A couple of weeks ago I was in France and I managed to pick up a 2009 (French) regional edition Punch Short Club. It's a short robusto, 4 x 50. Last Tuesday, I had some time to kill, so I sat down at the King's College pub in Aachen, ordered a Hefe Weizenbier and lit one up.
The construction of the cigar was impeccable, the cigar was well-packed and quite straight in appearance, had a nice light brown colored wrapper. The wrapped spotted a vein running along the length of the cigar, but it didn't affect the smoking. The pre-light aroma was that of sweet tobacco just turning into that floral scent of a well-aged cigar. The draw was very comfortable and the pre-light flavor featured notes of grass and cedar.
It was a rather windy day, so it took me a lot of effort to light it up, and even then it took some time before the cigar was burning properly. Until then, all I could detect was the flavor of burnt tobacco. However, once the burnline spread throught the whole circumference of the cigar, it developed a very rich and pleasant, if a little faint, floral and herbal flavor, which was further complemented on the retrohale. Almost like a floral perfume. At that time, the strength of the cigar was in the light side of the spectrum and it was generating decent ammounts of smoke.
The ash, streaked with dark grey stripes, held on for well over an inch, at which point I tapped it off, not wanting to risk it falling over my pants. The burn was not so great. I frequently had to touch it up, but I'm putting this down due to the wind. The wind made the touching up quite difficult, too. At some point my lighter got so hot I couldn't hold it anymore.
(see how the vein leaves a blackish streak in the ash)
In the second third, the power ramped up quite a bit. There was that peppery feel that bit the tongue and it was definitely too peppery for retrohaling. Unfortunately, the increase in power didn't bring much to the table in terms of flavor. The pepper replaced the floral notes from the beginning and the cigar was more prone to overheating and tainting the palate with bitterness. Reaching the final third, though, the smoking became surprisingly smooth, allowing me to take much more frequent puffs than the perscribed one-per-minute, until the cigar got too hot to hold or smoke comfortably - accompanied with further increase of strength and bitterness - and I decided it was time to put it down. The burn time was about 45 minutes.
Bottom line, it was a pleasant cigar but nothing spectacular. It started out very pleasantly but the increase of power in the second third didn't do anything to help the flavor. That said, I can't deny having enjoyed it.
Last edited:
