Alec Bradley Harvest Selection ‘97
Posted By ironmeden on July 23, 2008
Oh My God Its been 10 years! I would like to thank the little people and I don’t mean the little people I see on Discovery Health Channel every weekend.
Yes it’s been 10 years since 1998 and a lot of cigar companies are celebrating their 10 years in the industry. Most articles I’ve read about the ‘cigar boom’ in the 90′s seem to agree the decline started in 1998. Could this be due to the revalations of what President Bill Clinton did to Monica Lewinsky with his cigars? Did we every find out what cigars Bill Clinton smoked? Or could it be that tons of bad tobacco was being used to make so called ‘premium’ cigars?
As cigar companies were downsizing and consolidating, a few brave souls started their companies and are still kicking out their smokes to this day. Comacho, Rocky Patel, Indian Tabac are all celebrating their anniversaries with a 10 year Anniversry cigar this year. Not to be out done, Alec Bradley released their Harvest Selection 1997 ‘which I think’ is supposed to commerate the 10th Anniversary of the Alec Bradley lines.
Now I say ‘think’ because I know they started in 1997, but I find no where on their website promoting this stick as an ‘Anniversary’ cigar. In fact I don’t see any promotion of this cigar at their homepage. Which of course means its been shuffled off to online retailers to get rid of. Did they forget about the 10th Anniversay and hurried up this cigar to market just to get it out there? Lets find out.
I received this stick over the weekend from a couple guys in our cigar club who purchased a box through an email deal at the cigar site that gets all cigar smokers in trouble with their wives, need I say more. The size I have is a Toro which is 6 x 50
The band is very artistic and looks similar to their new Tempus cigar band. Just a side note, it seems like a lot of cigar manufacturers are coming out with bands very similar to this design.
The wrapper is a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper. Its a golden brown tint with a few veins that run up and down the stick. The filler is a combination of 3 tobaccos, including Dominican Piloto Cubano from 1997, Mexican ligero from 1997, and Nicaraguan Criollo from 1998.
I punch the head and lit it with a Xikar lighter. I got a little bitterness at the start, noticed right away it did have some flavor. I tasted toasted bread and a slight creaminess. The bitter taste went away after a few minutes and the cigar turned around into a complex flavors of caremel and leather. It was delicious. I was taken by surprise by these flavors, I was ready to give this cigar 5 out of 5.
But my mind was jumping way ahead. I reached the middle portion of this cigar and it just fell apart. No I don’t mean the cigar fell apart, but the flavors seem to disappear. Where did they go? Who stole my cigar flavors? I talked to the cigar like I would a plant, encouraging the flavors to reappear. I pleaded with it to bring back those nice flavors from the first half of the cigar. Even my cat went looking for flavor.
That glorious flavor never returned. I was disappointed by this smoking experience. I would have to give this cigar a 2 out of 5.
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[...] a little more peppery intensity with maybe a touch of leather thrown in for good measure. Ironmeden from the Velvet Cigar thought this cigar bottomed out half-way through, but I didn’t find that the flavor vanished [...]