Toro 6" x 50 ring gauge / $7.99
I found this cigar a few weeks ago at my local shop so I decided to pick one up to try. The 187 by Esteban Carreras is a medium bodied smoke that is said to be part of their value line. The cigar is made up of Nicaraguan fillers and binders all wrapped in an Nicaraguan maduro wrapper. I wasn't able to find much more information that that online. This cigar isn't even listed on Esteban Carreras' website. The name of this cigar goes along with the 5150 as being a police code, with 187 being the code for a murder. I only smoked one of these previously.
In looking over the cigar I immediately noticed that the wrapper was a very dark brown. It was also rough looking with some prominent veins. The wrapper had some amount of tooth to it and was slightly rough to the touch. As I squeezed the cigar it had a small amount of give, with no soft spots. When I put my nose to the wrapper I was able to detect a slight amount of barnyard aroma. When I smelled the foot the aroma of barnyard was much more pronounced. After I clipped the cigar and took a cold draw on it I was able to detect some flavors of chocolate and leather. The draw was very free. One thing of note, I didn't have my normal glass of water when I smoked this cigar. It was fairly warm out and a cocktail sounded good. I made myself one from a recipe that I got from Joseph on Twitter (@mango2kw). It consisted of 1 part coconut water and 3 parts Rhum Barbancourt with a splash of lime juice all of the rocks. It was very refreshing.
As soon as I lit it up the taste of dark chocolate came through. There was some spice on the retrohale. Progressing through the first third the flavors of coffee, earth, leather and a herbal spice. The draw was perfect and produced a large volume of smoke. The burn was slightly wavy and needed to be corrected because one side was about .5" longer than the other. The ash was very white on the outside with the inside being white with some black spots. The ash was slightly flaky and needed to be tapped off at about .75".
On into the beginning of the second third the flavors didn't change. The spice did tone down a bit. So far this cigar was in the medium or maybe medium full bodied range. The burn didn't need any more correction and stayed pretty straight. Towards the end of the second third the flavors of cedar and sweet tobacco came through.
As I started the final third of the cigar the body ramped up a bit into the medium-full range. The flavors of this cigar didn't change much throughout. The chocolate, leather, coffee, and earth were all present as I finished up this cigar. The spice came back a bit on the retrohale and I did notice a slight tingle on my lips.
I can say that I enjoyed this cigar. It paired surprisingly well with my rhum cocktail. While it definitely wasn't a cigar that wowed me. I would most likely buy this cigar again, but I don't think I purchase a box.
Body: 7/10
Strength: 7/10
Complexity: 6/10
AFP Scale
Pre-light: 1.5/2
Construction: 1.5/2
Flavor: 4/5
Value: .5/1
Total: 7.5/10
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