Once you get past the cohiba mystique created by marketing and pricing structures (and your palate develops further) you'll probably find the rass superior to most of those once you've been smoking for a while so for the price of the highly rated cpe I would buy a cab of rass. My comment about box code was directed to someone else who mentioned they had the same code, about 90% of them for that year was that code so it was an informational remark.

At university, an 86 would fall into the category of High Distinction - the highest possible bracket of academic achievement. In a film or music review, it would be over 4/5 stars - a must buy. In a beer, wine, or (in my case) whisky review, it would represent something of excellent quality with no glaring faults that is well-deserving of your money. I don't see why I should shoehorn my reviews into the "cigar reviewer scoring system" which apparently exists on its own grossly-inflated plane away from the real world. If someone wants to read my opinion on a cigar, they should try to read more than the two-digit number at the bottom. Hopefully all those words above the score do an adequate job of helping readers relate to my thoughts on it.

For what it's worth, most of the Cohibas I've smoked (Sig IV, VI, CoRo) have been somewhat disappointing - mid 70s at best. I don't buy into the Cohiba marketing hype. I rated those particular cigars higher because the examples I had of those were that good. I'm certainly open to the idea that there are examples of RASS out there which would also be that good. This particular one wasn't.

Maybe I'll try to organise a trade with someone for a better (older?) RASS that I can review (and hopefully award the score you insist it deserves).

[ramon_cojones]

Again, I understand but that is not the convention so it becomes far removed from relative experiences others have. I'm not going to join a wine forum and insist they abide by own interpretation of a score should I choose to assign one.

Also it really matters not what you think I would rate your cigar as I do not smoke them without a minimum of 3 years and they are ok at best at that age. Your rating does not correlate to my opinion of them so you are free to rate them as you wish.

It's good you don't buy into the hype, especially the larger cohibas. I must say though the coro and sig iv have been some of the best cigars I've smoked but I've had terrible examples as well.

Enjoy smoking.

[mk05]

So he uses a different scale. I think what is interesting to note here, is that the summer '12 RASS are very approachable. That said, old RASS are divine.

[Guest rob]

New RASS are tasty too. A great bit of 'mongrel' and outspoken.

I think its best to approach a cigar for what it is... Not what it could be. You could miss out on some great experiences.