Holidays cigars

As I mentioned, I was recently on holiday and of course, thanks to my travel humidour, I couldn't miss the opportunity to sample some good cigars... I was in Italy and therefore had the occasional Toscano (more about these cigars will need to come in separate posts) and some of my favorites of all the times (for example, a Cohiba Siglo VI, a perfectly elegant cigar, with a hint of chocolate and vanilla and great burn throughout, really a must have).

However, one of the drawbacks of travelling is that you may not always have good locations for cigar smoking available at your fingertips. I therefore had to also sample some short smokes.

Amongst those I can mention a Pleiades Paris cigars which I picked up in France. 

As I understand, the Pleiades is made with a blend of Dominican and Nicaraguan long-leaf tobaccos. The one I smoked was a short piramide 1984-2004 with a light wrapper; the filler tobacco was certainly not abundant and the overall construction not perfect. It was an easy light smoke with an earthy, woody taste. An ok smoke, most importantly, for being a non-cuban, not acidic!

Another day I also sampled a  short Bolivar Petit Libertador, a 2008 French Limited Edition, shown in the picture below.

This was an excellent short smoke, immediately kicking in with a good flavour, mostly vanilla in my view but also very spicy throughout. The burnt was ok, although a bit uneven and I entertained myself with one of those long-ash-gallery-type pictures below... 

Finally, a little curiosity... I was in Verona as well during my holidays and after a good dinner with steak and Pergole Torte (great Italian Tuscan red, a must try!), I lighted up a Partagas D Especial, the recently released Limited Edition. What I didn't realise is that I kept on smoking it while also in the Arena di Verona, before watching the Aida... Luckily, I asked if it was possible to smoke inside before it was too late... while I had to interrupt my very good smoke - see my review at the bottom of this post here - I finished the D Especial after the Opera...