5.75" x 60 ring gauge / $??? (it is called Not For Sale for a reason)
If you attend a Nestor Miranda Collection event...or even some non-Nestor-specific Miami Cigar and Company events...and buy a box or even just a four or five pack, you might run into this cigar: the Not For Sale from the Nestor Miranda Collection. I have seen it in at least two sizes and in both Rosado and Oscuro wrappers...like almost everything else with the name Nestor Miranda on it (the obvious exceptions being the Grand Reserve and the Art Deco...at this time). If this was just sitting on my tobacconist's shelf, I probably would not have chosen the 60 ring gauge vitola, but since I bought a box-worth of mixed cigars, I got a few of these thrown in. I decided to give it the "unescorted, short review" treatment.
Barry Stein of Miami Cigar tells me this is a Nicaraguan Puro, and to my eyes it looked quite a bit like the Special Selection. The wrapper was nicely oily and smooth with a pungent barnyard note; the foot had more of an earthy/chocolatey aroma. The prelight draw was sweet with a bit of cocoa and some coffee...nice, so far! After lighting I got a nice, rich natural tobacco flavor with notes of earth and coffee, just a little pepper spice on the nose. It did not take long, though, for the flavor to drift toward a "just tobacco" place, as so often happens with large ring gauge cigars. Not that it was bad...just a little one dimensional.
One side of the wrapper did not want to burn correctly and I had to keep correcting it, even as ash flaked off of it, and the draw was not great, which is a real surprise on a large ring gauge stick. As I got into the second third, the flavors really had not changed much...more natural tobacco along with a little sweetness. I wonder how much better this cigar would be in something with a reasonable ring gauge like a Robusto? I sipped some Barbancourt 8 year aged rum while I smoked and it was a nice, sweet counterpoint. Neither of these overpowered the other; both were a nice, if not spectacular, way to end the work week.
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