Gurkha Empire III

Posted By ironmeden on November 9, 2009

This weekend I was flipping through a local alternative paper called City Pages. The only reason I look through this rag is for the upcoming concerts. As I was going through the sections with the concerts I noticed a local bar named Biffs would be hosting the band Steelheart. Now this band had a few minor hits in the early 90′s at the height of the ‘hair band’ era. The band succumbed to rise of grunge and the unfortunate on stage accident that left lead singer Miljenko Matifevic injured for years after.

When I noticed they would be in town and only 5 minutes away from my home, I said I have to go. Then I noticed it was that night. Though I didn’t have plans for the evening I was apprehensive to spend the $15 for the show since my wife doesn’t start her new job until Wednesday and money has been a little tight. I did end up going since I forgot I had an extra $20 in my wallet from a poker game the other night.

Biffs is not the ideal place for a concert. During the show the audio was at times horrible. The band sounded like they were in a box. As for the concert, Miljenko can still belt out those tunes and hasn’t lost much strength in his voice. The only critique I had was the number of songs he played either from the new album or from their 3rd album that wasn’t officially released in the U.S. Playing those songs pretty much put a stop to the excitement of the show. I could see it in the crowd that they wanted to hear the songs they remembered. It was a great time when he played songs from the Rockstar soundtrack which he supplied the vocals for the fictional band Steel Dragon.

Gurkha Empire III

Gurkha Cigars continues their tour of screwing over the B&M with the release of their online cigar, the Empire Series. A buddy of mine won these cigars at our cigar club and gave me one to smoke. I didn’t know of the series until he gave it to me. So it was time to do some research.

I found the cigar at Cigar International where the Empire Series consists of 6 different blends all in the same size of 5.5 x 52. When I saw there were 6 different blends, it got me thinking of recently how cigar forums were mad at a certain cigar manufacturer starting to sell their cigars at CI at a discounted price and how that put the nail in the coffin for that company because they may be short on money. I don’t how this is not the same scenario. Gurkha is flooding the online market with many different blends at dirt cheap prices, whereas it leaves the local B&M’s with cigars that cost $12 to $40 per stick. I hate to say this but their marketing practices seem to be certainly anti B&M.

Rant over, onto the review. The cigar has a dark wrapper. Not sure what is in this blend since there was no info available. The wrapper seems to have more veins then I would expect from a Gurkha line. There are 2 bands, the main band has the Gurkha logo in black and white with a dark copper color tone. The 2nd band is at the foot of the cigar with the Empire III name which also as the dark copper color. Gurkha always seem to make a good looking band.

I punched the cigar and lit it with a wooden match. The first initial tasting notes are of a bitter taste. Usually when you smoke a Gurkha you usually get that standard taste, but it was void in this cigar. Right away the cigar began burning uneven.

At the 1/4 mark the Gurkha flavor tries to show up but its very faint. I’m getting a hay and barnyard flavors which is quite overpowering at this point. The cigar was still burning uneven and needed a touch up.

Halfway through the burn was beginning to correct itself. A coffee flavor note was coming through. The cigar really started to taste a lot better with a more robust body where it saw the bitter flavor fade.

At the 3/4 mark the cigar was burning hot. I took a closer look at the ash and the cigar seemed to be very tightly wrapped, though it didn’t affect the draw at all. The burn was evened out and the coffee flavor note overtook this cigar. I also had a fruit note of dark cherry.

At the finish line the Gurkha Empire III went through a few stages. The end of the cigar is certainly different then the beginning. Though the flavors improved I was not impressed with the cigar. I give this cigar a 2.5 out of 5. Rating: