Montecristo Dumas SOU ABR 20 (XNYRW2)

[saltbox]

Just over 8 months of rest, 1.5 years of box age. I've become a big fan of the Monte flavor profile so have been excited to try one of these. This particular one was underfilled, unfortunately, but I decided to try powering through and hoped for the best.

First third: opens with hay, leather, cream, cedar, and cocoa. Definitely on the airy side due to underfilling. That hay note really seems to come through in particular with underfilled cigars for me.

Middle third: a rich milk chocolate joins the profile, surprisingly rich given how underfilled this one is.

Last third: the chocolate fades and the profile becomes quite light and airy.

Overall: as expected, not amazing given the underfilling. The flavors were there but weaker than I hoped for. It did remind me of a thread I saw long ago here, and now I'm thinking about grabbing a vacuum sealer to help rescue some of these underfilled specimens. I'm a fan of MacGyver-ing solutions to improve bad smokes. 83/100

[Monterey]

FYI, I did the vacuum sealer thing and it was a total failure.  I vacuum seal every box I have (hundreds of boxes) and my fridge/freezer is full of stuff in vacuum sealed bags.  So I consider myself quite skilled at using the machine.   So I tried it on my loose cigar.  It did nothing.  It did crack the wrapper and make the situation worse however.  I actually have pics and did a review as it was a KSA cuban cigar.  I'll post on it eventually.   Perhaps it works on smaller cigars, but it did not work on my 50rg cigar.

I will say even with a crappy draw and a wrapper that I had to remove due the vacuum seal, the cigar was one of the best cigars I've had in 2021!

[saltbox]

Hmm that's unfortunate. What vacuum sealer do you have? I've seen a pretty big range of vacuum strength and I'm curious if yours might've been too powerful for individual cigars.

Given your feedback I won't seek out a vacuum sealer just for this use case, but maybe I'll set them aside and if I ever end up with one, will try it out anyways. As it stands now, underfilled cigars are just such an unfortunate waste of time.

[Fezztone]

According to the Cuban cigar weight guide the Dumas should weigh in at 11.58 Grams. Weigh a bunch to determine the possible underfilled cigars. that way you won't inadvertently vacuum seal the properly filled ones if that's the path you go down. 

 

[Monterey]

It was the standard one from Costco.  Foodsaver brand.  I would argue it wasn't powerful enough.  Hench all it did was tear up the wrapper.