Supremo, 6” x 50 ring gauge, $9.50
Ashton introduced the San Cristobal line in 2007. This full-bodied cigar was one of many brainchildren of master blender Don Pepin Garcia and was well received in the marketplace. These cigars are made from 100 percent Nicaraguan tobaccos and are available in 8 sizes, including the toro-sized Supremo I smoked for this review. I decided to review this stick after working on my archive page and discovering that while I rated the San Cristobal Seleccion del Sol late last year, i had never rated a “regular” blend. Perlman’s shows that this cigar’s blend was “tweaked” in 2009, but the management at Burns assured me that this cigar pre-dates that tweak.
The San Cristobal was very even in color and enticingly oily. There were a few medium-to-large veins but with Don Pepin Garcia’s construction quality, I was not overly concerned. The band on this stick is one of my favorites--colorful and classy, which is sometimes a difficult balance. The aroma from the wrapper had hay and barnyard; from the foot I got rich chocolate aromas. The triple cap was applied exceptionally well and there were no super-hard or extra-soft spots along the length. The prelight draw was excellent and there were flavors of chocolate up front, with a considerable spicy tingle on the lips, and bit of coffee underneath.
Initial puffs revealed a nice peppery, spicy start with some nice cocoa powder and black coffee notes. The spice was especially noticeable on the retrohale. The first third ended up being characterized mainly by the intense chili pepper spiciness. The seems to be fairly typical of many Garcia blends, but it was hard to get any other flavors through the spiciness here. There were hints of earth and cocoa powder but they were only hints and were fairly fleeting. The stick started of medium-to-full in body and construction was, so far, superb.
During the second third, the spice settled down quite a bit, allowing much more of the other flavors to come through. There was a nice earthy/leathery quality to it with more cocoa and coffee than previously. The draw was still great, but the burn line was less than stellar, needing to be touched up a couple times. Near the end of the second third a floral flavor crept in, too. This reminded me of what I had experienced in the Seleccion del Sol, but was not as pronounced as it was in that variety of San Cristobal.
The last third featured a continuation and strengthening of the floral component, although there was still plenty of spice as well and the occasional hints of cocoa and coffee. The San Cristobal ended up full-bodied, although not extremely so, and offered up a decent amount of nicotine strength. When i smoked the Seleccion del Sol I found it to be so different from the regular line that I did not think it should be given the same name, but with this stick I see the connection--both had a distinct floral component although there was much more to this stick that I actually like, whereas with the del Sol, I did not find much else to get excited about. I would be interested in trying a newer San Cristobal to see how they differ and see how the blending “tweak” changed it.
Body: 8/10
Strength: 7/10
Complexity: 7/10
AFP Scale
Prelight: 2/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: 1/1
Total: 8.5/10
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