6.75" x 52 ring gauge, $31.50The world simply does not have enough cigars that retail for over $30 a stick; for that reason, Litto Gomez released El Museo earlier this year. Okay, that's not the real reason, but it seems plausible after smoking it: he just needed something at the top of the line, no matter what was inside it. I did not pay full price for this stick; for purchasing it, I received two Jockos and one Grand Maduro, valued at about $15 total, so this stick actually cost me about $16. For that reason, and because this was the cigar destined to be smoked on my birthday, I didn't feel bad about possessing and smoking a $30+ stick. The real story behind this stick comes from Litto's desire to do something to benefit El Museo del Barrio, a Latin American museum in New York City. He enlisted the talents of Ruben Toledo to design the box and band for this cigar. El Museo is a Dominican puro with filler and binder that were grown on the La Flor de Palma farm. It comes in one size, a churchill measuring 6.75" by 52 ring gauge.
The appearance of this cigar is fantastic--very heavy with oily and just pungent right out of the cellophane. It is pretty veiny, but nothing huge that might cause a problem. The band is peculiar and bizarre, but a nice change of pace from what's regularly expected for a cigar band. The aroma from the body is barnyard and leather; from the foot there is more barnyard along with some cocoa and coffee notes. After surgically excising a portion of the cap with my scissors, the draw is just right. The first thing I noticed was a spicy tingle on the lips just from testing the draw. There were also flavors of black cherry and chocolate.
Soon after I finished work for the evening, a montser thunderstorm blew through, putting us on a rare autumn tornado watch. There may have even been a twister touch ground up near Sweetwater. I finally got outside to smoke about 8:00 and took some Four Roses Single Barrel bourbon with me to enjoy with my special cigar. The porch was half soaked, water was dripping from the trees and eaves and lightning flashed occasionally in the distance, with the thunder following just a faint rumble.
The first few puffs of El Museo were fairly light with an almost floral flavor. The smoke started off thick but very smooth. During the rest of the first third, the cigar continued to be a rather delicate and light cigar, at least for an LFD. It was almost a perfect medium in body and there were more of the floral notes, enhanced and complemented by the whiskey, along with some faint chocolate sweetness and a smoothness I cannot remember experiencing in a cigar by Litto Gomez. It made me think of the Factory Press I that I had about a year ago--while the FP1 was at one time strong and spicy, by the time I had one it was mellow and smooth. Not a bad stick by any means, just not what I had come to expect.
The second third featured some black coffee to go along with the floral flavor that still hung around. There were also occasional hints of black pepper. One of the remarkable things about El Museo is the fantastic construction; it required no touch ups to this point and had a consistently great draw. The ash easily held on for over an inch.
In the final segment, the floral flavor took over again and dominated to the end. This was a surprising cigar considering that most of Litto Gomez's cigars these days run the gamut of strong to overpowering and almost all are full to fuller bodied. This was a nuanced, refined, medium-bodied smoke that honestly just did not impress me all that much. Kudos to Litto for throwing something different at us, but I wish the execution had been better. If they ran this stogie as part of the regular line, I would be hard-pressed to pay more than $8 or 9 for it, making this stick highly overpriced even considering its charitable raison d'etre (and even considering that I only paid about half price for it).
Body: 4/10
Strength: 5/10
Complexity: 6/10
AFP Scale:
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 2/2
Flavor: 2/5
Value: 0/1
Total: 6/10
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