Cigar Name: Taboo Limited Reserve Havana Torpedo (7 x 52)

Cigar Description: Nicaraguan  wrapper around Dominican filler

Cigar Strength: Full

Review of the Cigar itself: After schleping to the post office with some goodies for others, including the winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd place), I came home soaked from the heat and humidity. This past week had been a challenging one and definitely was in need of a break from work. After watching a bit of Archie with my girlfriend, I picked up some parcels. One included my new “Cigar of the Month” package from Cigars International. I had been getting regular shipments from Thompson’s but found that there wasn’t too much variety with it. So I figured I’d try CIs for a bit and see if they were better. So I put those aside for now into the humidor and picked out a cigar I had gotten earlier in the year but hadn’t had: my last Taboo.

While the construction isn’t as detailed oriented as other manufacturers it still was good. The wrapper was a deep, dark chocolate in colour and had minor veins in it. The cigar has been in the humidor since the beginning of the year. And it showed in the oils sparkling on the wrapper. The tobacco had a sweet mild cocoa/coffee scent to it. I clipped the pointed cap off the end and lit it very easily. A nice spicy scented white smoke wafted from the foot. The near solid white ash was fragile and somewhat gentle. I kept the cigar close to the ashtray to prevent any stray flakes from escaping.

Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn’t the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us. — Henry Miller, 1891-1980

As I smoked the cigar I puttered around my home office, updating my Blackberry, sorted through the Humidor and just general organizing. Amazing how when life gets busy this can become out of sorts. The only thing that isn’t are my cigars. I decided to read one of my favourite authors, Jeffery Deaver. I had gotten The Cold Moon recently from PaperbackSwap and my pile of books has been growing. As I started into the murder mystery, that would ultimately be solved by Lincoln Rhymes (I always picture Denzel Washington who played the character in the 1999 movie The Bone Collector) and his female love interest Amelia Sachs (played by Angelina Jolie), I quietly puffed through the first third of the cigar. The spiciness, hinted with toasted almond flavours, added a nuance and ambiance to the afternoon as I turned the pages.

I was into the middle third as I continued into the mind of the killer. Or rather, killers. One was complicated while the other simplistic. The cigar, however, was a nice mix of complexity and simplicity. The spiciness continued while the toasted almonds faded in favour of a more creamier leather taste. I got so much into the start of the book I didn’t see the lengthy ash forming at the end of the cigar. As I looked at it, I noticed the fine lines of different colours and wondered if one could tell the age of the cigar by the lines, much akin to those of a tree. (You can’t; the effect is more likely from taking a draw and cooling the ash down).

As I got to the second crime scene in the book, I looked at the cigar. As it neared the top of the last third, it had begun to tugboat a bit. Sigh. This always annoys me when this happens. I put the book down and gently burned the unburned side to adjust the cigar a bit. Hopefully it was enough to keep the piquant stogie on the straight and narrow for the rest of the investigation. The sharp pepper continued to gain momentum, almost as if to race me to the nub of the cigar. Unfortunately, the cigar still insisted on it’s lopsided dance with it’s own wrapper. The ash had become more uniformed and lost it “rings” as I continued to smoke it and the killer continued to develop.

By the time I had gotten almost a hundred pages into the book, the cigar was down to a milder spicy tasting nub. The ashtray was a flecked sea of greys and whites. A good cigar with a oomph of flavour in the middle, to say the least. The book would need a few more to get through it all. If I only had a few more Taboos..

Enjoyed with: water

Smoke time: approximately 80 minutes

Final Review Rating: 8.2/10

Tidbit: Jeffery Deaver has 26 books to his name. 8 of them are specifically Lincoln Rhyme novels.