The Velvet Cigar

Posted By Elvis on May 19, 2008

OK, I know we here at the Velvet Cigar are way behind on the Nub bandwagon. I’ve seen reviews around the blogs for months, but it’s really not our fault! Up here in Minnesota, I think we are often last to get some of the newer cigars out there and in Oliva’s case, I don’t think we even have our own rep from talking to the shops. The guy operates out of Illinois and makes the rounds here every so often. We can always tell when Oliva does a tasting at all the shops in the same week.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with details and the long, but interesting story of how the Nub was created by a guy at Oliva I love the concept about the sweet spot of the tobacco leaf whether it’s true or not…it’s a great new take on the cigar and let’s be honest, it’s got to be hard to keep coming up with new blends, new wrappers, new sizes, new gimmicks. And that’s kind of the age we are in with cigars…one where smokers are always looking for the new, coolest thing to try. It would be have been boring to be a cigar smoker “back in the day” when everyone seemed to have their one Macanudo or Montecristo or something they loved and as long as those lines were consistent, there probably wasn’t the salivating for the newest thing like there is today.

So, on every level, I applaud the Nub for trying something new. The Connecticut wrapper showed up around here first and I tried that and didn’t think it really stood out from other solid CT wrappers. But last week Iron and I finally stumbled upon a few sizes of the Cameroon wrapper. The Habano still doesn’t exist in these parts.

Both Iron and I really liked the flavor of the Nub Cameroon…we tried both the box pressed torpedo and the regular rounder torpedo. I detected some real compact spice…not peppery, but just some heat up front that was more a concentration of all those hard packed tobaccos into such a small space. I think it hit the mark on what it intended…there’s not a lot of length for the tobacco flavors to be filtered down, so you kind of get that smack in your face right off the bat quickly before it dissipates. I would put the flavors in the woodsy category…some cedarly notes just kicked up a bit.

But here’s why I don’t see myself buying any of these for my own humidor. They are a pain in the ass. Cool idea…fun to try, but when the cigar is 4 inches or less, you don’t get much to smoke before it’s hard to hang onto especially with the slippery torpedo ends that I tried. So you end up throwing it out with at least an inch and half of good smoke wasted because you just can’t grasp it anymore. They should come with their own special roach clip, and then I could get into them. I did get 45 minutes to an hour out of each of them somehow, but overall I was just annoyed. I also had bad burn problems on both sizes..the box press was the worst of the two. So when you factor that in, you lose even more of the cigar as it canoes up one side.

I was happy that the burn didn’t get too hot when you are trying to get the last few puffs out at the 2-inch mark, so at least the giant ring gauge insulates your lips a little.

Overall, fun little smoke to try or to give someone who isn’t a big cigar smoker and wants something different. But I think the NUB will be confined to 2008 once people try it and get annoyed like I did if they are trying to make it one of their goto smokes.
I give this cigar a 2 out of 5 which ranks as your Granny’s plastic covered davenport on our couch comfort chart. But I will be trying the Habano wrapper once I find one to be sure.

Elvis

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