Fight Club Round Three: Three for Three, Punch v Punch v Punch

[PapaDisco]

Saigon

March 12, 2014

Tasting Notes: Punch Punch, corona gorda

Box Code: LAG SEP ‘10

Dress Box of 25, stored at 65%rH and ziplocked. No additional home freezing.

Location: Evening, rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel in Saigon. Light breeze (7mph) 79F 90% humidity. Clear. Time from light to finish: 1h 30min, leaving the last quarter.

Colorado wrapper; smooth, very light veinings; very detailed, expertly applied triple cap. Light sheen to the wrapper. Definite box press. Guillotine cut the cap.

Cold aromas: old, very dry hay from the wrapper, faint barnyard from the foot. Just a hint of the Punch honey/molasses. Much weaker aromas at cold than any other Punch Punch I’ve had; bodes ill for this smoke but I press on. Draw is slightly loose of medium, nearly perfect for me. The cold draw clearly expresses the dark clover honey flavor that first drew me to Punch; fingers crossed that fire breaths life into this one.

First Third: Oh glory of glories, the first puff is all toast and honey, a very slight bite on the first draw slaps me for overheating the foot with the torch, I pause and by the next, gentle puff the bite is gone. Even a tiny half-draw brings out billowy clouds of smooth, seemingly incompressible smoke. I hope the downwind table enjoys cigar smoke, this has the scent of a very dry, aromatic softwood and an unidentifiable incense (patchouli maybe?). With each draw you feel the consistency of honey as much as you taste it in the smoke. Sadly the honey fades quickly in this third to be replaced with a gently balanced flavor of bread, butter, walnuts and very finely ground pepper. The subtle balance is fantastic, but considerably softer in its intensity compared to the ROL ’09 Punch Punch. The burn is as neat and even as anything I’ve seen. Dark grey ash holds on well past 1 ½”.

Sidenote: the Aussies are taking the party to the next level here; invading the stage to dance to “YMCA” and “Land Down Under.” Looks like a fun bunch!

Second Third: The cigar stumbles in the second third, requiring two relights and a fading of enjoyable flavors in favor of first a dominant spiciness like bitter, red pepper and a harshness felt all the way to the back of the throat. It doesn’t burn as bad as Thai street food (which at least is flavorful), but it’s a tough one. I suspect the local humidity has gotten to it.

Final Third: Over the harshness hump and the stick has slowly eased back into some typical cigar notes: toast, bread dough and a hint of dark chocolate at the back. Nice, but nothing to really identify this as a Punch Punch. The smoke aromas have recovered to a dry wood and tobacco, but if I wasn’t reviewing this I would have let it go out by this point. Still an effort to keep it lit in the humidity. Slowly the mellow comes back, but not many flavors. A note of walnuts recovers, a hint of sandalwood in the smoke, and the last bit of harshness leaves. The stick at least continues to smoke cool.

All in all, this one is an improvement in the strength and complexity of flavors than one from the same box that I smoked last month, so I’d guess it’s either just variation from stick to stick, or perhaps these 4 year old cigars starting to come off some sort of dumb period. Nice balance in the beginning, but not able to carry it through to the end. Definitely Punch Punch at the start but not the finish.

Saigon

March 12, 2014

Tasting Notes: Punch Punch, corona gorda

Box Code: MOS FEB '10

Dress Box of 10 Tubos, stored at 65%rH and ziplocked. No additional home freezing.

Location: Late evening, rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel in Saigon. Light breeze (7mph) 79F 83% humidity. Clear. Time from light to finish: (1hr 30min).

Colorado maduro wrapper; smooth, but defined veining; slightly misshapened cap but cuts well. Moderate, oily sheen to the wrapper. Guillotine cut the cap.

Cold scents of dark, bitter chocolate from all over this stick: foot, wrapper and cold draw (which is slightly tight), the lightest of barnyard scents from the foot. No honey.

First Third: Initial light looks like the humidity has hit this one, but the first draw is an easy cloud of cool smoke laced with honey and dark, sweet chocolate, brazil nuts and green hay. Scent of the smoke is cinnamon and dry ipe wood dust. The chocolate flavor tone shifts to Nutella, and the burn is nice and even although the wrapper has that tiny bulge at the mascara line that I assume is from the humidity. A blacker ash than the previous Punch Punch. Never a harsh note, but requires one relight.

Second Third: The cigar smoked smoothly through the first and second third, requiring a touch of the torch from time to time, but consistently cool and not harsh. Draw eased just a touch but still slightly tight. Flavors in the second third eased away from the chocolate but retained some of the honey and grew into peanuts, walnuts and green hay. The ash continued to hold well and remained a tone darker in grey. Perfect wrapper performance, unlike the slight splitting and flaking I experience on the 2009 tubo from Duty Free I smoked last night.

Final Third: Still smooth and pleasant, cool smoke and cool to the touch. Requires a bit more puffing to keep lit in the humidity, but burns nice and even and the ash doesn’t want to fall. The flavors don’t evolve much, but neither do they fade. The sweet, dark chocolate does return, but the only novel addition at this point is a note of washed, raw potatoes, and the smoke moves to dry douglas fir and damp cedar.

All in all, a very pleasant smoke that would be improved in dryer conditions and with another two or three years on the cigar I expect. I wonder if this box has a dumb phase ahead of it? It’s not the best Punch Punch I’ve ever had, but it was a solid, enjoyable performance.

Saigon

March 13, 2014

Tasting Notes: Punch Punch, corona gorda

Box Code: ERO, JUL ‘09

Dress Box of 10 AT’s ROTT from Duty Free HKG. Warehouse storage there is questionable (told it was unconditioned), but the walk-in humi if fine.

Location: early afternoon, rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel in Saigon. Light breeze (7mph) 93F 44% humidity. Clear. Time from light to finish: 1h 20min,

Colorado wrapper on the lighter side than the pic shows; smooth, very light veining; very detailed, expertly applied triple cap. light sheen to the wrapper. No signs of dryness or wrapper cracking like the previous smoke from this box. Guillotine cut the cap. Some water spots on the back. Pretty tight draw.

Aroma cold is lots of dark bitter chocolate interspersed with honey scents. Cold draw is bitter chocolate with grated carrot aftertaste. Interesting.

First Third: Cigar lights easily (shoot at these temps it should self combust!) without any sharpness and instantly puffs up a column of liquid, cool smoke. The stiff draw contributes to this one smoking particularly cool, and it is welcome on this deck where temp and humidity combine to feel like 100F. First flavors express light chocolate, honey, capuchino, and faint caramel at the end. Cool velvety smoke is big with scents of dry sawdust and hay. Burn is perfectly square and it holds onto its fire despite the tight draw; no relights or touch ups.

Second Third: Hmm, this stick is going all dark and swarthy on me. No chocolate now, but some heavy dark coffee, no honey, but hints of dark molasses, after taste of damp leather (thankfully faint), the caramel still persists hidden in the tobacco flavors. There’s an intense, creamy feeling on the tongue with each draw, and a buttered toast flavor that goes with it. Still cool and creamy volumes of sawdust scented smoke with a little fried sage thrown in. Ash has been falling on its own every inch. Draw is still tight until the end of this third and then miraculously eases up to a perfect medium. I had thought I was going to fight the draw all the way to the end, since the head looked super tight after cutting, but apparently the compactness was elsewhere.

Third Third: Ash is hanging on longer now. Most of the sweet flavors have faded, they’re still there, but now bread, dough and butter predominate, with sage and a dry woody aftertaste. There’s the tiniest bite of burnt rubber that comes and goes, but it’s almost non-existent. There is now, a flavorful spiciness like Chimayo pepper; it’s not harsh unless you really triple puff the sucker. Later in the third an interesting overtone of water chestnuts pokes up, but mostly the end of this cigar is bread flavors and a sprinkle of pepper. None of the Punch thick sweetness remains, but a lovely cigar nonetheless. Nice, sharp burn that only got wiggly once. Still cool smoke, and the stick just refuses to heat up no matter how hard I puff it. All of the Punch Punch have been good this way in my experience.

Fortunately this cigar showed no signs of de-humidified abuse like the prior one from this box. The wrapper performed flawlessly from start to finish and to look at it, the construction was excellent. Only the tight draw in the first half marred the performance.

For me, I like the way the boxed ’10 Punch Punch are developing more than these darker tubos. When I first tried one from that box ROTT it tasted dumb as a post, so it’s gratifying to see the flavors opening back up. The intensity of the tubos makes me wonder if they've got a dumb period ahead of them.

Here's the last smoke:

Here's the party animals:

[cigarconnectionvn]

Great review! Are you live at SaiGon ?

[mk05]

Fantastic. Those '10 Punch Punch are really excellent examples of the new blend.

[PapaDisco]

Just lit up a 2013 BAM Punch Punch tubo last night, and it's true what Rob has been saying about the improved construction consistency. This box of 10 tubos was very nicely put together and the first two smoked as easily and perfectly as the ROL '09's. A lighter, dryer taste profile though, very lacking in the expected Punch Punch honey/molasses flavors (although they were there, lightly, at cold scent).