I’m back in the garage continuing my work on this guitar neck made from the staves of a reclaimed whiskey barrel. Today I need to radius the fretboard to 9.5”, touch up the fret slot and string nut depths, and install the side dots. If I have time then, I need to do some sanding around the body sides before I roundover the edges. Won’t be long and both the neck and body will be ready for some finishing work! I grabbed a Plasencia Cigars Cosecha 149 to smoke while I work.
This cigar is significant in that the tobaccos used were the family’s 149th crop, harvested in 2014. Also notable is that this is Plasencia Cigars' first Honduran puro. The Plasencia family is a huge player in the premium cigar industry. According to their website, by the year 2000 they were producing cigars for 30 different brands. By 2015 they became the largest grower of tobacco in the world. In 2017 they launched their own cigar line. Though I have smoked plenty of Plasencia grown tobacco, this is only the second Plasencia branded cigar I have smoked.
Country of Origin: Honduras
Factory: Tabacos de Oriente
Wrapper: Honduras
Binder: Honduras
Filler: Honduras
Vitola: 4 ¾” x 60 Santa Fe (Gordito)
Price: $12.00 MSRP
Release Date: November 2021
Company Website: www.plasenciacigars.com
I love the choice of colors and designs for the three bands on this cigar. Three bands is a bit overkill, but they do make for a nice presentation. The wrapper is oily and dark brown with a reddish hue. This cigar has nearly a perfect square press and is very dense. The prelight smell is a lot of cedar, candied cherries, and some damp earth. The cold draw is distinctly like those chocolate covered Brandy cherries. This cigar kicks off with full bodied smoke and medium-full flavors of wood, light earthiness, some pepper spice that creeps into the back of the throat, and dark cocoa. The draw is very easy. The retrohale is an oily oak, black pepper, and dark, semi-sweet richness. Quickly there’s a mint that comes in. With the chocolate it becomes a mint chocolate chip flavor. Halfway into the first third the cigar is up to full flavor and even fuller body than the start. The mint is barely there on the front of the draw now. The chocolate faded into a more general sugar sweetness. There’s an oiliness to the profile and still some earth and wood. The burn started to canoe a bit. I did a quick touch up at the end of the first third. Into the second third there is still a bit of sweet mint, oily wood, earth, and some pepper spice. At halfway the cigar spontaneously went out on me. It relit fine and picked up mostly where it left off except the addition of a fruit punch-like finish on the retrohale. Nearing the final third the profile is staying quite consistent. The performance has been fine since the relight. Entering the final third the sweet mint is in and out, the oiliness is fading, and the earth is becoming deeper. These flavors maintain until near the end where it becomes more wood forward. Ending at 2 hours and 4 minutes, there's still a fleeting sweet mint in and out, with the primary notes being wood and earth. The cigar ended full in flavor and body with no detectable strength.
Overall Experience
Overall I found this cigar to be pretty good. It had some performance issues, but that happens, and I did not get any indication that it impacted the flavors. The flavor profile was pretty linear, with no major changes. I really enjoyed the mint chocolate chip note in the first third, and the sweet mint that carried through the cigar. The sweetness balanced the earth, wood, and pepper nicely. The only part of the profile that I was not a fan of was the oiliness. That is something that in certain circumstances I enjoy, and in others I do not prefer. It’s one of those things that I find there to be a time and place for and this moment wasn’t it. That being said, it was not off-putting by any means, and would not stop me from revisiting this cigar. Something worth noting is that I did not realize this was a Honduran puro until after I smoked it and took my notes. Once I found out that it was, it actually made me appreciate the cigar more because I would not have guessed it to be all Honduran. I am hit or miss on Honduran tobacco, and I found this cigar to be a unique flavor experience given the origin of the tobacco, at least for my palate.
Feel free to reach out to me with questions, concerns, criticisms, or just to talk at @guitarsandcigarsfarm on Instagram, or via email at trevor@whiskeyandwhitetails.com.