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Monday, October 22, 2012

Montecristo No. 2 Review

Vitola: Torpedo (6.1" x 52RG)
Price: $12+ stick

Wrapper: Cuban, Habana
Binder: Cuban, Habana
Filler: Cuban, Habana

Aged in Humidor: One Month
(Smoked two. Gave one to a friend. The rest will age for an indefinite amount of time)





Appearance and Construction:

You look at this stick and there is nothing really fancy to it. The band is plain, no special coloring, just a dark red hinting on the brownish side with white trims, even the design is so simple. The band matches the wrapper so well, because the wrapper is in between a light and medium brown. It has a slightly oily wrapper. I squeeze the cigar and it is dense with almost perfection in moistness. The wrapper has a rustic and slightly uneven complexion but otherwise smooth with light veins.

Tasting Notes:

The initial scent of a cigar out of the box is of the factory it came from, it's of a deep stable aroma of a comparison to a strong tea leaf but it's of tobacco. The hint of that refined sweetness or amonia from fermentation is ever so light, a tiny, tad bit of it.

I'm going to be a slight hater on this cigar, because everywhere I go I read great reviews on it. I expected better. I start to light it in circular motion and I can see and smell the lightness of the fumes. The initial light gives forth a medium bodied draw of an earthy, toast-like, flavor. A little bit in, there's a light but dark hint of cocoa, spice and oak flavors, they mix well together. I liked the flavor and ease of the initial draw: it was not hard or too easy on the intake. It gave me high hopes from the first puffs.

I am on my first third. The initial flavors are still there, enjoying them. The cigar is burning steadily, unfortunately a little uneven. The filler is burning a little faster on one side, only a little bit, and burning without some of the wrapper. I have to touch it up. Other than that, the draw remained constantly well all the way through. The ash is now at it's one inch phase and drops, it doesn't hold for more than an inch. It's becoming stronger. I can start to taste the tobacco flavor more.

At mid-point I'm getting a strong leathery and smoked oak flavors along with the tobacco, those earlier flavors are less apparent. By the end, it still retained most of it's oak flavor mixing in with a deep earthy and sometimes a bit of a nice cocoa like flavor, all three phasing in and out. That's pretty much the cigar: smooth yet dark with a medium to strong body. I wish this cigar or at the very least the ones I smoked had more complex or rich flavors, instead it just turned out to be a mediocre stogie. Enjoyable but an average smoke, a bit overly praised.

My overall rating is a 88, for now

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Romney or Obama

Debate 2:

One of the things that Mitt Romney said I paid more focus on than anything else is that he said during his tax plan is anyone with an annual income of $200,000 or less would no longer have to pay taxes on bank dividends, capital gain or interest off investments. I made notice to this statement because I fall into that category. Hmm, the senator wants to help me save a few bucks, how thoughtful. Knowing politicians, I wondered what the catch was. So, I did a Google search on comments to that from brighter minds than my own and this is what I fount:


I get dividends or interest from investments. Not much but still enough to make me take notice. Without doing anything and as long as I keep my money in the investment, I get $500 to $1000 annually for example on one of my investments. At the end of the year it gets taxed, depending on your income bracket you can pay a fungible 15% or higher (if your income bracket is higher) on that bank dividend, capital gain or interest off an investment. Now say the IRS taxes 15% of my $500, that means at the end of the year, I owe them $75, if they tax my $1000, I owe them $150. That $75 or $150 is such a negligible amount on an annual basis or compared to people on the grander scale who make their living from interest or dividends off investments.

Let us take New York City's Major Michael Bloomberg for example, his salary for being major of New York City is just $1.00 (no that's not a typo or a misplaced decimal). The $1.00 salary trend falls under many wealthy individuals like with the late Steve Jobs and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, just to add a name or two. The reason they only take one dollar salaries is because the bulk of what they earn do not come from salary but dividends or interest earned off their investments or capital gain. Their payout is way more than my $500 to $1000, now you're talking in the hundred thousands or millions. Mitt Romney's net worth is $250 million dollars, he can easily make the one dollar salary apply to him, thus he falls under the $200,000 or less bracket. He will then no longer have to pay taxes on his $250 million or money made off it. At the very least that's what he's trying to do for him and those on top. But guess who still does still have to pay taxes to aid the national debt?

Monday, October 15, 2012

Newton's Law of Motion

Newton's Law of Motion - A body in rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless imposed on.

On the night of Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 I was feeling a little light headed and feeling off, but other than that, I was fine. I became hungry that night, so I grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich that was in the fridge for a few days, bad mistake. By Thursday morning, I woke up with a stomach ache, light headache, heavy lost of energy (unable to get out of bed) and nausea. I think I caught a stomach virus. I stayed in bed all day Thursday. The same on Friday until the evening when I started feeling slightly better, strong enough to go to work on Saturday but still weak. Then guess what? I caught a cold: the sniffles, runny nose, coughing, a sore throat, feeling weak and off focus. It's now Monday, October 15th, 2012 and I am back to normal.

I think about life and death sometimes, maybe because I've seen the latter in my life a little more than I care to. The two days I lay there in agony and weakness I thought of my mortality. I think the only reason we work is to pay the bills for the things we get by with like our shelter, food, cars, etc... If not for working to have to pay for those, we would have more time to enjoy what's already a short lifespan much more. That is my mind set right now, I am working hard but my focus is not on finances, money is important because it is necessary to live but I'm not trying to make a billion before I die, that was my mind set at a younger age. Money plays a role in enjoying life because the things we enjoy cost. So hard work go hand and hand with enjoying life. But love and leisure doesn't come from a billion dollars, it might help provide more of it, but enjoying life is what you make and interpret of what revolves around you.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Cohiba Red Dot Robusto Cigar Review

Vitola: Robusto (5" x 49RG)
Price: $10 +/- stick

Wrapper: Cameroon
Binder: Indonesian
Filler: Dominican grown Cubano Piloto

Aged in Humidor: One Month


Appearance and Construction:

The Cohiba Red Dot in a Robusto size seems tiny, but sometimes I don't like fat and long ones because I don't like going over an hour smoking, no matter how good. Pleasure only last so long before it becomes ordinary. The wrapper appears to be a nice dark shade of brown. The cap and body are clean and smooth looking. The end of the cigar where you light it does not have a perfect filled oval layer of filler, there are three tiny nooks. There is also a white string like stem from a tobacco leaf amongst all the brown layers but I have seen this in other cigar endings, no biggie this may be just the stick I am smoking. It has a slightly oily shine to it. To me, it looks like someone took a stick of wood emptied it out, sanded it out to a uniform cylinder, filled it with tobacco filler, put a dark polish on it and lightly lacquered it. The cigar is firm and bounces back ever so slightly on squeezing the body. This appears to be a well built stick. Even the band is designed smoothly and stays on there well, it moves only ever so slightly.


Tasting Notes:

On prelighting I get only a tad aroma of that sweet and earthy smell. I do this four times because I like the scent of a cigar as much as the smoking part. Each time I only get a light aroma, possibly because it has been sitting in my humidor only a month.

I light it up. In my opinion of the one I smoked, this is a mild to medium flavored cigar. The Cohiba Red Dot would be nice for an average day relaxing or lounging. The price range for these are for ten dollars, I think not worthy, maybe for a lower price. On initial light it starts off soft burning with light smoke. I easily detect tiny hints of spice and sweet earthy flavors. The mediocre tobacco flavor is there, sometimes just that, tobacco flavor, no sweet or complex flavors. It burns slowly with that light spice and sweet earthiness appearing and disappearing.

At the second of third stage is when it becomes slightly interesting and the flavor of sweet cinnamon on woodiness comes into play. This is when it becomes good. At this point I can see that this Cohiba Red Dot is nicely rolled because it is still burning at a very tranquil pace, the ash reaches the one inch phase and drops off, but it was like a white and grey tater tot with parts of it's shell lightly flaking off. It comes and goes, that hint of sweet cinnamon on wood flavor. I can also detect a nutty flavor, like hazelnut or almond. I would say this is the nicest part of the cigar and I float down stream with this aroma until the third stage where it's just mostly tobacco flavors and a hint of coffee. I smoke it all the way to the nub as I do often. The before and the aftermath smell of the cigar are good: a lightly sweetened earthy aroma.

I would rate this a 85 because I sure had worst and far better. This is a good kind of mild cigar. Maybe another in the future or a XV


 Photo of the Cohiba Red Dot Robusto against a background chilies in my yard

Comparison:

I can only slightly try and compare the original Cuban Cohiba to the Dominican Cubano Cohiba Red Dot. I tried to detect similar flavors that came from one to see if the same flavors were on the other but the similarities in flavor and construction were only so slightly present. Why? Because besides the name, I believe that's where it ends. They are two totally different brands, two totally different companies and totally different in growth and manufacturing. I have to say the Cohiba Esplendido cigars were of course much better than the Cohiba Red Dot cigars. I don't think the size had anything to do with it because the Esplendido is a Julieta No. 2 (Churchill) sized cigar and the Red Dot was a Robusto. Regardless of the size, say if the Red Dot had been a Churchill size, I think it would have been the same outcome. I think the darker wrapper of the Red Dot cigar versus the lighter tan of the Habanos S.A. cigar had a low significance on how the cigar smoked and how tasty it was or will be. If you look at the photos below, both have similar appearances.

The love affair of the Cuban Habanos S.A. brand comes from the flavor and a bit of how it smokes, in my opinion. Could it be due to the hype of an awesome object far away forbidden and harder to get because of the embargo, yes, that too. But then again other countries don't have this embargo with Cuba, it's just the U.S., so no, it's not hype. If you smoked one and then the other, you can then experience for yourself the complexity and how it smokes (draw, burn, ash, aroma...) differs quite a bit from one to the other.

You take the Cuban version, I assume like most people, all it's parts (filler, wrapper, binder, cap) are from Cuba and made (original seeding, harvesting, fermenting, blending and rolled) in Cuba by Cubans. Meaning usually but not always a product made by it's original people and crafted in the culture it originated from will have it's heritage and refinement through the years. Thus, even though cigar smokers want that product, the access to the product is not there due to the embargo or limitation. To meet that desire, they created Cohiba Red Dot, baring the same name and attempted to be crafted or marketed to be just like the Cuban version. Even with part of the filler with the Cubano seed, you're not getting the same thing. The parts come from the Dominican Republic, Africa, Indonesia... It's not the exact seeding, aging, blending or rolling. Due to legality of branding, it's just the same name, not the same product, no matter how much the attempt or marketing.