Hoyo de Monterrey le Hoyo de Rio Seco LTO ENE 20 (49NRW)

[Bijan]

This is the biggest ring gauge cigar I have (56 RG), and seems particularly suitable for this review.

Opened the box and saw one cigar that a was little fatter than the rest and one that was much skinnier than the rest.

The fatter one was a little light, and the skinnier one was a little heavy. Decided to go with the fat one for the review.

Prelight draw of wood and mossy flavour.

First third: Lights up and very soon is a strong ginger, not very sweet, kind of pungent especially on retrohale. Halfway through this third I get a lot more wood and cedar.

Second third: Towards the end of the first third and into the second, I get a lot of fragrant spices, such as cloves. Ginger flavour recedes to the background.

Final third: More ginger, but less pungent that the first third.

[StogieSteve23]

Nice review, great smokes.   I wonder if they messed up and put a San Juan in the box by mistake?  

[Bijan]

57 minutes ago, StogieSteve23 said:

Nice review, great smokes.   I wonder if they messed up and put a San Juan in the box by mistake?  

That's exactly what I thought at first but the San Juan should be almost half an inch longer and these were about 1 or 2mm apart in terms of length. Could be an epicure especial with the wrong band.

[GVan]

Nah - just Cuba being Cuba !  I believe you made the right choice smoking the light one as a young cigar.  Let the heavy age and in a few years as it mellows and loosens-up you'll be treated to a special cigar.  I've seen this size and weight difference a lot lately in my SCdlH Principe's and also my JL1's.  I try and smoke the lighter (by weight) one's first and let the heavier rolls age a while.  I consistently find the lightweights less flavorful.

I decide to let my Boli PC's sit for about 9 months before I do the taste-test again between the lightweights, goldilocks box and the heavyweights.  I pushed it back from 3 months for 2 reasons - (1) because I wanted to give the heavyweights more resting time as I've found the last third still too moist and (2) I wanted to get past the humidity of summer in Florida and wait for "the season" when it's much better smoking conditions down here.

[BeerPimp]

I will go with Cuba being Cuba.   I had a PSD4 that was 3 or 4 RG too small.

[Bijan]

5 minutes ago, GVan said:

I try and smoke the lighter (by weight) one's first and let the heavier rolls age a while.  I consistently find the lightweights less flavorful.

I do the same generally. Hoping for the same result on the heavier cigars. I didn't have enough experience with aging/resting to know if the heavy ones would loosen up. Good to know that my logic was on the right track and that it should work.

[GVan]

I'm not sure that I've proved my theory yet even to me .....

But, I'm sticking to my hypothesis for the next few years and smoking the lighter ones first.  Like all good lessons in life -- it may take years to see if I'm right or just foolish!  I have this sneaky feeling that trying to apply scientific thought and practices to anything from Cuba is a "fools pursuit".  But, I'm having fun and enjoying my lightweight Cubans anyway.