Ok, ok. So I’ve been enjoying more than I have been writing. Or at least trying to enjoy. I had three cigars this week that I wanted to review but kept forgetting to put up. One was “Meh”, one was “eh.. I’ll have it again” and the last was another “Meh”. I find it frustrating that when I find really good cigars (like the CAO LX2) to try other cigars afterwads. It tends to be a bit of a letdown. Then again, it could be just that they weren’t that great to begin with.

Mosaico Cameroon Perfecto #1 (medium): These were on sale at Famous and discontinued. I can see why. The mixture of the sweet Cameroon wrapper with the Honduran tobacco, in this particular blend, didn’t create a flavour I expected. It was sweet at times with a harsher flavour. Now, I’ll admit to preferring Dominican and Nicaraguan tobaccos but I thought I’d give this one a try. The construction wasn’t bad and it stayed fairly lit but the flavour left a little bit for my palate to desire. I still have 19 more of these so I’ll try again in a month or two after they’ve aged some and see if that helps (it has before for other cigars). Rating: 6/10

Barclay-Rex Capana D’Oro Vintage Robusto (mild-medium): I always like trying different cigars, particularly those that aren’t mainstream. When I was at Barclay-Rex last week, I noticed a cigar without a band. This is a special blend made for Barclay by Don Pepin. It’s a Nicaraguan blend with a Nicaraguan Rosado wrapper, one of my favourites. Although the construction wasn’t the best it was still an ok cigar. The flavour was very mild. I did put a note in with Don Pepin’s website to see if I could get more information on this average priced cigar ($7.50 at their Broad Street location) but haven’t heard back yet. It did tend to be a bit smokey at times but the ash was a solid consistency in it’s darker grey-black form. Rating: 7/10

Ashton VSG Enchantment Robusto (full): I love the Tres Mystique and thought I’d give the Enchantment a try. It was ok but not as flavourful for me as the Tres Mystique. Although well constructed and burned well, it didn’t “zing” me like the other. I’d probably still give it a try again if given the opportunity. There were some harsh tones in the Dominican tobacco and the Ligero tobacco didn’t come out in the fullness as I expected. Rating: 7/10

On a fun note, yesterday I got into a discussion with a BOTL about the term “close but no cigar”. The history of this term stems from when fairground games of chance gave away cigars as the prize (a hugely unlikely possibility today). If you won, you got the cigar. If you miss, well, it was “close but no cigar”.  You can read more about other cigar phrases, in different languages no less, here.