I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so mixed about a cigar.
On the one hand, the Gurkha G3 had a smooth, rich flavor much like a light maduro. I’m not sure it was actually a maduro wrapper (it wasn’t quite dark enough, and I’m not finding information online), but it was dark and silky and picked up a hint of the cedar tube wrapped around the front half of the smoke. It produced plenty of smoke, and left a lingering flavor I couldn’t quite put a name to. “Dusty” came to mind, but that was more texture than flavor.
On the other hand, it didn’t burn all that well, and I had to relight it twice. It burned to an edge, then kept burning leaving a shovel of wrapper unerside that cradled the ash and, with length, started to curl upward. I burned the excess off once, then snipped it off the second time, but the problem kept coming back. What’s more, if the tip got too hot (particularly during re-lighting), the smoke turned sulfuric. Nothing like a rotten-egg taste to just kill the smoking experience.
I’m going to guess the problems were a fluke, but I won’t be spending the money to find out. The cigar wasn’t cheap, and I only picked it up because I spotted it at Joe’s in Joliet shortly after reading about the Gurkha line while browsing a magazine at the bookstore. Next time I’ll just have to try harder to remember exactly which smoke they were talking about, not just the brand.
on Dec 10th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Ah, man, you must have gotten a bad one — I often do have burn problems and my G3 I just tried last night was one of the cleanest burns and easiest draws I’ve ever had. Try ‘em again, I’d say…