Por Laranaga Panetela Review OCT 06

[Miami101]

Good review: I like this cigar over all.

It is a nice change up::-)

1st time was last week got up at 7:00 and went fishing:

I got a hint of light honey/sweet notes from it myself...the sour I have to go back and try it again...I have a ways to go...

El Prez any other cigars that go this direction?

[greenpimp]

Nice review. Good call on the nougat flavor. I have some from 2003 I'll have to revisit. Nice litle smokes.

[12stones]

Thanks Rob. Just another thing I'm gonna have to give a try.

[ducksofdeath]

Excellent review of one of my favorite cheapie everyday smokes. I love the tobacco taste of them.

Also, I've only had a few with the "sour" taste and yes they have been from recently shipped boxes.

And yes, they do get hot at the very end, but so hard to let them go :-)

[El Presidente]

Por Laranaga Panetela Review OCT 06

This cigar is a dusky skinned tramp in the nicest way. Some days it will go close to rocking your world and others it can be a sour and uninviting. They are inexpensive machine bunched hand finished numbers where consistency is not always where it should be. I have never cared...I don't want a work of art at this level...just clean Cuban tobacco taste and a distinct personality.

This example was the last of a box of 25 (always a worry :-| ) but despite some rough edges it didn't look too bad.

I made reference to a potential sour flavour charachter to these. Having smoked through countless numbers since last February, the sourness appears to be very much alligned with moisture content. The PL Panetela and the PL Montecarlo are predominantly shipped wet and it takes them an age to reach a good smoking consistency in the humidor. Keep this in mind.

Clipped the end and the draw was fine. Taste of mulch on the lips.

I enjoy the PL Panetela as a morning cigar. Torched the foot and remembered the reasons why. Medium body...billowing amount of smoke, Black coffee, black cherry flavour. There was a hint of sourness...wet peat/mulch on the back palate which suggested I should have dry boxed this cigar for a few days....but overall an excellent start and what it starts with it carries through to the very end. In many inexpensive cigars of the genre....complexity is often absent. The PL Panetela when at its best continues to find the black coffee/dark cherry/line perfectly and carries it through to the end.

It is a chewy cigar...thicker on the palate than most...almost a nougat quality when on and a sour yoghurt when off. Fine line I know....but difficult to describe any other way.

It also has a tendency to get hot in the last 1/2 inch and this example certainly did so so I let it retire gracefully.

Still one of my cheapie favourites. 87/100