Headlines Cigars – A nice obscure smoke

Every once and a while I sort through my humidor.  I go looking for sticks that have been put away for later review.  In our review policy, we have a somewhat randomness to the order.  Unless we are given something by a forend that we judge to be too  good or bad, we generally don’t write immediately.  Rather, we let the cigars rest gently in our humidor.  From time to time we go through and pick out the next round of review sticks.  I just went through that process a few days ago and come out with some cigars that I don’t even remember.  Headlines was one of them.  And, it’s not surprising.  My first search for info told me that the brand was be redeveloped and rebranded.  Nevertheless, I’m going to write about my experience with this stick.  Perhaps at the upcoming IPCPR show I’l have the opportunity to visit with these folks and I’ll report back to you, dear reader, what they are up to now.

When I first took the cigar from the humidor it looked very rustic.  It was veiny and had a rough touch.  The color was dark, not quite maduro, perhaps Habano, I thought.  I later learned that it is from Habano seed grown in the Dominican.  Since it was a Torpedo shape i used a cutter to flat cut the cigar.  It lit without problem and produced a nice volume of smoke.

This cigar was well constructed.  I had to relight it shortly after it started, but after that it was fine.  It had an open draw and a nice long grey ash.  The cigar burned evenly and held a tight edge.

Flavors started out earthy.  I felt that this was consistent with its appearance. The cigar smoked cool with a nice clean taste.  Through the second third of the smoke the flavors were of cedar and leather with some spice.  As I came into the home stretch, the spice predominated a nice peppery flavor.  It was not overpowering but rather mellow or creamy.  Interesting indeed.

This cigar sells for around $8.  At that price I think I would expect more, so I give it a reasonable but not great 3.5 out of a possible 5 stars.