Freestyle Review comp: La Colmena Black honey

[Islandboy]

This is a review of what I understand to be the second release (2017) of the La Colmena Black Honey. It’s also sort of the tale of 2 cigars - 2 out of 5.

I obtained a fiver of these several months ago, my first taste of this highly acclaimed cigar. As I understand, these 5 are part of the second, follow up release to the original several years back.

I broke every rule of acclimatization a few months back when I smoked the first one within weeks of receipt....and the results were as highly disappointing as it gets. It was an underfilled wind tunnel that burned and tasted so badly, I chucked it halfway through. I was extremely disillusioned at the time.

It’s now been roughly 3 months that the other 4 have been resting, so I figured a second attempt would be an appropriate subject for this Freestyle review competition. 

Right away, the unlit aroma of the stick was very pleasant, sweet barnyard. I immediately hoped this may be a different experience.

Upon lighting, the first third revealed a very pleasant sweetness...mostly of the honey variety, with some dark fruitiness of a raisin element...along with a white pepper zing on the retrohale that was surprisingly nice. There was an immediate balance of flavors. It only got better and more complex from there.

By the second third the pepper zing mellowed into a beautiful citrus element - resulting in a nice orange peel taste on top of a a building hay and honey base. A wonderful toasted white bread thing entered the picture, continuing to mellow and transform the profile.

The elegance of flavors just continued to build and refine as I entered the final third. And the burn and draw were absolute perfection. This stick went on for nearly 2 hours...of bliss. By the end, it was orange creamsicle goodness - and a truly WOW experience. The last time I experienced such a sublime building and refining of flavors was with the Cohiba Lancero of the Christmas sampler. I can honestly say this cigar blew me away - a complete 180 compared to my first highly disappointing experience. This may be the first NC I’ve had in years that not only held it’s own against the best CC’s I’ve had, it blew many of them away. Very elegant and refined. Very pleasant.

I’m left thinking that as much as the first stick was an anomaly to the series, a complete dud to be precise, this stick must be an anomaly in the opposite direction. If they were all like this one, I’d happily invest in several bundles - it was that good. Looking forward to trying the 3rd stick now, to show me the way.  

 

 

[joshhooper7]

Great review! I think I've got 1 of them left. I ordered 2 bundles when they came out, smoke one rott and it was good, not great, and then smoked 2-3 a little while later. With the hype and price, my expectations of it were much higher than the cigar landed on my scale. I decided to recoup my money and sold ~15 of them and after reading your review I'm regretting it!

 

I find that NC cigars typically out-perform Cubans from the same era since NC companies age their tobacco and HSA does not. However, once CC get through their rugged youth they're a strong competitor and typically beat out their NC competitors. The one thing that keeps me buying NC cigars is QA. Every box of cigars goes through a rigged QA process so you know you're getting good sticks every time. If HSA would just hire someone to do QA for them their cigars would turn out GLORIOUS!