Last year General Cigar kicked off the launch of the Macanudo 1968 in fairly unprecedented fashion--for a short time, you could get a 3 stick sampler for $10 online. Not to be outdone, Altadis decided to do something similar for the Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve line--they offered 4 cigars for $10. Unlike the Mac68, which came fairly quickly, the RyJ promotion took quite a while to show up. I ordered my sampler in October, as did a friend of mine. He got his about a month ago. I moved across the country in the meantime, so mine had to catch up to me (and I ended up having a postage due fee thanks to their cheap "Parcel Post" delivery method) and I got mine about a week ago. After spending a month or more in transit, I let my cigars rest for a week in my humi before lighting one up this afternoon.You know how when you cut a cigar you usually see almost a reverse image of what's at the other end--a bunch of rolled tobacco, in other words? This showed some somewhat sloppy folds of tobacco that looked like it would be in the way of a decent draw. It looked bad, but the pre-light draw was good--and fairly tasty, as a matter of fact!
The body of this smoke was medium to full, just as the Altadis website says it should be, and the flavor wasn't bad at all. It wasn't earth-shatteringly good, either, but I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it. There was a little earthiness and coffee in there, but nothing overwhelming. The smoke was thick and helped keep the gnats at bay while I sat on my front porch in a break from the rain.
It seems the big boys of the industry (General and Altadis) are trying to win back the regular smokers instead of just trying to rely on their popular name brands to sell to occasional smokers, and I appreciate that. I am not a big fan of the Mac68, but this one was one that I will enjoy getting to know a little better as I smoke my way through the rest of my sampler pack and I might just make it a regular part of my box contents as the online price is about $4 to $5 per stick in 5-packs.
Bottom line: pleasant surprise in a bargain-priced smoke. (I forgot to do a numerical rating for this one, so this summation is all I've got...)
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