You hit the honey jackpot.....Question?

[El Presidente]

Let me define the "Honey Jackpot" That cigar that is so intensely sweet that it just blows your mind. No...I am not talking about flavoured cigars

I have had many over the years from Cohiba Robusto to Upmann 46 to Partagas 898 to Dieux (a regular experience on aged examples).

I can tell you I am taken aback when I hit a super sweet Partagas 898/Upmann 46. It is not the norm. it is a 1 in 100 experience if that.

Still on Chatbox I was speaking to Shlomo and he had a similar experience with a Bolivar Libertador.

It got me to thinking. Ageing is not a pre-requisite for a sweet tasting cigar. These honey stick rogues of the cigar world strike at any time, young and aged cigars alike. Mind you aged Des Dieux always strikes the cord with me on the vanilla/cream/honey stakes.

Yet right now I talking about young cigars (less than three years old).

I use the term "rogue" cigar in that I rarely can replicate a super sweet profile in the rest of the box. God knows I want to but while often the smoking experience of the remainder of the box is good to very good, I am left wanting for that "magic cigar/magic moment" I experienced only a few days or weeks prior.

Two questions.

1. When if ever have you hit that glorious honey, molasses, cream moment in a cigar that was so intense that you will remember it for a long tme to come? Cigar and rough year (or more detail if you have it).

2. Theory. How do these rogue cigars occur?. You have 40 rollers rolling the same cigar with the same tobacco. Blend is dictated (as best as it can be). Yet these rogue cigars appear from time to time like a beacon in the mist.

It can't be the wrapper surely as from the same box the wrappers are much the same. Blend obviously, you would think it is the seco....but in that case why is it that others from the same box or box code (at least a significant proportion) don't exhibit the same intensity?

Over to you

[Munts]

For me it has to be the 2009 Saint Luis Rey Pacificos.

Absolutely stunning in terms of sweetness and cream. Literally like smoking a bowl of peaches and cream!!

[mncz]

This conversation requires much requisite experience that I believe is beyond me. Though I've had a couple of "wow" moment sticks, I don't have a large bank of smoke memories by which to gauge (or even approach) a 1/100 ratio. Looking forward to knowing when it happens!

[MIKA27]

I once had approximately 3 years ago a Hoyo DC which blew me away with a very sweet profile unlike any other Hoyo DC's I've enjoyed before. Box code escapes me but I think it was from 2005.

Another instance was a San Cristobal La Punta, I purchased around 5 singles of these (Approximately 6 years ago) and 3 out of the five sticks were identical. I never had the chance to learn the box codes nor did I return to the store at the time to learn of it but it was that experience that had me hooked on the SC Line. Whilst I still love the La Punta, NOTHING has ever come close to those sticks!

I could also note Montecristo Series D LE2005 for sweetness but that wasn't sweet honey but sweet beautiful milk chocolate unlike anything I've ever enjoyed before.

[BonVivant]

MUR 13 La Gloria Cubana Medaille d'Or no.2

[Duxnutz]

Had a few Mag 46s from '05 that had the honey sweetness but alot of tasteless ones from that period too.

[StingMeadery]

ERDM Swiss regional release was a revelation in flavour.

I would propose a hypothesis of an unusually high brix level (sucrose content) in the sap of the tobacco plant used to compose an individual cigar.

It would be an interesting experiment to identify individual plants exhibiting abnormal brix levels in the field using a Refractometer and put them aside to follow them through to finished product and gauge the result.

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[Lant63]

MUR 13 La Gloria Cubana Medaille d'Or no.2

Same here!

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[Maplepie]

Still on Chatbox I was speaking to Shlomo and he had a similar experience with a Bolivar Libertador.

oh my god, i had the same Bolivar Libertador as him. He finished it 3 times shorter than mine when i put mine down. (my end product was say, 9 cm when he let his cigar go at 3cm)

Bloody hell was that dark wrappered git sweet... I couldn't deal with it because of the mild imcomplexities that came along with the smoke. It wasn't Bolivar and reminded me WAY too much of the RyJ Duke and RA Extras that tasted too much like mousse to be a 'good cigar'

Good experience, though... Also a very good 'first cigar of the day'

[Steens]

For me it has to be the 2009 Saint Luis Rey Pacificos.

Absolutely stunning in terms of sweetness and cream. Literally like smoking a bowl of peaches and cream!!

x2

[Zigatoh]

'09 Trini coloniales within about 6 months or so of box code, there were a few in that box but either they were the lucky ones or age made the sweetness dissapear... I've noticed in a a few different examples that the sweetness is often lost after a year or two

[kwsaw63]

I was gifted a PL Robusto AP RE2007 back in 2008 when they first came out. Sweetest tasting cigar I've ever smoked. Bought a box a year later and the sweetness had gone

[Ryan]

Some of the most consistently sweet cigars I've had are freshly rolled panetelas I buy when I'm in the hotel Habana Libre in Cuba. Those cigars don't even have seco in them, all volado. So sweetness can come from volado too. It's not just me, people I give them to comment on their sweetness too.

As for what makes 1 cigar from a box memorably sweet compared to the rest. There are a lot of variables. Not all tobacco will cure the same way in the barn. Tobacco in the piles may ferment in different ways, temperatures will be higher in the middle etc.

While rollers are given bundles of tobacco to roll according to the blend. It's very likely that examples of leaf within each leaf type in the bundle came from different farms with slightly different growing and curing.

Probably the variable that can make the greatest difference is the state of mind or state of tastbuds of the smoker.

As for the specifiv chemical/group of chemicals that produces a sweet/creamy flavour and effect, I don't know but there's probably more too it than simply more sugars in the tobacco, after all most of it is burnt before we taste it.

[shlomo]

I'm a firm believer that the wrapper accounts for a very large percentage of the flavour of a cigar since it is the only part that comes in contact with one's lips. Due to this, I would say that there is something with the wrapper that brings out the caramel that I tasted. It was not honey like aged plpc, not peanut butter like older punch, nor milk chocolate like petit edmundos. It was caramel, and incredible.

[Stogieninja]

This is what I think of when I think of my JL2's.

[Puros Y Vino]

I've had a few 2009 Siglo VI's that have that honey sweetness. I've also found that in various Trinidads, such as the Rob T, the Fundadores and the Reyes.

Theory? The sweetest cigars I've had tended to be lighter, claro wrappers. That's all that sticks out to me.

[bogglor]

Sweetest cigar I've had was the one I reviewed here , one of my La Escepcion Selectos Finos. I've got a couple more but I severely doubt they will approach the sweetness of that one stick. For a cigar that I've smoked a ton of, I would say maybe 1 out of every 30 Monte #2s exhibits an extraordinary sweet character that I find out of step with the overall blend. I have also had this experience with the odd Partagas D4 but it is much much less likely, somewhere on the order of 1 out of 50.

As to the theory, I think you are correct, Rob. It's purely the "luck of the roll" in many cases. Who knows if its owed to the ratio/combination of seco, volado or perhaps just THAT bundle of leaves and it's position in the sun, the soil -- whatever. It's part of what makes cigar smoking so enjoyable - you have certain expectations and sometimes they are blown right out of the water and leave an indelible memory.

[LeafLover]

The HDM line gives me the most creamy brown sugarsweetness of all the marcas. Most with honey (flatter, denser, less sugar sweetness) I would say come from my LGC cigars.

Whenever I come across them showing intensity in those flavors, that's when I think to myself, "this is why I smoke cigars."

[cigardoc]

I had a Monte 2 las year that was all chocolate; no other flavors, no evolution, just plain sweet chocolate all the way

[kuma]

Well here is my two cents worth. Grabed a Cohiba Robusto from one of my desk top humi.'s and went

to the back yard to sit a spell and light up. This cigar was from a vendor (not Rob) which I bought about 10

singles. Well to my amazment and also to my taste buds this smoke was pure heaven. Honey/smooth sweetness/

light on the throat, clean through the nose. The richness of the smoke stunned me. I did not want to

be the only one to experience this so I called my wife over for a puff. She will only smoke if it is mild

and flavorfull so of course puffed and agreed that this was one unique cigar. Anyway I attempted to

smoke the other nine Cohibas thinking that I would find "the god like particle" again but to no avail.

As of today I'm still searching and smoking like a gambler who hit the jack pot twenty years ago

waiting for that "god like particle" to strike again!

[earthson]

If they're fermenting the tobacco, couldn't we assume that a large portion of the brix in the leaf is turning to alcohol and evaporating? A sugary stick, then, could be a few leaves that didn't fully ferment.

I've experienced the "Honey Pot" in 2008 RASS/RASSC and a Cohiba Siglo 2

[MnMWC]

Mine was a sweet cream bomb... Cohiba 1966... Will never forget it. I remember the feeling when there was no cigar left to smoke... Just a little fingernail. Haven't had the exact experience since... I keep trying

[mk05]

...cigar that is so intensely sweet...

1. ...glorious honey, molasses, cream...Cigar and rough year...

2. Theory. How do these rogue cigars occur?

As some noted above, it isn't by coincidence if it is rolled true to blend to be just that. MUR 13 LGC #2. Of course there is expected variability in terms of intensity given roller flaws, but the core notes are obviously present, again, as prescribed by the blend.

However, when you have a box of cigars that is a hodgepodge of 5 different cigars, then sure, I guess you could have 5 cigars where one is sweeter than the other 4, that are not supposed to be sweet at all like the other 20? Not saying this is the case, but if people can't tell that a D4 is a D4, but definitely can tell that a Royal Corona is a Royal Corona, perhaps that speaks volumes.

[hoyopr]

06 Dip #3 probably in smoked in 2010, I had a number of boxes, but there was one cigar that was totally dessert.

And about 2 weeks ago opened a box of 2012 SLR Serie A's and the first one out started with pure honey.

[Lant63]

I have had this happen to cigars three times. That mdo 2, A 520 (the rest of the box was horrid), and a absolutely magical Conde 54. The 54 has set the bar unbelievably high for the single 109 that it is not fair.

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