Punch Punch GUT JUL 16 (JMRW)

[Notsocleaver]

I've never followed Kicky Floppy ball and have never heard of José Mourinho. Wikipedia says he is a football manager with an 'emphasis on getting results over playing beautiful football' which I guess I can respect. Also, he used to be young but now he isn't, and bounced a lot of clubs with generally good results but also some bad blood. Closest fit I could think of was the Punch Punch. Age helps a lot, most people respects it even though few call it their favorite. Yet every now and then I smoke a punch and think it could be the greatest of all time. We'll see if it happens this time.

This Punch has a good darkish wrapper with some oil visible. draw is good with a hint of barnyard to it. All good signs. It opens with a note of cherry, which I get some times with Punch but not always. All sorts of spices are present, mostly clove and cinnamon. A faint cedar note is there in the background.

As the cigar progresses anise becomes more prominent. There is not much sweetness to this cigar, nor is it creamy. Just a vast and complex array of spices and some wood. Its like sampling a flight of cocktail bitters.

And just like sampling a flight of bitters, I'm left with some palette fatigue as we finish. The burn goes a little wonky but its nothing some quick lighter work won't fix.

As it concludes the wood seems to pick up. Or I'm just to the point where my mouth is numb to the spice. There is a lot going on, and 3.5 years hasn't been enough to tame it. I have a second box with this same code that will probably get stuck in the back of the humidor for a long nap. The first box I will keep on sampling, but I'm not sure these will hit their stride until year 5 at least. At best this cigar is a 86, but at the same time, there is something about Punch that always makes me suspect there is a 98 point cigar in this box somewhere...